Morning vs evening

One of the (many...?!) benefits of starting to record all of my training is seeing how patterns emerge.  I’m guessing this is why Charlie suggesting it in the first place (he isn’t a yoda for nothing), but it really is strating to prove its worth it as M-time starts drawing nearer.

This week I have done two shorter runs – about four miles each – before work.  This used to be my golden running time – I LOVED getting up and running before heading into work – I think it was a hangover from my university days and going out on the river to row before lectures began, and although I usually felt a bit tired (sometimes a lot), the sense of achieving a run before most people got out of bed was worth it.  Plus it meant I could usually fit in at least one run a week if I was out most evenings (obviously not drinking....too much....)  However, over the past few weeks I have noticed a marked difference in my runs pre- and post-work.  Whilst I am still happy to get up and out before heading into the office, my runs after work have been of a completely different standard (the same goes for my shorter runs at the weekend but I’m not comparing these right now as there’s no way I’ll ever be up for ten mile+ run before 8am….)  Not just in terms of feeling more awake and more prepared - I've usually eaten well at lunchtime and drunk enough water throughout the day - there is sometimes a two minute difference in my mile-splits over fairly short distances (four-eight miles).  That is a lot of time when you’re running just over twenty six miles.  A lot of time when you're adding it on to a five hour shuffle.

This realisation simply reconfirms my decision to start planning everything around running during the working week (it’s already sorted all of my weekends between now and the end of March *yey*….) rather than trying to slot in early morning runs if I’m out/working in the evenings.  Obviously I’ll fit in a morning session if there isn’t an evening option, but realising the marked difference in my performances in the evening means that I really need to make sure the majority of my training takes place after 6pm. 

Essentially, I guess this all means that running will now be taking priority over my after-work activities and my weekends.  *joy*  That's not to say I will only be running after work every day between now and Barcelona *snore* but things will need to step up a little bit.  Again...

(this is probably a bad time to remind myself that I’m thinking about an autumn marathon to keep the training up over the summer…..)