Results

Running is definitely improving a lot now. My Parkrun times are consistently sub 21 in the last few weeks and they are feeling reasonably comfortable (for high effort, at least). Last weekend I ran a 13km race on Sunday and came in at 58:30. I paced it horribly and set off way too fast over a a hilly route that I hadn’t tapered for, so I was very pleased at keeping a solid 4:30/km pace over that distance.

I’m starting do to a bit more speed work now to try bring my Parkrun times down. Last week I did 3x1km repeats but I think I need shorter intervals too. Over a shorter interval you can get your speed up much higher, which means your legs turn over faster with a longer stride length. That’s what speed is – how long your stride length is and how many strides you’re taking per second. I think 1km intervals are too long to work on pushing those things. This week I’m going to try the 3x1km then after a few minutes rest I’ll do 2x400m then 4x200m. Let’s see how that goes…

The bad news is my foot (neuroma?) has been twinging a little bit yesterday but I think it’s just that my calf gets tight. It was kind of tingling yesterday morning like someone was prodding it gently with a needle, but then I stood up and realised my ankle was quite stiff in that way that it relaxes pretty quickly when you stretch it. I went to a physio about this last year and he recommended lots of calf stretching because he thought my windlass mechanism wasn’t working properly due to calf tightness and I was overpronating as a result. He also thought I didn’t actually have a neuroma, though I do get neurological symptoms so the distinction is a bit academic at the moment. Well, I was overpronating on that side and I could see it from the wear under the big toe on the insole in my running shoes. In my current shoes I’ve run about 500km and there’s no obvious wear, probably because I’ve been stretching a lot. Though the left calf is still a lot weaker than the right and it tends to cramp after about 25 calf raises. So I need to be a little careful but I think it’s manageable.

In other news… Goodness me, finances! So, inflation is crazy. And July is salary review time. Somehow I just can’t see my employer matching inflation, and if not, I won’t be able to shake the perception that I’m moving backwards by taking a pay cut. I flicked on the “open to offers” thing on LinkedIn yesterday and I’ve received about 25 messages from recruiters since then. Quite a few of those are junk, but even so, there’s no reason to accept sub-inflation pay adjustments.

To be honest though I hate interviewing, and now I have Monty I have less free time because he needs so much supervision. It is like having a baby, really. Yesterday on Hacker News there was a thread from someone who said they were struggling to recruiter senior developers and listed their interview process. It had three actual talking-to-people interview stages plus a “4 hour” take home test (which in reality could be anywhere from 2 hours to several days). Everyone in the comments was pointing out how silly this was for people with responsibilities outside of work. But that’s the minefield of interviewing and it’s what puts me off.