Week 7

The first run of Week 7 was as follows:
Run 9 walk 3  x 3

This wasn't a big leap from Week 6 but it was the first time I went running in the dark. The route I ran had no street lighting, it was a road alongside the river, one I've run several times before. The photo on the left was taken in the village where I finished the run.

Running at night was quite nice. Because the river has no lighting there was absolutely nothing to look at but the bit of road lit up by my head torch. There were no distractions. No cars. No dog walkers. No scenery. Just the sound of my own breathing and my feet on the road. I say it was nice. This was partly because it was one of the mildest nights we'd had in a long time. If I hadn't needed to wear something reflective, I wouldn't have bothered with the jacket it was that warm, which is saying something in Scotland in early November. Had the weather being a little more typical the run may not have been so fun.

This shows the view of the river just as I was leaving the village. Incidentally, it may look like midnight but I took that photo just after 5.30pm. This is another reason why I decided to go for a night (or rather early evening) run. The closer we get to Winter the less daylight there is up here, so the options to run in daylight become fewer. So I may as well get used to the idea that I need to train in the pitch black.

The run itself was fine. This week builds up to three intervals of 10 minutes on the long run, so another landmark lies ahead. It still seems pretty crazy to think that it takes 7 weeks to build up to 10 minutes of uninterrupted running, and then 5 weeks later ramps the distance up to 10k. If I manage it I'll be over the moon.