Training

My knee continues to improve – after the last run it felt almost totally fine the morning after, and today it was a lot longer in to the run before it began to ache. Nonetheless I decided to stay cautious and keep this run to just two miles. I treated myself to some new running shoes today. After trying a few different pairs on the shop treadmill I settled on some Nike Free 4.0 V2s – so far I’m really pleased with them, but looking forward to hopefully trying them out on some longer runs next week once my knee is sorted.

Unfortunately while my knee didn’t give me too much trouble during the Bupa 10K the day afterwards it ached quite a bit, so I decided to give it a few days to recover before attempting any further running. Unfortunately those few days expanded to over a week as my knee just refused to get better as quickly as I wanted. After a few days with barely a twinge from it I decided to give it a go this morning with a short jog around the River Severn near where my parents live. By the end it was aching a little, but a quick blast in a cold shower and some ibuprofen gel soon sorted that out. It’s hurt a little over the day, but as I speak now (10pm in the evening) it’s returned to being pain free. Hopefully this means it’s on the road to recovery. All being well I hope to attempt a longer run on Thursday.

I’ve spent the week worried, stuck between a rock and a hard place – both wanting to rest my knee ahead of my 10K race on Sunday, and also not wanting to let my training waste away by missing my final sessions. With my knee finally twinge free today I headed out for a short run to test it out and also make sure I was clear of the breathing trouble I had on Monday. Thankfully despite the heat I managed a decent pace without any major issues, which has boosted my confidence for Sunday. A nice quiet rest day tomorrow, and then time for my first ever running race. How exciting!

Since my last real fast run last Tuesday, my performance seems to have taken a real nose dive. My knee is almost completely fine now, with just the slightest ache after this run, but I really struggled to keep up the pace and had to take a breather at just short of three miles. I have had a slight cough so hopefully it’s just related to that.

I guess all I can do is take it easy for another couple of days and hope for the best. Having gone from hitting my race target to struggling after half the distance is rather disheartening though. I don’t have time to do another 10K before Sunday’s race now, so hopefully a good 5K run in a few days will help restore my confidence.

Was going to be a 10K at around 8 min/mile pace, but my knee was twinging slightly, so didn’t want[…]