I'm up with my targets. I've completed this week and managed to get my timed run in (10km in 55 min, which would have been a PB for me). I've also managed to do some of the Strava running badges this week as well - 64K in a week, 500 metres of climbing in a week, 6 activities in a week and a sub 7 min 30 sec mile (though how I achieved the last one - I've no idea, but I appear to have been awarded the badge).
I started off on Monday thinking I'd aim for the 64K this week. If I did a 16K on Monday morning, a 16K today (Sunday) and parkrun yesteday - I could do 3 10K runs during the week to get my 64K and 6 activities in. Things didn't quite go to plan. Two thirds the way round my run on Monday morning I got hit on the head by a descending car park barrier... Having sworn blue murder and staggered around for a couple of minutes (the barrier now has a head shaped bend in it and there was some blood from my nose left spattered around) I thought that I might as well finish the damn run and continued on my way. However, I missed crossing one of the bridges out. The OCD part of me then made me divert to pick up the missing bridge which wouldn't have been a problem (distance was about the same) except that it meant me running back down the hill to the bottom, crossing the bridge, crossing a second bridge and then running back up the hill again - all with a stinking headache and blood pouring everywhere.
On Tuesday I woke up still with the headache and nearly went back to bed. In the end I limped out and thought I might as well make a go of getting my 10K timed run in, in case I ended up with a delayed onset visit to the injury couch. Things went surprisingly well - I took a flat 10K route and set my pace markers at 5:00 for the first 2K, 5:15 for the next, 5:30 for the next etc finishing at 6:00 for the last 2K. I ended up thrashing all my markers and came in with a 50:58 for the 10K which means I'd knocked about 5 minutes off my previous PB. I was well chuffed. What was more - my headache had disappeared. Getting home I realised that on the first 2 days I'd accidentally notched up over 300 metres of climbing (the extra hill on day one) so on Wednesday I went out for a lumps and bumps run, covering as many banks in the area as I could think of. That clocked me up the 500 metres of climbing in 3 days.
Friday's run was eventful because my Garmin ran out of battery part way round and my 12.5K only recorded as 8.9... After 5K at parkrun yesterday I tallied up my recorded distance which left me with 12.1K to do today. This morning I repeated Friday's run (with a fully charged battery this time) so I'm now feeling quite pleased with myself. The major objectives are completed plus I've got one or two minor ones in as well on the way.
All I have left to do now are 4 runs (one of 10K) for each of the last 2 weeks to score 100% for the entire challenge. This would be ok if I wasn't going away at the end of the week. This means that I only have 4 days next week (Monday to Thursday) to do my runs in. This is on top of having just run 6 days out of the last 7. It looks as if I may have to be innovative about some of my routes (like taking the car to the garage Tuesday morning and then running a 10K from the garage to where I've left a bike hidden in the bushes so I can then cycle into work...).
