Training Log 14th-20th November 2022

A dog runing through autumn leaves whilst carrying large leaves in its mouth.

When planning my running schedule for this week (14th-20th November), I had hoped to take part in a CC6 (local cross-country race) at Itchen Valley Country Park. However, it was also Remembrance Day and M was asked to take part in a parade with her Beavers colony. I figured that I should be able to fit in more runs during the week, so I spent the morning with M. Then I did huge amounts of leaf raking in the afternoon.

Dry yellow maple leaves.
Photo by Kadri Võsumäe on Pexels.com

Lordshill Road Runners Monday night session

On Monday, I joined Lordshill Road Runners group C for an interval session. It was the largest group that I’ve run with in C, which was fun. I struggled to keep up with the group going up Carriage Drive South but didn’t have to worry about my pace as much when we got to the crossroads.

I did a few hundred extra metres to round up my run to 6km.

At the moment, I think that the weather gods don’t want me to do well in London. We have had horrendously heavy rain, M has been unwell and I’ve also been busy at work, so it’s been hard to fit in as many runs as I’d have liked to.

Southampton parkrun with M

This week it was my turn to parkrun with M. She was unwell on Sunday and ended up having Wednesday off school, so I was unsure whether she would be willing to run at parkrun. On Friday night she chose her running outfit with me. She is aiming to complete her 25th parkrun on Christmas Eve, which is when Stu will run his 350th parkrun and I’ll run my 400th (unless something goes wrong).

I wanted to do a long run of 11.5km this week. I thought that if I ran before parkrun, I might manage to complete that. However, I ended up leaving home later than I’d wanted to. I completed a 4.2km jog before Southampton parkrun.

Ten minutes before parkrun started, I met up with Stu and M. I rearranged my kit, and put on Stu’s mini running rucksack with M’s inhaler and some water in it. Within the first 200 metres, I knew it would not be a fast run as M started asking for some water. We ended up stopping every 500m for either water or a tissue as M was very snotty. However, she was also in good spirits. She spent her run watching for dogs (we saw 16) and Christmas running leggings (2).

Southampton parkrun results email for event #467 - my time was 44:39.

Sunday long run

As I didn’t manage to run as far as I wanted to yesterday, I laced up my shoes for a long run today. I considered looking at 11.5km routes that I’ve done previously. In the end, I decided to head out towards the Common, run around there for a bit and then run home. I had charged up my Aftershokz and had a couple of episodes of parkrun Adventurers to listen to.

It was just after 9am when I left home. I ran past the golf course into the sports centre. For many years, a pair of houses on the edge of the golf course have been boarded up. It’s lovely to see that they’ve been renovated. It looks like the work is almost completed, so hopefully, a couple of families will have new homes soon.

The sports centre was colder than I expected and also very busy. There were football matches and hockey games being played, but I didn’t notice any netball. It looked like a large running group was meeting in the car park, but perhaps it was netball players.

MoRun on the Common

I then ran down to the Common. Surprisingly, I saw a ‘CAUTION RUNNERS’ sign and momentarily wondered whether it had been forgotten after parkrun. I then realised that there were a lot around, so I guessed there was a race on. By the time I got to the Flats, I could see that it was MoRun day. I did a MoRun a few years back and quite enjoyed it, but the route wasn’t the most exciting. It was nice to see Jonathan taking part. Near the start was a group of women with their race bibs on. They were all smoking, which surprised me. Perhaps they were coached by ‘Uncle Chen‘, who can run a sub 3:30 marathon whilst smoking!

I ran around a bit on the Common before heading back towards the University campus. I ran through the campus and onto Burgess Road where I somehow ran through a very cold puddle that I hadn’t noticed. Several hours later my feet still haven’t warmed up.

I took a couple of small diversions around residential streets on my way back home and was pleased that I only had to run ~50 metres up and down the street in front of my house.

Overall, my long run was very slow, but I made it.

Future plans

Next week, we’re going to go to Ganger Farm parkrun (the replacement for Mountbatten School parkrun). Then Stu and I will be Run Directing at Southampton for the next couple of parkruns. I’m hoping that during that time our parkrun Adventurers ugly Christmas singlets will arrive. What are you looking forward to?

I'd love to hear your thoughts...

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