Cold Comfort

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Seashell, Santos beach, Brazil


12 km 

59:35 / 4:58 pace

21C, afternoon half street / half beach run


My running week ends on Sundays, which means nothing more than I look at the seven days up to Sunday to add up my weekly volume. After Saturday's run I was on 80 km for the week, and for no good reason at all I wanted to finish on 92 km. All I wanted to do was run 12 km today and I wasn't particularly concerned about pace. 

 The traffic light fell for me and as I completed the first kilometer I was at 5:21 pace, which is good enough for the first one, what with running through busy streets and warming up. So I stretched my legs and thought it would be OK if I completed 12 km at anything under 5:20 pace. That was the extent of my planning. 

 21C is sweater weather in Santos. Not a thick woollen sweater, but a thin cotton sweater, for sure. It feels chilly, which is a strange thing for a man who spent the first half (25 years) of his life in England. Anyway, cool weather is good for running distances and after the third kilometer each one clicked by seamlessly in under five minutes and I felt very, very good, finishing at an average pace of 4:58. That's my best 12 km run including sand this year, for sure, and to come at the end of a 92 km week the day after a 16 km run shows me I am getting fitter. It also says something about my recklessness regarding injury risks, but leave that for now. 

 What is more, this run reminds me how important the weather conditions are. I'm not so full of myself as to forget that the weather made an even bigger contribution to this run's success than the traffic light. The relative cold also meant the beach was empty and there were no kids to avoid. It was another day when everything went my way, in other words. I'll take that because sooner rather than later I will be bemoaning the heat and pigeons and kids and any number of other perceived obstacles holding me back from the glory I so richly deserve. That, however, belongs to the future. Right now it's cool in more ways than just degrees on a thermometer. 


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