A lazy week

After the half marathon excitement on Sunday I was brought down to earth with a bump the next day when I could barely move my legs. There was no chance of any exercise for me on Monday, as I struggled getting up and down the stairs. I had the DOMs as bad as after the marathon!

On Tuesday my legs didn't feel much better, but I attempted a bike ride anyway. It was quite windy and cold, and whenever I came to an uphill, my legs reminded me how tired they were. I did 8.3 miles before giving my thighs a rest.

By Wednesday morning, my legs felt a bit better, and I ran 3 miles in the morning, although my thighs were still not back to normal!

Then I decided to have my 'long run' on Friday afternoon, as Emma was at nursery. After all the training and the Half Marathon, I chose to keep the distance down to 6 miles. I thought I deserved a rest, and that cutting back on mileage now I can is a good way to avoid getting any injury reoccurances.

Well I surprised myself. I set off down a flattish cycle path, ran for 3 miles to a duck pond, ran around it and turned back. It was a pleasnt run with just a bit of wind, and I could see that my mile splits were fairly good, but it wasn't until I stopped my Garmin after 6.2 miles that I realised how good. I had run 10k in 53m30s - over a minute faster than my all-time PB! A PB that was set in 2009 on a fast downhill course!















The last 10k race I did - last year, on the comeback trail from the heel thing - was in a time of about 58 mins, so I just can't believe how much my fitness has improved! Needless to say I spent the next hour or so on the computer looking for a 10K race to do soon!

I suppose this improvement is down to consistent training. I ran 4 times every week for 9 weeks in a row, and stuck to all my long run distances as planned. It seems to have paid off.

However, I've messed that up now, as last week I only managed 3 runs. This was partly due to DOMS, partly to some freelance work I've been doing (when I could be running), and partly to Pete having a heavy week at work and coming home too late for me to run. So I'm a bit disappointed with my run tally, and a total of 13.5 miles but thrilled with my speed!