Monday's club night was the Kings Heath route, which is quite gentle as BvH routes go but with a couple of climbs up Cartland Road on the way out and Mary Vale on the way back. In any case this was never going to be a quick one but my legs felt relatively good, except for an occasional twinge on the outside of my right knee. I'd noticed a bit of tightness there before during my post workout stretches and in yoga, but I have only just started to realise it is a bit tight in the early stages of a run too.
I had intended to go to my Iyengar yoga class on Tuesday but instead decided to visit some friends and then take my Mum out for supper for her birthday, so I did a DVD at home on Tuesday morning; Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown, which is a bit of a revved up Vinyasa style yoga. It's only half an hour but it's quite a good workout with some balance poses as well as strength and a bit of cardio too. I think Jillian is a great trainer, having used her DVDs and followed her on the podcast and the Biggest Loser TV show. She's also an inspiring person and I recently had the pleasure of seeing her live. She's become a bit more of a self-help guru lately but I find her really interesting when she talks about health and nutrition; and she's really passionate about things like dealing with the obesity crisis in the US.
On Wednesday it was back to the medium-long run, and this time I tried to gradually increase my pace over the first five miles and then reduce it gradually in the second half. I ran out along the canal towards Dickens Heath which is a muddier route than heading in towards Birmingham, so I had my trail shoes on. I had a few issues with my watch on this run so it was difficult to get the pacing right - I think breaking the run into three sections rather than mile by mile would be easier. I listened to some good interviews on the Marathon Talk podcast which really helped to pass the time, but again I was conscious of my knee and felt glad that I had my sports massage booked. I've written about sports massage and other ways I'm trying to avoid injury here.
Thursday was a really busy day, filling in loads of forms for my new job and taking Jess to the vets. I was looking forward to the session at club and had virtually forgotten about my knee as it felt fine on my dog walk during the day. The session was mile reps which was a good fit with my training in keeping with my plan to do a bit of work on my speed over the next 3-4 weeks. During the warm up my knee felt really quite sore though, and I was beginning to question whether I should be running at all, let alone doing the efforts. My thoughts began to run away with me... "I can't believe this is happening again, I'm going to have to stop just when I've put in all this training..." Fortunately one of my club mates, who is also doing Manchester and has battled back from a very nasty injury after falling off a climbing wall, was there to put things into perspective and advised me not to get carried away, but just to see how it felt and back off if necessary. On the second effort it felt much better - in fact, the harder I ran the less it bothered me, and by the third effort I couldn't feel it. I did four in the end and although I was a bit disappointed that my splits weren't better, I definitely felt like I was working hard, although I couldn't keep up with those around me who are a similar pace. I took some advice from Margaret and had a good stretch afterwards and used the foam roller too.
On Friday morning my knee felt good but I didn't want to risk a load of squats and lunges as I had planned, so instead I did a DVD which focussed on upper body and core strength, followed by a good 15 minute yoga stretch. This is from the Davina Fit DVD which is one I use regularly. I got the foam roller out again too, which seemed to help. The rest of the day was pretty busy with lots of errands to run and cleaning the house too; my iPhone Health App reckons I did 24 flights of stairs which is pretty high for a supposed rest day (and I think I left the phone downstairs on a couple of trips too!) By 8pm I felt tired and ready for UKrunchat hour - an hour of tweeting all things running... Good fun while you're resting tired legs! Just follow the hashtag UKrunchat.
I had a long run of about 18 miles planned for Saturday, meeting a good pal from my running club and incorporating Cannon Hill parkrun too. We had a great chat passing the time and the miles, incorporating three parks (Kings Heath, Highbury and Cannon Hill) as well as sections of the canal and Rea Valley on a crisp, dry day but it was much colder than I was expecting. I'd planned to run at approximately 10 minute mile pace but Strava thinks it was more like 9:15... My legs felt shot at 15 so perhaps it was just a bit too fast. Good job there's 8 days to recover before the Ashby 20-mile race.
The lovely Barbara Partridge was Run Director at parkrun and she kindly have me a This Girl Can keyring just before the start, which gave me a boost! It looks good next to my parkrun barcode, doesn't it? It would be nice to have another crack at my parkrun PB soon, but at the moment it just isn't fitting in with my other plans.
In Wolverhampton on Sunday for Mother's Day, I had a leisurely start but wanted to try out my new Hoka One One shoes on a short recovery run. (I'll do a full review soon). My knee felt a bit niggly again so I kept it to just four miles, although again my pace was a bit quicker than it felt. Lots of friends were racing over the weekend and there were some impressive performances and PBs for a few. Just five weeks until my marathon in Manchester and six weeks before the London Marathon, everyone seems to be peaking and/or struggling with injuries.
Starting my new job tomorrow so a good week's training logged this week is a confidence booster as I'm not sure how my usual routine will fare next week. Fingers crossed my knee will settle down a bit too and I'll be able to get some good rest in.
Photo courtesy of Geoff Hughes, Cannon Hill parkrun.
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