Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Running at 2am in the morning, or so my body tells me

Landed at Manchester Airport at around 1530 after an 11 hour flight from Shanghai to Copenhagen, 90 minute stopover at Copenhagen Airport and then a further 90 minute flight. Got through immigration, collected my bag and was out by 1600. Found the car at the car park with no problems this time. Yes I now take great care in noting down where my car is at airport long term car parks having spent nearly 30 minutes trying to track it down once in freezing cold rain.

The sky was a leaden shade of grey, the sort where it seems to make everything else dull. Traffic was fairly bad and it was nearly 1700 by the time I arrived in Glossop at the foot of the Snake Pass. Just noticed through the gloomy drizzle that it wasn't totally dark. It is now just over 1 month since the shortest day of the year when it gets pitch black at around 1600. At least the days are getting longer now.

Had a nice drive up the sweeping bends of the Snake Pass, getting stuck behind a slow driver for a bit. This was quickly rectified through the long straight section at the summit. A quick glance at the horizon, drop it into third, foot down, pull back in to the left, dab on the brakes to set up for the sharp right at the end. Down the sharp bends on the other side, lightly touching the brakes before each corner, taking care not to be too heavy on the pedals on the roads glistening with moisture.

Didn't take too long to get into Sheffield. Well I suppose time passes quickly when you are enjoying yourself. Dropped my bags off at the B&B, had a quick chat, got changed into running kit and was back in the car to get to Hillsborough for 1800. I should really run down to the club but hey it's been a long day and it takes nearly 15 minutes to run back, the last 10 minutes of which is uphill.

The session today is 3 sets of 3 efforts consisting of about 400m (last 200m uphill), short recovery, about 800m, short recovery and finally about 600m (last 200m uphill), making it 9 efforts in total. Felt a bit slow on the 10 minute jog out to the hill. Probably jetlag or just plain stiff from having being on the long flight.

Took the first effort fairly steadily to gauge how I am feeling. Hmmm maybe I am not feeling too bad as I am still about where I normally stand in the pecking order. The finish never seemed to appear for the first long 800m effort. Legs were a bit uncoordinated for running fast on the flat. Was certainly gasping hard at the end of the fast section. Floated the first part of the 600m effort, then turning on a bit of a kick on the uphill section. 1 down 2 to go. And so it continued. I felt a bit better on subsequent sets except during the recoveries where I was worried that the light meal on the flight over from Copenhagen would revisit itself.

Finally finished everything feeling a bit more tired than usual. Not really in the physical lactic acid sense, more like a general dullness of mind. Hey it is about 0300 in the morning where I started the journey from so it is hardly surprising. Should be able to get a good night's sleep in tonight. I find that getting a good first night's sleep in does wonders for jetlag.

Location 53°N 1°W

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