Yesterday, I managed to break my Parkrun PB. My time wasn’t great, but it must have been good for me, as it has taken ages to beat. I’m pretty sure that my time was what I was running twenty five years ago, and I have to be happy about that. I’m even happier knowing that I can run even quicker, but it really tires me out.

My new tech helped me and I think I’m good enough to use it now. It tells me how fast I’m going, and then I know if I need to speed up, or hold my pace to hit a target. All I need to do now, it work out what my target is. But I know what that is. It’s 21mins for a 5km run. What I really need to work out is how much I want to go through to get there.

I dragged myself out of bed, told myself that the muscle pain in my left hip doesn’t stop me running, and ignored my fatigue. The effort almost wiped me out for the day, but I think it was worth it, to turn up and show I could run a half decent time. Only afterwards, did I remember that I had a cyclocross race the next day.

My efforts on the bike haven’t been great recently. I feel slow and tired, and that’s because I’m tired and slow. So, this morning I had the same negotiations with my body as I did yesterday. But this time I knew I wouldn’t be 47th out of 230, more like last. And for a little while, I though I could do reasonably well, until I couldn’t keep up with the riders at the back. But I’m ok with that. I didn’t puncture, and I didn’t fall off. The effort was mostly there, I was just slow and out of practice, and training!

I’ve changed. From now on, I’m going to use all the data I have access to. My heart rate drifted after fifteen minutes, which was when I slowed down. The app tells me that I had a good work out, and that I need to rest for 36 hours, which is a little strange, because 20 minutes after the race, my watch was telling me to move and stay active! Anyway, I’m going to see where the extra information I have takes me. After all, every one else is using it.

I should learn not to have two big efforts on two consecutive days, but that’s when the weekend is, so I’ll have to get used to it. So, today wasn’t really a personal worst. I was tired, and since I’ve been away, everyone else kept getting better.