Wednesday Morning 6am

Day:         80

Distance: 9.70km

Time:       48:57 secs

Calories:  748

Getting up early to go running really gives you an appreciation of the changing seasons. After all those cold, dark mornings that I've run through over the last 11 weeks I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now when I step out for a pre-work run it's already getting light which makes for a much more appealing prospect. It's still not easy getting up at stupid o'clock, but it certainly feels like less of a chore.

Or, at least it feels like less of a chore until I check the training guide and see that "50 mins  2 mins easy 10 mins fast x 4" awaits me today. Groan. I don't even have a playlist that will match this specification, so I decide to amend the run to fit a playlist I do have. The playlist I have is 40 minutes long and consists of 2 mins easy 8 mins fast x 5. The sharp eyed amongst you will note that this is 10 minutes shorter than the specified time. The prospect of running without music is none too appealing, so this means that at the end of the 40 minutes I need to clumsily fumble around with the ipod that is strapped to my arm, underneath my running jacket to try and take the playlist back a few songs.

With tunes from the likes of British Sea Power, The Ramones and Arcade Fire to keep me going this run already feels like less of a chore. That said, for some reason when I start out my knees are really aching. When I say "for some reason" I'm well aware that the cause of this is the running I've been doing, but I don't understand why they're aching at this point in particular. If it was the day after my 21 mile run I'd understand it more.

Anyway, the problem with the knees is forgotten pretty much as soon as the slow first song givese way to the first set of "fast" songs. The initial burst you have when you come out of the "easy" 2 minutes feels really good and the trusty Run Keeper app shows that the Vaccines' "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" propelled me from an average speed of 5:15 mins/km to 4.00 mins/km. This pace wasn't maintained for all 8 minutes, but there was definitely a difference between that section of the run and the 2 minutes of "easy" running soundtracked by Mark Kozelek's cover of AC/DC's "Love at First Feel".

As with all these kinds of runs the pace of the different sections definitely slows down the further into the run you get. It gets to the stage where it feels like there's no difference between a fast and easy section but the stats on Run Keeper are reassuring. They show that on the final slow section I averaged 5:40 mins/km, while on the fast section I was averaging 4:50 mins/km. Granted, both of these averages are considerably slower than those I clocked up first time round but I'm pleased that there is still a discernible difference.