Early Sunday morning is a quiet time in the city. The streets are largely silent, apart from the occasional car or the half-hourly morning bus whizzing by. I've had this complex about running publicly in shorts, so in a way Sunday morning was a good time to break out of it. I did 5 miles in 38 minutes, including a 5K in 20:35. That was okay considering I hadn't really been running consistently. Everything felt fine, and I'm pleased that I didn't have problems with the back - in a way I feel vindicated for having spent less time on running this past week (or two) and more on stepping, weights and stretching.

When I step, I do 45s of all-out followed by 15s of recovery, for about 20-25 minutes, and while the cardiovascular benefits aren't as good as doing the same pattern through running, I find that it helps me a lot mentally. In Tim Noakes' Lore of Running, there is the theory of a "Central Governor", which is about how we tire and slow down not primarily through muscle fatigue, but because the brain senses that the physical demands required for the body to keep doing what it is doing would be too great later on, and tries to "shut down" or "slow down" a little too early on to prevent damage to the heart that would result if the activity were continued. (The key words, of course, are "a little too early on".) I've found that the mentality when I'm stepping, where I'm constantly pushing myself to achieve a higher heart rate, has helped me in my running. Today's 5K was quite ... okay, really. I didn't feel it was as difficult as before. And my best times over the shorter distances have mostly been achieved after sessions on the stepper. Hmm. Maybe a way to achieve better times over distances would be to take a exercise like stepping or cycling, where you have to keep pushing simply to maintain a high heart rate, and do it for the same amount of time as it would take to complete the run.

Another thing that works for me is to keep my hands close to the body and imagine that my wrists are hauling in rope as I run, somewhat like in a tug-of-war competition. I find that not only does it prevent my arms from flopping about, it also helps me run in a relatively straighter line.

Or maybe it was just the shorts today. If so, watch out - I'll PR on the naked run.

That's my £0.02 (or $0.02 if you prefer) for today. Have a good week, everyone!