Oh boy I could have done with one of those today…

My youngest is only a few weeks short of his 13th birthday but has not yet transformed into a one sound only muttering creature so I had a non-stop talking know-it-all 12 year on constant chat loop!  But at least he still wants to cycle with me on my runs and even takes an interest in pacing and asks for updates from my Garmin so I shouldn’t complain (just use headphones).

I wanted to run at least 6 miles today (or earlier this week) in preparation for my 10K on Sunday but circumstances made that difficult. I managed to organise OH to drop us (and bicycle) at one point on the Newport to Sandown cycle path and meet us at Sandown after a few errands.  The signpost said 4 3/4 miles (garmin said 5) so a decent enough mileage.

We set off and Ed was encouraging me to keep up a decent pace.  10K (must be joking!), HM (maybe downhill?).  I thought it would be good to try to do a reasonable tempo run in place of a longer one.  He was in very chatty mood and the more we ran, and I got tired, the more his stream of information became exhausting.  I tried asking him to talk slower, to take pity on me unable to run at pace and process information at the same time, before resorting to challenging him to keep quiet for 5 mins (he lasted 2) and then for a race (you race,  I plod along behind and watch)!

We must have run a pretty good pace in parts.  The cycle path is cut by roads in 4 places where we had to walk and pause to cross so our average pace of 9.07 min/miles and average moving pace of 8.57 indicates I managed to approach my old 10K pace at times and am optimistic about trying to run 8.30 or 8.45 pace on Sunday.

5 miles in 45.44 mins.