The amazing free gym at Stratford Town Hall has a selection of instruments of torture which I mostly shun but it does boast a running track, two lanes circulating high above the basketball court. Walkers (the vast majority) go in one direction on the inner lane while runners (seldom more than a couple) pound the outer lane in the opposite direction.
The recent dirty weather has sent me indoors for my exercise and I have been reacquainting myself with Stratford's generous facility. It's a short track, very short, which means four tight-ish bends. One lap is 140.8 yards, so 12.5 laps are exactly one mile. To achieve any great overall distance requires lapping numerous times, a rather boring prospect, but one which provides relief from the misery of sub zero road running.
This week I have been lured to the track twice, each time running 78 laps, or 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometres. How do I know? I counted them in my head! These are my first runs indoors at that distance and I was astonished to blow two minutes off my best outdoor time. Today I ran the 10k in 52 minutes 50 seconds. I think this has something to do with a total lack of hills or wind, neither of which seem to cancel each other out outdoors even on a circular route.
I could wear my iPod but I might get engrossed and lose the lap count which, for an accuracy obsessed Virgo, would be infuriating!
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