Cathartic workout

Most people who know me here probably don't realise how passionate I am about sports other than running. I don't have a College to hang my hat on and of the big three sports here I love watching football but don't follow any particular team, I can take or leave basketball and definitely leave baseball!

My big sporting passions were left over the pond when I came over. I am a huge Man United fan, have been since I was 8 and used to regularly attend games. I watch all the games I can catch on the Fox Soccer Channel and ESPN and whenever they are playing midweek I follow the games on the BBC at work! I also get very passionate about watching England play pretty much any sport, especially our 'big three', football, cricket and rugby.

What has this got to do with running? Absolutely nothing! Just gives a bit of context to my workout on Tuesday. I was sitting at work at 4:30, winding down for the day and starting to think about the 7 minutes of pain on the track I had ahead of me. Man U were playing a huge Premiership game against arch rivals Chelsea and were standing at 1-1 with a few minutes left. I would have happily taken a draw but disaster struck as first Chelsea won the game with a disputed penalty and then Captain Fantastic Vidic got sent off and will now miss our next crunch game at Liverpool on Sunday.

So I left for the Dowd to get ready for my workout in a foul mood! I jogged down to the track for my warm up, spikes in hand, and passed Theoden and Thomas who were also going to be at the track doing their thing. I put my spikes on for the first time since last summer and did a few strides to try and get used to running in them again before I started my workout. The mile (well, 1600m) passed in 4:46 and was faster than prescribed despite the fact that I never really felt that comfortable in the spikes. I walked around for 10 minutes and got pretty much fully recovered for the 800. I was happy to hit this in 2:13. I ran the first lap solo in 66 and Thomas joined me for the last lap and I was consequently able to hold it together for a respectable time and a decent workout that went SOME way towards cheering me up after the Chelsea result. A jog back to the Dowd and I was done for the day,

So this week I'm getting some freshness back into my legs after the last month or so of hard work. Monday I took completely off and the rest of the week other than the workout has been and will be very easy, leading into the race on Saturday. Looking forward to see where I'm at when I race. Plenty of smack going back and forth between myself and a certain CRC Chairman and close friend who will be towing the line alongside me. Should be fun!