A steady six

Another good month following the training plan although the last couple of days have seen a slight hiccup by way of a sore and achey knee.

Each weekend has seen me increase my 'long run' by 5 or 10 minutes and on Monday I finally reached the 6 mile mark with my longest run to date of 70 minutes.  The run itself felt great on the whole apart from a sudden niggly pain in my right knee that started around the 4 mile point.  This actually got a lot worse whilst running downhill so I decided to take it easy at this point and walk for a short spell.  I managed to carry on running again after but my knee has not been too good since.  I decided to give today's training run a miss which was a bit disappointing as I'm really enjoying the new club runs with Cobra on Wednesday nights, but I did go for a half hour dog walk instead which freed things up a little bit.

I think that perhaps my new hill work on Wednesday nights plus the increased distance is not agreeing with my joints so I guess I just need to take it steady for a while.  I've entered the DK10K on the 2nd May so I have plenty of time yet.  I'm pleased that my breathing and stamina seem so much better so that's a start a least.  My aim is to be able to run a steady 8 miles by the time my race comes around, that way, 10K should feel at least comfortable.....I hope :-/

Here's this months results:

February 2012

Runs to date: 11
Walks to date: 11
Hikes to date: 0
Miles during Feb: 54.3 miles
Workout time during Feb: 12 hrs 30 mins
Calories burnt during Feb: 4892

And the running continues

Went for my first run last night with Cobra Running and Triathlon Club and had a great time.  'P' already runs with them 2 or 3 times a week but I'm not quite up to his level.......yet. So when I heard they were starting up their beginners group again on Wednesday evenings I thought this was my chance to give it a try.

Although a little nervous, I was made to feel very welcome when I arrived.  The run started out from the local leisure centre where we headed out for about half a mile before doing some rather nasty hill sprints.  Hill sprints were a new thing to me and get this.....I actually quite enjoyed them, although my legs were quite jellified after!  (Yes I know that's not a word, but I know what it means).  From here we continued our run, stopping every now and then for the slower ones, ie. me, to catch up.  In total we did just over 4 miles which included a pretty horrific incline for about a mile.  I was quite surprised how far we'd run and when I got back and checked my pace on Runkeeper I'd actually run quicker than normal too.

It makes such a difference running in a group environment.  Everyone was so encouraging and friendly and the mix of stops and starts, hills and sprints made it all the more  interesting.  It felt so much better than my long Sunday plods that just seem to go on forever and never end.

Really disappointed that I won't be able to be there next week as I'm off to the theatre but can't wait to take part again the week after.  I holding out high hopes that training with Cobra will bring my running on no end and help me to achieve better times for 5 and 10k along with increasing my stamina to allow me to run even greater distances.

The rest of my training is going well.  Still running with Jane twice a week and my weekend run this Sunday will hopefully be up to 60 - 65 mins.  My breathing and stamina seems to have improved a bit although due to a cough I've struggled a bit over the last week.  Things should be back to normal though soon.