I went for my first run in about a month, since having decided to take it easy. If you remember I injured my calf muscle and have been whinging about it ever since. 

No more! I decided it was high time that I give it another shot. I decided to take a Sunday run down to Citrix in Garrards cross (where I used to work) taking my old route to get there. It was quite good. I thought I'd just go and see how far I wanted to go. That was a good strategy because I know that I will always go further if I physically can. I run the whole route all the way to and around my old digs. I earned a set of blood blisters for my efforts but not a hint of caution from my calf. Boom.

I took a couple of pictures for old time sake. One at my old bus stop and I after my 10km goal, I decided to persue the brutal hill that I'd run up so many times in the past.

pic.twitter.com/wHpCZ1yTMQ

— Stuart Mathews (@stumathews) October 6, 2019

It was a little painful as my feet had started to hurt but the satisfaction of the climb and overcoming my old challenge perhaps for the last time was great. Maybe I'll run that route again come to think of it because this was my go-to route for 10km from Uxbridge. I quite like the familiar. 

So this says two things to me. I'm not hurt and I can. So I think I'll need to incorporate more cardio into my routine. I'm a bit gym heavy at the moment and my conditioning is not a great as would be if I was running somewhere. My pace was fairly good, back to the usual deviations around the 4.30 minute/km mark - officially 4.47'

I found that my feet started hurting mid way through and this is probably because they are not used to the impact. I did feel a little tender thereafter and thought better of going to the gym this morning and instead slept in. I'll probably start thinking now how to incorporate a run of two in the weeks that follow.

Happy with that.

pic.twitter.com/rZhfE78JYS

— Stuart Mathews (@stumathews) October 6, 2019

I've been really enjoying my run-ins into work recently. I've got my route down to a T and its great. The other day, I hooked up with a work buddy to do one of these runs, meeting me at Camden lock, near Camden Town station.

As you can see they start at Finchley and go along the canal - lovely really. It seems just yesterday when I was running the Jubilee way route from Liverpool street to Waterloo.

Anyway, these are the last few I've done from most recent:

So this was 4:28 pace which is decent, just above my weekly effort range which is consistent - I'm not training for anything but consistency is good. This was a sub 40 minute 8.8k run which felt great! 

I have been noticing that for a while, I'm developing some stress in my foot which I'm trying to monitor and so far its been ok. I just need to not pound it for kilometres and kilometres and perhaps keep my routine's cadence and not overdo it - even though I sometimes feel that I should just run the next day as well. That might not be wise in light of this potential niggle. Not that it has affected me yet. 

70% of the time in Z2.

Very similar to the last run actually - just over 40 mins. 

Another sub 40 minute run this and a sub 4:30 pace which I always find decent - with me being such a fatty these days!

Same, sub-40 and on par with my running average pace of 4:30. not too shab-edy!

Oh and in other news, I got a new VO2Max of 62, which is something I've not really tracked before but since having my Garmin 235, it jumps up and down after a run in which I've either run my fastest 1,5km or set a new Vo2max record. nice!

Oh, and I have proof too ya'know!

So it looks like I'm averaging about 29km a week which is comfortable and I'm not feeling as heavy as I used to so that probably helps. 

Also, I watched this:

I love this. https://t.co/d7z3Y1aDDA

— Stuart Mathews (@stumathews) May 5, 2019

 Apart from that, I've been slowly recovering from my shoulder niggle, which has really come leaps and bounds. Today I, for the first time since tweaking it, trained shoulders. It wasn't hectic by any means but I got some good range of motion and I didn't hurt. I didn't lift particularly heavy but instead focused on reinitialising those muscles to stimulate growth and repair.

I'd been focusing recently on the above running and have, as mentioned earlier this year, laid back on the gyming and while this has shifted the focus somewhat is been great to get the running at a good rhythm to compensate.  I've found that its a lovely contrast to going to the gym actually. 

I had a great work out today. I put on my old school trainers(they're bright and very worn) and I went for a run down to the gym. The run wasn't effortless as perhaps it could have been if I'd been running a little more the past few weeks. A couple of years back, I transitioned from my barefoot-style running shoes(including my old school trainers) to a more beefy, daily-run style set of trainers.

The difference is that while I enjoyed and did very well in my barefoot trainers, I started gaining more weight and running more and felt that I needed more cushion to prevent any overuse injuries. It went pretty well, I switched to the Nike Pegasus 33 and relegated my Merril Vapour Glove 2s(along with my old school trainers) to the cupboard. It was a good move. 

Recently I'm not actively focusing on massive gains at the gym like perhaps most people are nowadays but I'm focusing on generally being fit and healthy. My resistance training this month has eased waay back and I'm curiously OK with that. However, I don't want to give up on it. 

Anyway, today I went for my barefoot-styled run and it was pretty OK. I also sluggishly ran back up to town when I was finished, a lot more tired than when I started. One of the things I always liked about barefoot running, is how more in-control you feel about your stride, balance and momentum. With all that great cushioning in the Pegasus, you tend to lose that ability that your foot has to "sense" its terrain, reposition itself accordingly and adapt. The thing about barefoot running it that it's not absolutely ideal to run this way on concrete - that said I'm a testament that it can be done very successfully and for 2 years I did it. One thing I will say is that you shouldn't be heavy while running barefoot because of the weight just kills your joins, and in my case just before switching, my meta tarsels in my front foot. That was when I knew that too much gym and too much barefoot action did not go.

So in the middle, I did a back work out, which was pretty good considering my slight decline in attendance recently(*wince*). One thing I know is that one day I'll look back at my gym and say, damn that was the coolest gym I'd ever had the privilege of spending 2 years in. The thing about my gym is like my trainers, its old school, no fanciness, not pristine showers or sauna or Bluetooth treadmills. These are functional and it reminds me of a concept I used to recite to myself at one stage of my running career: Its not the shoes that make you a runner and help you to run, its the decision and mental ability to commit to going running and the act of running, moving your legs back and form, irrespective of what goes are at the bottom of them.

I love this idea and its this idea that this gym, in its back-to-basics, essential cardio machines and weight machines distils. I mean its got everything. And it's been sitting in that gym for what seems like ages. One thing I am proud about is having taken myself to that gym over-and-over and over and over again. So when things change, and I no longer have the opportunity to go it, I'll know that I made ultimate use of it.

It's a great feeling to feel that way about a gym, but it's not the gym(it perhaps manifests that way) but its the way it made you feel when you were there and it was you who made you feel that way - the gym just happened to be where you decided to go and perform. The act of deciding, planning, doing and enjoying is a choice and that's what makes me proud, gyms will come and go but I'll always remember how I felt while going to this gym. 

I think that's how you should feel about life really, you are happening to life, it's not happening to you. You have to fight back, take control and happen.

I did my usual back routine but I've got a progressing idea that slowly unfolding in what I'm doing and that is of quality of effort. So I'm not that concerned with getting stuff done 100% rep/set-wize, I'm happy to take a bit longer or miss a set but put some quality adjustments while I'm doing it to really focus on improvement rather than aiming for a specific goal - which inevitably is like running a race, it becomes about finishing - which is not my goal. I'm not concerned about racing or the end.

It also might be a good time to mention that I've been running now with my Garmin 235 for about a year now, and it's been a great piece of kit. Garmin has it going on!

In other news I've done a little more work on my gaming aspirations in Measuring the duration of a function in C++. Hopefully I'll be able to use moving forward. 

And I'm just thinking about this gangster film I watched one time - it was Rockenrolla,  "There is no school like the old school..."