Cloudy in the city

I missed out running on Sunday due to suffering from a proper hangover (although it was a great party!) and I didn't even get to run on Monday despite having the day off. So my track record isn't great. I knew that I had to run today whatever happened and so I left the building at lunchtime, despite ominous clouds, and headed past the noisy demonstration outside the Ministry of Defence. Having slightly aggravated my back on Sunday, while teaching Christina to ride her bike, my whole running posture felt leaden and heavy-footed. So it was a bit of a slog getting over to Hyde Park - although I was quite interested in seeing how quickly they'd managed to tidy up after the wedding. As it turns out there's still quite a lot of scaffolding left and a heck of a lot of dead grass!

In Hyde Park I turned left on the horse track and tried a bit harder but my legs weren't really answering the call. So I continued and wondered if I might find something interesting to photograph (which seemed unlikely given how you really need sunlight to brighten everything up) but nothing turned up by the top of the park. As a result I decided to turn my attention inwards and ended up snapping my hard-working feet; they don't get a look-in normally so I don't begrudge at least one of them some time in the spotlight:

This shoe has seen some action!

Funnily enough after this brief rest I felt inspired to try striding out a bit; ignoring my listless back and instead actively making my legs spring upwards. It worked! Suddenly I began moving faster, pumping my arms and landing lightly, to such an extent that over one half-mile stretch I was hitting 6:09 min/mile pace and that's essentially my 10K speed. I had to work for this, of course, but nevertheless over the remainder of my run I felt so much better and covered a fair chunk of ground at 6:30-6:40 min/mile pace. We all know how important the mental aspect of sport is (being focused and what-not) but this lunchtime was a powerful reminder for me of just how important the right frame of mind is. Food for thought.

Distance: 7.6 miles

Time: 55m 47s