Coming into the month I felt my leg was better following injury but not best. I’d notched up 94km of running in April, to take my annual total to 500km. Most of that running came in the last three weeks of the month. My leg felt solid enough to keep going out and keep pushing on through May. So I did. My plan for May didn’t have a distance target in mind, more try to average 6km a day. See how May goes, pick up from there.
Day after day I went out. 31 days in May, 28 days I ran, just 3 days off. Get out, get on. Most days I aimed for between 6 and 7km. It was going OK. Some days were slower than others, some days because my legs felt a little tighter than before, others because I was trying to make sure I kept it steady overall. But there were days where I was just moving along, like a needle in the groove of a record, just steadily moving forward.
In April I found the fields at the local school had a number of pitches in them, handy to do circuits round. And that’s pretty much what I did all of May, lap after lap after lap of a pitch. (Or sometimes two pitches, to spice things up, y’know.)
Halfway through the month the legs felt alright. No tweaks, no twinges. I was making solid progress, at about 120km by the halfway point of the month. I was mixing up my running shoes too. Just keep going like this is all I needed.
I then read about the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee… Run 1000km over May, June, July and August. 250km a month. Interesting. But if I start now I’d be two weeks down, I’d have to spread 125km over the remaining three-and-a-half months. I’d need to run about 9.5km a day, and for three months hit something like 300km of running in each of them. Hmmmm… Sure, why not. Let’s give it a go.
I tried to ease myself in, try 9 to 10km days, have the lighter days and the odd rest days. Build up steadily. I got in about 110km in those 17 days, but a few longer runs. It left me a little behind on the road to the 1000km challenge, but ahead on doing 200km this year. I feel I can notch up those “lost” kilometres over the coming months — or have a good attempt to. I am pretty sure I won’t hit 1000km, but it’s a good ambitious target to try for. And I am enjoying seeing my virtual progress. The GVRAT tracker allows me to see how far along the route I am, which is a nice touch.
I stopped cycling for most of the last two weeks of May to help my body get into 9 to 10km days. But I’ll be back on the bike early in June. Cycling has helped. I don’t want to lose that assistance.
I used the last day of the month to go for my first venture back along the trails and paths near and long the canal — and in my Hoka One One Cliftons too, much neglected in my many day of many laps of pitches. At some point going round and round the pitches will be lessened so this was a nice warm up. It was nice to get back out into the woods, over the fields, along the water road, and with not too many people out too.
Running total for May 2020: 218.5km
Running total so far for 2020: 718.8km
For June I am aiming for 300km of running. 10km a day on average. 70km a week. Crack 1000km for the year by the end of the month. Sheeeeesh! Steady away, eh!
I watched
- A Mile an Hour, a short fun film about doing a marathon in a day, by doing a mile every hour and other stuff in between.
I read
- I finished The Pursuit of Endurance. Took a while.
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This post tagged with:
running,
run notes,
run notes 2020,
month note