Running Away

Sadly me old mother had a bit of a tumble in the bathroom a week ago and managed to fracture her tibial plateau and proceeded a couple of days later to have a knee replacement. So having failed to do the dutiful thing with work being unforgiving last week and keeping me there til Sat, I took in an early service with the old people at Church on Sun am and headed up north to spend some time with her and to give the little sister a break from the ordeal of hospital visiting. She's a determined lady and is already zimmering and will be heading home soon whether they let her or not.

I get to stay overnight and filled in my time with a couple of runs in Durham.

Having had my sit down, think, plan and talk to myself the short term plan ie next 5 weeks is

1. 2 "sessions" a week - ie long run, hills, intervals, tempo

2. 2 recovery runs a week

3. in 5 weeks will do the Harrogate Ringway with my old Uni mate Pete and whoever we accumulate - so about 23miles plodding.

I need to return to "sessions" after months of running rather than training.

So run 1 in Durham on Sunday

Along the river and around the castle/Cathedral then 400m gps efforts x 5 with 1min rest - not too hard I know but it's me started again. It was nice evening and warm, and there were daffodils and the river paths in Durham are really lovely so I felt all springy and summery and happy for my 5miles.

Run 2 in Durham on Monday

Recovery run from Mums along cycle path to the River in Durham and along a bit and back again in the cold and rain (I knew I was up north proper as other runners were all out in the biting cold and rain in vests and shorts). In 5miles I ran through one of those estates with lots of police cameras high up surrounded by gun protection, over a reclaimed slag heap, onlong a disused railway, past an incredible wall garden, across the river from the rowing club (now that took me back to disco's there 30ish years ago and my brief punk era - oh and other teenage disco stuff), by river paths to see the Cathedral and Castle again before ambling back upt'hill. Steady all the way for another 5miles.

So not far but beginning to get more focussed :-)