Training again!

We’re back in the UK – and it’s COLD! On Friday we were walking round Florence in T shirts, and now we’re in Wales in sweaters, gilets and scarves. Still – it isn’t raining. Yet.

I have returned from Florence feeling slightly ‘after-holiday’ish. The wheat in Italy doesn’t disagree with my tum, which is brilliant but which led to an over-indulgence in both pizza and pasta, and we did sample the local wine each night, including the Ruffina… so I’m definitely sluggish. Today we mowed the grass, which practically counts as training – I have the speed on ‘fastest’ and almost have to run on the downhill bits… Guy was using next door’s fertiliser spreader following me with the mower, and when we started on the long stripes of the lawn at the same time, I always won the race to the other end of the garden. There are probably two reasons for this: (1) the mower has a motor, which the spreader doesn’t and (2) Guy didn’t know I was racing…

After mowing the grass, blowing leaves off the gravel and washing both cars I went for a run – new route this time. Up to the main road, along to Sian’s stile (just past the ‘almost open’ ice-cream parlour) down through the wood, across the bridge and back along the Machen Forge Trail. This is probably only 3k. When I started off my legs were like lead and I was pretty slow – I thought I would take it at a reasonable pace and see how things went. About half way round (crossing the bridge) I felt quite sprightly and ran all the way back along the Trail, including the vicious climb towards the end where the Trail rises about 30 feet in a series of 16 steps… I did stop briefly at the top of that for some deep breaths, then ran all the way home. Total time: 20 minutes exactly - and overall better than I thought it would be. Perhaps all that walking in Italy has helped! I am planning to do the same run every night this week, so I can see if there is any improvement. The Mud Run is a week on Saturday – and as Sian completed the Cardiff Half Marathon today, I really don’t want to hold her up by not being able to run all of the 5k when she can cheerfully manage 13 miles…

I may not blog every night this week, but I will post my times… fingers crossed they improve!