I often get asked how I mentally prepare myself to run my outdoor route.  I always answer with the same thing “I just assume the route stays constant and their won’t be any obstacles”.  However that assertion doesn’t reflect reality.  The route has been different recently due to two variable speed and the time of year.

I rarely enter races to obtain a specific time, I am usually happy to finish.  So running quick is not something I usually concentrate on.  But there is a local 5k in my hometown that I decided I would run.   But not just run, run in a competitive time [competitive for me anyway].  So I have been doing some shorted runs outdoors at an increased pace.  This has made navigating a lot harder.  I don’t get a very good read underfoot at speed, so I struggle to correctly locate myself on the pavement, it also means obstacles appear much quicker than they usually do.  An obstacle that usually takes 1 minute to reach now takes a lot less than that.  So Ihave to be a lot more vigilant and try and read the pavement quicker.  Because I don’t have much practice at this it has led to me running into a few things.

Running into to random objects has also been worsened by the time of year.  Everything from the trees to the bushes has grown enormously over the past coupled of months.  This has introduced lots of new obstacles on the route.  The problem is it keeps changing so quickly I cannot learn where all the new branches are!

This led to a very frustrating run at the weekend where I was remembering where a new branch was moving slightly to the other side of the pavement and running into another obstacle I didn’t know was there!  I ran into more things this past weekend than I have in months of training.  Everything is just becoming so overgrown.

This has happened before and I took matters into my own hands.  I went down with some garden shears and cut down all the branches and the large bushes.  I think I may have to do that again this year in order to to run hazard free!