Week 1: Whiteout
What a run today’s session turned out to be. It started out pretty normal, very cold as usual. I had set off on a four-mile run, around the headland and back and then up to the Sea Life Centre and back to the start. It was as I was running back along the headland that I noticed the specks of snow were becoming denser and thicker…and thicker…and thicker. It got so bad that as I passed my start point at the junction of Royal Albert Road and Albert Road, the snow was falling at an alarming rate.
When I turned around at the Sea Life Centre, I looked across to where the headland should be, but there was only a white fog. It was a total whiteout! This wasn’t any old snow either; the snowflakes were as big as a two-pence piece and stuck to me as soon as they blew into me. I regularly had to shake off the settled snow so my body heat wouldn’t melt it and soak through my outer layers.
I might as well not have bothered, however, because when I got back home, semi-caked in Scarborough’s finest snow, I was soaked through anyway, my inner layers from sweat and my outer layers from the snow.
Following my new plan, I ran a mile at easy pace, then switched up a gear into my half-marathon pace (about 12 minutes per mile) for two miles, then ran easy for the final mile. Unlike previous pacing sessions where I always ended them totally exhausted, I felt quite comfortable running the up-tempo section. Which means I haven’t lost as much fitness as I thought since the Dublin Marathon. Despite all that, I had a thoroughly fun time. The training session wasn’t bad either.