Just a brief update on progress towards running the Wealdway at the end of March.
After a pretty depressed start to the year, a month ago I had almost given up on the Wealdway plan, and with the first flicker of interest only coming back to me on the last day of January, the pressure has been on to get things back on track over the past three weeks. Realistically, I think there were only two things I could do to get myself even slightly prepared for the challenge at the end of March;
- Gradually build each Sunday run to get up to something at least approaching 20 miles. From a very low starting point, that’s easier said than done.
- Once a week, make a point of running several miles in the evening and then getting up and repeating the run early the next morning. To get the body used to running again after relatively little rest period.
To that end, my Sunday runs since 31st January have been 9 miles, 12 miles, 14 miles and 16 miles respectively, so the trend is moving in the right direction. The pace of these runs has been very slow indeed, but I’m well aware that for the Wealdway run, speed is of no real importance. The single most encouraging feature of these Sunday runs has been my recovery from them. As the distance has grown, I’ve found they aren’t taking any more out of me and I feel OK pretty quickly. No doubt that the slow pace is a key factor in that.
I’ve also started the other trick of evening/morning back-to-back runs, but so far they’ve been short – 5 milers. The plan is to build them to sixes, sevens then eights over the next four weeks. The welcome increase in daylight before and after work is helping, as are the improving temperatures of the past week. This morning’s 16 miles was run along a section of the Wealdway route, to re-aquaint myself with it, and was in a mild 13 degrees and a bit of sunshine. Spring is on it’s way.
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