The Longest Week Days Six and Seven

The challenge is DONE! Apologies for not quite making it 7 blog posts in 7 days! But this has been achieved – seven runs in 7 days, of at least 7km. The distance bit of the challenge was my own making, and luckily I am not as hung up on perfect pattern matching as some of my fellow runners out there. Or maybe I just can’t be bothered to work out how to run exactly 77.7km, when one run was 8.3, and another 9.1…Over the 7 days I ran 34.5 miles / 55.5km. That’s the most I’ve run in a week for a long time, so I am very happy with that.

Yesterday (Saturday) I ran 7km on another trusty 6km route with an extra bit added. Afterwards I went to my outdoor gym class as usual. I have to admit that when the lovely trainer Lauren sent us round the park on a 100m sprint – 100m jog on repeat I couldn’t quite muster the energy for the sprint bit! However we did some great stretching at the end of the class which was exactly what I needed. Later on though I found myself kneeling on the floor helping put together a flat pack table and chairs and did wonder how I would get myself back up to standing.

Today I decided that as my legs weren’t feeling so bad after all, I would finish the week in style (!) and run 7 miles. Down the Grand Union Canal to Brentford and back is almost exactly 7 miles so I didn’t have to make any adjustments to a very straightforward route. It was very peaceful running along the canal, watching a boat slowly chugging along, and then negotiating a lock on the way back. It reminded me of a canal holiday I went on a few years ago in north Wales. It was fun, but I ended up with a repetitive strain injury in my wrist from operating all the locks, and also went a bit crazy at the slow speed of it all! Honestly you can walk faster than those boats! But I must admit the scenery was beautiful in many places, and maybe that slow pace is what everyone needs now and again.

So the crazy running week is done, and now I will have a bit of a rest. I’m on leave this week which is very welcome. We are not going anywhere – plans to visit the Greater Manchester area to see our first grand child have had to be cancelled due to COVID restrictions 😦 but at least we can see the second baby who is close to home. Thank goodness for FaceTime and Zoom etc.

I’m not sure what the next challenge will be – I am sure something will pop up and I’ll be tempted before long to sign up for another bonkers run thing!