October 2013

Month 2 of this blog...and it's day 1 so I'll start off with my goals for the month...

17th October
Soooo...I'm gonna try again, a 10km run back from my german lesson to home. Fingers crossed eh?

Well, I managed it. Things were touch at go at the start, my right leg still felt heavy but I slowed the pace, and kept it slow, and kept going. In the end it took me 1 hour 10 minutes to get home (my course PB is 1 hour 2 mins). What's kinda weird is that, having finished, it's my left foot that's iffy...not my right leg. It feels like I've got metatarsals again although it's no where near as bad as it was. Tomorrow's a rest day so I'll see how I feel on Saturday.

Monthly Goal (160km) 99km remain.

15th October 4km
Not as far as I'd intended but after 4km my right lower leg was starting to wood up - I know that doesn't make much sense medically so...well, it didn't feel responsive - it felt as though everything between my right knee and right ankle was made of wood....so I cut the run short (it was meant to be about 10km). I don't think I need to rest it as such, so I'll maybe run tomorrow night and/or Thursday. Anyway, 4km is 4km. I gotta say though - my monthly goal is gonna need some significant attention paying to it in the second half of the month.

Monthly Goal (160km) - 109km remain.

10th October 21km
A slow short run that turned into a "slightly" longer run than intended. Overall very slow but I'm OK with that as I'm more focussed on getting the miles back up right now. I'm actually writing this the morning after and, as I sit here, I can certainly feel my calves throbbing. A lot of stretching will be needed today me thinks.

Monthly Goal (160km) - 113km remain..

8th October 11km
Had a nice 11km run tonight. From the Prater, to the end of the Hauptalle, back down and then ran home. Ran with Lila for most of the run, nice and slow but still enough to work up a good sweat. She bailed out at the 9km mark and I upped the pace back to Swedensplatz. Went from running a KM between 8 and 11 mins per to just over 5 minutes per. Felt good.

Monthly Goal (160km) - 134km to go.

3rd October
Goal 2 achieved and in a new PB time of 25 minutes 52.7 seconds so that merits a "woohoo!".
As for my first goal - well, I've just gotten back from a 10k run in a pretty reasonable time so that's a good start. If I include Tuesday's run that's 15km down, 145km to go.

Last month I'd set myself a target to run 180km by the end of the September but I failed. I only managed 126. Plenty of excuses but none of them real. Anyhoo, as a result, I'm gonna knock 20km off the amount and try again so - if you're wondering why, it's cos I add 20km when I make a goal, subtract when I don't. I've successfully completed three of these things since June (a 120, a 140 and a 160km) and the 180km goal was my first failure. Still, as the Germans would never say "Scheiße passieren"

Goal Numero Uno - run 160km by the end of October. I'll get back to my 4 runs every 9 days - 3 x "normal" and 1 x LSR (it's the LSR I really want to get back to) starting Thursday the 3rd*. I'll take it easy at first, as I don't want to have metatarsals again so I play 3 x 7km and 1 x 11km for the first week.

*If you're wondering why the 3rd and not today...that leads me on to..

Goal Number Duo - run the Vienna Night Run 5km (that's tonight!) race in a PB time. That means 29.04 or quicker. It'll be my first official time and it's gonna be awesome! 17,000 runners, setting off in 5 waves. More to follow.

And that's it.....for now.