Steady training

Last week I managed to defeat the evils of snow, cold weather and work to complete a week of training pretty much as planned. The most important parts of each week are probably the long run, and making sure I get 4 runs in. I did all that, so success!

It went like this:
Monday: Nothing - should have been strength but I never got round to it ...
Tuesday: Easy run - 4 miles & 30 mins Strength training (from yesterday..)
Wednesday: Fartlek run - 4.2 miles
Thursday: Cycle - 8 miles & 10 mins Strength training
Friday: Long run - 10 miles
Saturday: Easy run - 3.5 miles
Sunday: Rest

So I only did 1 1/2 of the 3 Strength training sessions planned, but as long as I don't follow this pattern every week, it's obviously no big deal. The bike ride was a short one due to time constraints, and also the fact that I was cycling very slowly. The long run was ok, but at an average of 9.23 min/miles, it was a long way from the speed I was running similar distances at last summer. I'm hoping the speed will improve over the coming weeks but I'm not too confident.

On Saturday I was very achey after Friday's 10 miles, but I wanted to go to Eastbourne Parkrun as it was their 1 year anniversary. I had been to the inaugral run last January, but then only made it to 6 more Saturdays since then. We are so often busy at the weekend, and I had definitely intended to go a lot more often than I did in 2012.

But it was great last Saturday. When I arrived there was a huge group of runners, along with a banner at the start and balloons. There was a photographer from the local paper, homemade cake for finishers, and best of all, the sun had come out for a change! The atmosphere was great, and they achieved their aim of beating their record attendance with 132 runners.

My run was my slowest ever, but that was expected. Having run 10 miles less than 24 hours before, it felt like the last 3 miles of a half marathon, and I got round in a leisurely, enjoyable 28 minutes something. I'm really glad I went, and I'm going to make it another goal of 2013 to go more often.

Waving hello to the photographer

The other thing I did last week was see my physio, and she declared my left leg (giving me pain since November), much better. The stretches she gave me have really been working - hooray!