Pushing Longer and Harder

Saturday: It was wet and cold today, as usual, and due to time constraints, I skipped the stretching to just walk to warm up. I had a new music playlist today, slower, more depressing songs for the start of the run, gradually moving to faster paced, more motivating tunes. My pace was slow for a great deal of my run, which was intentional because of the need to keep the focus on endurance. I planned around 30mins of running, considering I ran yesterday, and I knew my body still craved a drink to keep going. As the music tracks changed, I just kept going as I felt my body was coping. Initially, at around 6mins, the arch in my left foot started twinging but this died away after a few mins and I was determined not to stop so quickly anyway. The twinges came back a few times but the heart was pumping so fast, I barely noticed it at times and I switched the music volume to maximum to concentrate on running. Having a lot on my mind is helping me run a lot at the moment, it seems to make me not want to stop and push myself to the limits. I did two laps of a route which had some uphill, though it was an easy gradient by others' standards. Doing the downhill after it seemed to re energise the body, and it was a last minute decision to do that uphill twice in one running session, the desire to push to the limits overrided everything else at that moment. According to fetch, I did 7.57km in 60mins 47secs, a new record for me. The strange thing is, I think I could have kept going for a bit longer, even though the last ten mins were the worst of the whole session, but I felt remarkably okay. The most satisfying thing for me is knowing it was all me and not relying on glucose drinks to get me through it. At the end of the day, as usual, the right calf is niggling away, and I have been advised to follow RICE as a method for fixing the problem. It involves rest and ice, and I guess I hoped the problem would go away by itself but I should pay more attention to it, as massages and hot water haven't made enough of a difference. Interestingly, the right calf doesn't bother me much while I run, it may feel a little heavy at times but generally is not a problem during a session, the discomfort is mostly outwith running. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, despite my feet itching to go out again. I'll sleep on it; having had a great run today, I feel the need to keep pushing myself, because the sooner I nail the endurance, the sooner I can start focusing on speed. And the adrenaline rush and deep thinking time is proving addictive in itself.