The final series 3 Zombies, Run! mission and the weather was almost the polar opposite of the previous day – blue skies without a cloud in them and frozen pavements. I ran in short sleeves and sunglasses (but also gloves) and didn’t see another runner while out on my travels.
I returned to find my 2015kx365 swag had been delivered:
A rainy riverside recovery run in the company of runner 5 and Beecake. Slow and steady after yesterday’s hills. Only one other runner out braving the weather, but neither of us appeared to be made of sugar, so that was fine. Only one Zombies, Run! mission left.
The Bath Half is now only a couple of weeks away, so I decided to do a 10k run at half-marathon pace, which handily knocked off my Jantastic target for the week too (though I will also be running 10k on Sunday). Only a couple of Zombies, Run! missions left now, I wonder when Season 4 will be released.
It was an early start for me as the bookings for residential school opened at 09:00 and are allocated first-come, first-served. I didn’t want to end up having to go to Nottingham instead of Bath so I made sure I got my 5km out of the way so that I could be showered and at my computer when the bookings opened.
You get different people out on the river path earlier in the morning, but I was taking it slow and steady (and walked back for the remainder of the Zombies, Run! mission once I hit 5km).
It was misty and frosty when I set off for my Monday morning recovery run along by the river, so I went with a high-vis theme in clothing. The sun had burned off most of the mist by the time I finished though, so I ended up wishing I had taken sunglasses.
I got talked into competing for Bristol and West at a cross country race on Sunday so won’t be going out for a long run with the guys at Ashton Court. I had cancelled my usual Body Pump class as I still had the tail end of this cold, so hit the railway path to rack up the distance I had pledged for Jantastic. The path was icy in place but I got through two zombie missions and passed the same lady 3 times.
I think I am starting to win the battle against this cold, so I took my new cross country spikes to the local park to try them out. My comfortable easy pace was up on the previous couple of days, though I stopped twice: the first time because a massive Irish Wolfhound decided I was acting like prey by running so I had to stand still and wait for its owner to retrieve it, the second time to take a photo of a massive plane presumably coming into Filton with a much smaller plane as an escort. The ground was frozen rather than muddy, but the sensation of running in spikes wasn’t too different to my usual running and trail shoes. The shoes were much lighter and the sole thinner, and you could occasionally feel the bite of the spikes. I took them up and down some hills at the end of my run and thought I could feel a difference both up and downhill in terms of traction.
A slow recovery run after the exertions of yesterday, both the long run and staying up until 03:30 watching the superbowl and getting woken up by the delivery of my first pair of cross country spikes at 07:30.
What should have been a 30 minute Zombies, Run! mission turned into a 62 minute mission. I wish they would warn you beforehand when they are running double length missions. I had only intended a gentle 5-6km, so when I got to 10km I stopped my GPS and let the remainder of the mission play out as I chilled out on the swings. I’m intending to go out with the Bristol and West recreational runners this evening, so don’t want to tire myself out.
A nice gentle recovery run out along the river with a Zombies, Run! mission. No other runners out and about, not surprising given that a women was attacked on the other side of the river last week. I finished running about 300m before finishing the mission and walked the rest of the way – it was a long run I did yesterday.