This is a blog recording my training toward running a marathon following two years of injury.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Bit of pain, but seems OK
Distance: 2 miles Time: 14:32 Pace: 7:16 per mile
After my run at the end of last week I had a bit of pain in my knee. It was in the same knee as I suffered ITBS recently and I initially thought it was a recurrence of that problem. However, after a bit of prodding I established that the pain was below the knee, right at the top of the calf, rather than above the knee on the outside as previously. Anyway, I took that as my body telling me that I should bring forward my planned cutback week. That, combined with a week working away from home, means I only got back out on Friday. Thankfully the knee felt OK and I did a short, sharp two miles at a fast pace - which felt tough. I'll go for a run this evening and, if there's no reaction to that from the knee, I'll get back into things properly next week.
The weather's still awful here but I couldn't face another treadmill session so ventured outside. Because it was so gusty I just concentrated on keeping a steady rhythm and didn't pay any attention to the watch.
Next week I'll turn the 4 miler into a semi-long run, which should take me to 30-ish miles for the week. The following week I think I'll cut the mileage back a little since I'll have had 4 weeks consecutive increases (albeit very small ones). That'll take me to the beginning of February, and I think I'll begin a period of base training then, starting from 35 miles a week off 5 runs. I'll draw up a provisional training schedule shortly.
The weather is absolutely awful here again - so stormy that its difficult to stand up against some of the gusts of wind. So it was the treadmill this evening after work for 6 miles.
Distance 5.95 miles (hit stop too soon) Time: 48:04 Pace: 8:04/mile
6 miles this evening after work. This run felt good - I ran the first 5 miles fairly steady (quicker than a recovery run but slower than a threshold run) and then picked it up for the last mile. My breathing was much more relaxed than it has been since starting up again, and that probably just reflects that I have a few weeks of running (albeit low mileage) under my belt now.
The weather has calmed down a bit so I headed out for a pleasant early evening run earlier on today. I deliberately picked up the pace a little just to mix things up after a couple of weeks of very steady running. I didn't push very hard, but still managed to run quite comfortably at close to 8 minute mile-ing, so I'm quite pleased with that. Milage for the week was a grand total of 19 (6.5 + 6 + 6.5). Next week I think I'll add a short fourth day, and the week after that I'll probably turn that 4th day into a semi-long run. If I can get through that I'll probably start relaxing about me knee. My plan is still to embark on a 6 week base-building at the beginning of February.
I decided to take an extra day's rest before today's run. As JoggerBlogger says, what is with running on treadmills giving you sore legs?
Thanks to everyone for stopping by the blog recently.
It was still stormy yesterday so I decided to make for the gym for an evening run. Its been a long time since I ran much more than 25 minutes on a treadmill and I'm assuming that, along with my general lack of running lately, explains why the lower part of my legs are feeling so beat up to day (not quite the calf area, slightly lower than that).
So I'll make no apologies for having a bit of a grumble about my run today, half of which was in to the teeth of a gale and driving rain. I've lost one of my gloves too so my poor hands were freezing by the end. Having said that, I felt surprisingly in control throughout the whole run - it was probably the strongest I've felt since starting training again.
