Eventful days!

The 25th annual Paisley Beer Festival is on this week from Wednesday to Saturday - making this a tricky week!  I dont drink a huge amount, but I do like to try out maybe 3 or 4 different real ales, - all just half pints, mind you!! - alcohol does dehydrate you, though, and there is always the possibility of a beer disagreeing with you.   I'll be there on Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon so I definitely dont want to be running on Thursday and probably not Sunday either, two of my regular days.   I have kettlebell class on Friday as usual, making running on Saturday morning hard - I have found as I get older that it takes much longer to recover :-p

I was feeling quite good after Sunday's 4.5 miles, so I decided to do my first 6 mile run on Monday. Hubby came out with me, and as we were running down a long slope, he commented on how much he enjoys running downhill.  Me, on the other hand, a couple of years ago I fell when running - not good, pelvis out of alignment etc - so I tend to be a wee bit wary running downhill, it brings thoughts of that fall back.  I was talking about this when, yep, you guessed it, I tripped on an uneven paving stone and swallow dived!!  Must have got distracted from my customary sweep of the ground ahead. :-(  Luckily this time there was no damage apart from stinging hands and a knee, and of course the embarrassment of being sprawled on the pavement of a busy road, so I was able to carry on.  In fact the run was pretty good!  It was a wee bit short of the planned distance at 5.57 miles, but I did it in 52:31 mins.  That works out at about 9:25 minute miles, so the improvement in my speed is continuing! 

There is of course a moral to that story - well two actually. First, DONT take you eyes off the road ahead - d'oh!!  Second is that that story will never be repeated again unless my bottom is firmly plonked on my sofa at the time!

Cant tell you how jiggered I was on Tuesday though, it was hard work getting to work!!  Not surprisingly, my planned kettlebell swings didn't happen. 

So we get to Wednesday morning, and this time a full 6 miles.  It was a horrible run, a cold strong wind, which as ever swirls round and constantly meets you head on!  My hamstring was a bit tight again and my back started to ache in the last mile or two. The only blessing was that the rain stayed off till the last half mile!  Time wise it wasn't too bad, all things considered, an average 9:42 per mile. 

Off to work shortly and when I finish at 8pm, we'll be heading to the Town Hall to do some beer sampling!!