#RunTheDate 27th – 27km. Let’s See If Splitting Days Works Better Than Last Week

May Distance Run: 351km

Distance Remaining: 145km

It always sounds like a good idea. Don’t run all the distance in one go; split it in half and do two shorter runs. Less time on the legs, more time to eat in between times. That was my thinking last week. It turned out that second run of the two was a bit of a painful one. The legs hadn’t really recovered from the morning and they were forced to get out again.

What’s more, it wasn’t long before the next morning came around again and the legs were forced out again for the following days’ miles. As a one off day, a double runday is an accepted, decent way of getting the miles in without stressing the legs as much as one long one. When doing back to back to back long runs, it doesn’t seem to work for me. It may work for others, obviously different things work for different people, but it certainly doesn’t seem to help my recovery too much.

So, having written all of that, what did I do today – I ran a split day! This was for two reasons. Firstly, it was to test it again to see if I saw any benefits this week. Secondly, and probably, most importantly, there was a busy morning coming up and I didn’t have time to fit all the distance in early on. Without getting up at 4am that is. As early as I am getting up at the moment, 4am is a definite no-go.

Out I went then, at about 6ish to do the first installment. The legs were rebelling pretty loudly for the first 5k morning. Whether I knew deep down that I didn’t have to go as far or whether my slower, easier start helped ease the legs in better I’m not sure. After about 7km though, everything loosened up nicely. It was about this time when I was bright enough to consider taking a photo or two:

This is how the remainder of the first run installment finished – generally comfortable and a little quicker really than I should be going at the moment. I was definitely drawn into ignoring the fact I had a further 13.5km to rub later on. In fact, I did wonder whether the new found life in my legs would have stayed with me, had I done the full distance this morning.

As it was, this was a mute point since I had to get back and wait until later to complete the day’s distance. The big question is whether the second run of the day was as tough as last week. Well, I’m now back from the second run and…

…it felt weirdly comfortable. The knee took 1 or 2km to settle in then my legs felt really good. This has added fuel to my fire that actually I’ve started behaving like a lizard. Having spent all day in the sun, it has warmed me up enough to cope with another 13.5km. Either that or the fact we had a chinese takeaway ordered to come 90 minutes after I set off. Both of those would be good motivators for me.

Whatever it was, today’s splitting of the distance has been quite a different story and my legs have coped much better. Plus, it was a lovely evening in the woods again:

It may be that my legs have deteriorated such that they are now benefitting from splitting. Who knows? One thing is for sure though, whether it is my lizard blood or the impending dinner, I went far too quick this evening. There’s every chance I might suffer from this tomorrow morning.

An early 28km on the cards with only 4 days left. I’m just starting to believe I might just get to the end of this!

Anyway, I’ll leave you on a creative note tonight, since I had a bit of distance to use up on the way back from this morning’s run:

Thanks again for checking in, here’s the usual reminder of why I’m doing this; I’m so close to my target now thanks to all of you lovely people:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/tomfanthorpe2