Training run: actual negative splits!

With the week ahead looking like one in which I’ll struggle to find the time for many runs, I headed out tonight around sunset for what I’d hoped would be a long run; somewhere between 7.5 and 10K. I’d intended to explore an area of parkland between Great Park and Fawdon, but when I finally got over there, it was so dark that it was against my better judgement that I went into it at all. My first steps were so full of hesitation that it was no surprise when Google told me the first kilometre had been just under 6 minutes (it's since revised its estimate downwards, mind).

By that time, I’d decided to back out of the poorly lit greenery and had just got back into the housing estate where I’d parked the car. And given that I’d already seen some radge bombing around on a noisy, motorised (but not electric) scooter looking like he’d just TWOC’d something, plus another suspicious-looking yoof on a BMX in an underpass, I figured it was probably for the best that I stayed closer to the car for the rest of the run — simply to keep an eye on it. So, laps of the housing estate, it was.

Attempting to make up for the slow first kilometre, I pushed for the next one. Thinking I was running about a 5-minute pace, I was pretty disappointed when Google told me it was about 5:20/km. So, I tried again for the 3rd kilometre… and, of course, this is where thoughts of aiming for a full 5K of negative splits start to creep in. However, I knew it would be hard to achieve given I was already down to a 5:20 pace and I’ve struggled to get near, let alone maintain, a 5:00 pace recently.

Still, when Google chimed in a third time to tell me I’d just done about a 5:02/km pace, the game was on. At this point, I actually felt that I might have one more kilometre of a faster pace in me, but not two. So, I kept at it and sure enough, the 4th kilometre came in at an under-5-minutes pace. Of course, my brain wasn’t functioning so well by this point, so my maths deserted me a bit to calculate the precise pace.

The only question now was whether I bothered to try for the final kilometre and negative split. If I continued doing the route I’d been doing to this point, I’d finish on the wrong side of the estate. That, plus my growing tiredness and, to be fair, my fear of failure, was almost enough to see me back off. But not quite enough.

So, I broke off the loop I’d been doing and zigzagged a bit more through the streets I’d been building a mental map of, aiming to continue the push. It had the feel of the final kilometre at a parkrun, which helped me to try upping my pace, even if it felt like I wasn’t managing to go any quicker than the 4th kilometre. One thing it didn’t have, however, was a visible finish funnel, so I just kept going until I finally got the word from Google. And at that point, both maths and my memory truly deserted me. Ignoring how many minutes I’d been going, I was hoping to hear the seconds be somewhere in the range of 5–15. So when Google told me I’d done 5 kilometres in 25 minutes and 50-something seconds, I was a bit gutted but not too surprised that I’d slowed dramatically. 😞

But wait… twenty-FIVE minutes? Surely after my slow first kilometre, I’d been heading for a time in the 26’s? That could only mean… YES! My final kilometre had been a 4:42/km pace (since revised to 4:43). I’d actually managed it. Get in there, Lewis! 😁

Of course, all thoughts of this being a long run were out the window by this point. It was properly dark, the estate itself wasn’t much fun to run around, and I’d completely blown out of the water any idea of pacing myself for a longer run. So I kept pushing for the couple of hundred metres to the car lest Google reassessed it GPS readings to my detriment later. But… it still holds. Pleased? You bet. 😊