Back on the road

The day job has been requiring more resources than it was budgeted for. Both major other stakeholders, the family and the running project  - including blogging - suffered badly from the additional second shifts. Fortunatly, feedback provided by the former other stakeholder, fell in its timing together with the last deadlines and deliveries. Hence quick improvements could be implemented already. An afternoon at the zoo and three consecutive days of good running this week. Things are getting back in balance.

At a first run after a break, it’s always easy to be over enthusiastic. I was hovering along at a relaxed pace of about 4:20 to 4:30min/km. Had to change the side of the street, since the walk way ended on my side. Found a gap in the late after work traffic and closed in on the walk way on the other side. Suddenly, just as I set foot onto the pedestrian, from left behind came a tense looking guy, bald, in his 30’s, wearing technical fabrics both shirt and tight pants. He was running with a headset on and going at a 3:55 - 4:00min pace.

It doesn’t happen often in the streets of Helsinki that someone overtakes me, especially not running wise. And I thought to keep it that way Anyway, had to see what this guy’s session was about.  Since people with ear plugs on indicate “don’t talk to me”, I contempted with hanging in behind his back. A km with no significant change in pace went by, this guy is probably doing long intervals or a good fartlek.  After a while I recognized that he had the headset only in one ear and decided to talk to him. Well at a pace of 3:50, this wasn’t much of a conversatoin - we should do company meetings while running too, people would learn to focus and speak about the really relevant things. The guy was out for a 16k run at a 4min pace, respect. He’s Aapo btw and plans to run the marathon in Espoo on Sep 20., the same day than Berlin. Aapo’s early out there with his training. Good for you!

We sped along another 3 km or so at pace peaks around 3:45min/km. Not bad at all. In case you’re out there for similar sessions Aapo, don’t hesitate to tell when, I’d join in.

today’s training: 14km with varying pace, 1:04h

Tags: fast run