"Who was the other bloke with you?" Sharon asked. The other bloke? "Yes, the other bloke that ran passed with you and Matt, the other bloke". Oh, you mean Pete, your good friend Pete who was wearing a hat, the Pete we said hi to in the car park, Pete who said he was waiting with me for Matt to arrive...Pete...as opposed to some random guy with luminous yellow hair! "Was that Pete?" Yes! We ran passed quite a few people. It's the way Thursdays unfold...we wait for Matt, everyone else sets off, we chase and try to catch.
And it was quite a run. If you want to know how a tempo session feels like, then this was it. Purposeful, just above the threshold of conversational, pacy, deliberate. If we were on bikes, wearing matching tops like proper cyclers, we'd have looked professional, on a mission...part of something, a crack team. But we weren't, Pete wearing slightly too much, Matt never quite wearing enough and me in my ridiculous bobble hat. We didn't look like a crack team. We didn't look like proper runners.
Yet we ran in single file, taking turns at the front, sweeping passed our chums like we were pros, panting, wheezing, grumpy pros. ..we were going somewhere, together, connected...we felt like a team. I could tell Pete was just the wrong side of comfortable. But he's a man who likes to train hard, yet I sensed he wasn't enjoying this. Monosyllabic snappy responses to enquiring questions. And he was puffing. I was puffing...hard. Yet that is what it's like being in the groove of a tempo run.
There's an element of metronomic perpetual motion. Our footfall matched, synchronous. Any faster and you'll burn up in moments...any slower and well, you just somehow lose the rhythm. It's a fine line, but we were on it. I'd like to think that's why Sharon didn't recognise Pete, as we sped by, full of intent and purpose! It's been cold these few mornings and evenings...difficult to get properly warmed through. Easy to get hot, but not warm. The air is thick, heavy on my lungs, hard to suck in...beautiful, though.
