I couldn't decide what to do tonight at first, but it occured to me that I could use the same tactic Dave had us doing at USWIM Masters last session - a good long warm up followed by ever-increasing distance with short breaks. Obviously it's harder to gauge distance when running outdoors than in a pool, so I decided I'd walk the mile up to the Chinese at the top of the hill (that place always smells amazing and has the added bonus of reminding me that the more I run the less guilty I have to feel about Friday's take-away!), then run 1min/2min/3min/4min with 15-30s rests in between and see how I felt.
Well, I did the first three sets ok then took a 30s walk after 3mins to get past a junction (it's very dark and I wear headphones, so I take extra care). Then I ran for 4min 25s without noticing. 1 min rest again to get past a junction, and by then I was on my downhill home so I just kept running until I noticed my shoe was rubbing a bit - I think I'd laced it too tight, but I could do with some decent socks. 12mins! So utterly chuffed with that after - jeez - 15 weeks off. Five minute cooldown walk and there we go, that'll do nicely thank you! It works out at something like 3.2k total running out of a total 6k distance, with 2.2k of that being the 12min set.
Do you know what was best, though? No crappy head stuff. No "I can't do this", but just a calm "I am doing this". No crazy runner's high, but a simple acceptance that yes, this is me, and I can run a bit. Now that is a joyous thing.
