I bumped into my neighbour, last night.  She’s a lovely woman; we always have a giggle.  Anyway, a while ago she agreed to run the Silverstone Half Marathon with me, in March, and we’ve been meaning to train together ever since…. Even better, I’ve been desperate to find someone to do my hill intervals with; it’s much easier not to give up if you’ve someone with you.  So last night, K and I agreed to run together this morning.  We agreed to go at 8, as Mr P and I have a garden building project this weekend, and I wanted to make the most of the daylight.

Just after 8, I was woken up by Mr P arriving home.  K was with him; she’d been knocking on the door, and totally failing to rouse me from my deep, untroubled slumber.  I threw myself into my kit while K told Mr P how she’d locked herself out, and we set out for the hill with a plan to break back into her house on our return.

I don’t know how the weather is where you are, but this morning in Oxfordshire it was persisting down.  We set out in teeming rain, to run the nearest hill with a pavement.  Luckily it was only *really* wet at the bottom of the hill, where we weren’t.  We had to do 3 reps of 10 minutes continuous hill (up and down and up again) at 80% effort, with 90 secs rest.  It was tough, hard work.  The first effort feels tough, and you’re really, really happy when the beeper beeps the end of the period.  The second effort is tougher; you can feel the lactic build-up in your legs, and you know your pace is faltering.  But I reminded myself that this exercise is not about the pace, and kept going… and going… and going….

At the end of the third interval, we realised it had stopped raining; we weren’t even wet.  Hardcore, sure.  Tired, yes absolutely.  Happy – well.  I was! But not wet.

Home.  A quick stretch.  Helping K climb through her bathroom window and that was it.  Done.  Without letting myself off.  I can’t say how far I went, because I cocked up the magic watch by pressing lap at the end of the first interval and then getting my knickers in a twist and deleting the whole thing.  But it was done!

Mr P and I have spent the rest of the day building a new chicken run – basically an extension of the old chicken run, and setting up a new hen house.  It still didn’t rain, and by the time dark fell the house was ready for the girls to explore it and sleep in comfort.  I think they’re going to like it.  Which is good, because hopefully they’ll keep a bit cleaner and less muddy in their new accommodation!