05 January 2011

Legs that feel like I'm running on mud!

Woke up this morning and looked out of our loft conversion window to a beautiful blue sky and a blazing Venus.


I find starting morning runs quite difficult at times, once I'm going it's often the best time but the first half a mile!  This morning the beautiful sky helped a bit, my dog's expectant eyes helped a lot. So off I went, plodding the first mile with my faithful dog.  Things gradually improved, a bit; so I plodded faster, a little faster.

One of the good things about Janathon is that it has helped me to focus less on pace and speed, and instead to listen to my body a little more. With high mileage running I'm concentrating on keeping my running smooth, trying to minimise any jolting and ultimately try and save my knees. Yes, my legs have ached and still ache a bit (quite a bit), but my knees seem to be okay. My runs are slower and I'm less inclined to push fast because I keep thinking 'How does it feel? Am I pushing too much?' It's all a new experience and I hope it goes okay but if I have any problems and I end up having to reduce the mileage - that will be okay, hard but okay.

Part of my run took me across a field which was (not surprisingly) muddy.  The mud slowed my progress further and I realised later that most of my run felt like degrees of crossing that muddy field.  Almost all my runs I end up running to a point and then turning round, the photo below is the muddy field I crossed, it doesn't look quite so muddy as it was!



The last couple of miles actually got better and I did some strides near the end.  Morning run was 6 miles.

A couple of hours after that I had a phone call from a panicked chaperone asking me where my son was as he had to be on stage in half an hour (he was at school).  My youngest son is in Peter Pan at a theatre about 20 minutes away, he was at school 10 minutes away.  We had not been told his schedule had been changed.  Phoned up the school, grabbed his kit, dashed out the door, picked him up and got him there 5 minutes after the curtain went up - stressed! Fortunately he was on only on stage 20 minutes into the show, sigh! 

It's times like these that I need a stress reliever - running.  So I got back to work, grabbed some food while I was working and went off for another run.  Sadly this run was in the rain.  I was a bit easier than the morning but the last couple miles were harder, I should have had more to eat or grabbed a gel.  Afternoon run was 7 miles.

13 miles today so that means that I've now reached 62 miles(ish) which I think is 100km(ish) - I'm very pleased.  I'm also very tired so I must get to bed.  I am really enjoying the Janathon experience and the blogs are great.

2 comments:

auswomble said...

yep, you hit 100k first, great work! Nice pics too. Happy running

buryblue said...

Lovely photo of Venus

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