Training Log Archive: Whitesheep

The race started out ok, stuck a little bit too far back perhaps but nothing to worry about. I got through the first km at a steady pace, and tried to pick things up.
Then a strange thing started to happen. I was stepping up my effort and yet my pace seemed to be slowing. I was no longer gliding along serenely, swan-like. My feet felt heavy, my breathing laboured.
Suddenly I remembered an incident from yesterday and it began to make sense. Ben and Paul had trodden on my shiny new shoes. They were sullied, spoiled, pb shoes no longer.
The muddy scuff marks were weighing heavily on my mind, and my feet.
I was pouring in buckets of effort but the shoes would not, could not, respond. I glanced around. Other people's shoes were cutting through the air like a powerboat slicing through the cool crisp waters of an alpine lake. My shoes were rubber dinghies in a duck pond. I had journeyed from the peak of hope to the very trough of despair, and my now muddy shoes had taken me there. The cruel laughter of Ben and Paul rang around my ears as I trudged disconsolately over the finish line, the shoes by now millstones on my feet.
As I crossed the line a series of images flashed before my eyes: a Santa Claus outfit; two halves of shandy; a dashingly handsome young man merrily ho-ho-ho-ing his way home on the last train. I was struck by a sudden revelation. I was that handsome young Santa Claus; those were my shandies and I had nearly finished them both.
Could it be? Could the fault have been with me and not the shoes? I gave a heavy sigh as I realised I would never know...

C • I knew that the mud would be a problem... 3

ITW
foxdal intervals, 20x 90/30. better than last night.

C • Foxdall intervals 5

HFW
but bailed out at sydenham hill as this was just a slog. Sore feet and heavy legs and I wasn't getting much out of it.