The year of the target by kizzi10000

Pete - glad I wasn't the only one who picked up on Rudders actually being polite to me lol.

So it was club night again tonight, and after the hilly run Tuesday, a speed session yesterday, and a wet & windy 3m ride on the bike to the job centre this morning, the legs were really not looking forward to going out again. Especially as the temperature had dropped! It was flippin' freezing!

Things went a little quiet as the route was explained - more hills! And it seemed a fairly long distance (though only 7m when measued once I was home). By the time I'd wondered where the rest of the group was that I ran with Tuesday, there were only 3 of us left! One girl who'd not been back running long and was just building up the distance, and the oldest member of the club. Lovely lady, 70 this year, with a dicky knee.

I was happy plodding along with them though, and was happy to cut the odd loop out to make it shorter. I'm not used to running 3 days in a row,a nd running on the road rather than the springy treadmill had made the hips a little achey. So I didn't want to push things, and treated the run as a recovery run.

First mile or so one of the other chaps ran with s to make sure we were ok, and the ran off to catch up with the others. It was nice to trot along being able to talk properly and realise I'd hardly broken sweat! Not THAT long ago I wouldn't have been able to!

First mile was 11:48 (and it shows how far Iv'e come in the last couple of years if I can now call that ploddy), then a 12:52. After that we started climbing,a nd Annie was finding the hills hard going, so the pace slowed a bit. We were also stopping to walk quite a bit. I was trying not to pull too far ahead as I didn't want anyone to think I wasn't being sociable or anything.

Next 2 miles were 15:47 and 15:16. We were overtaken by other members of the club who had settled into different groups, and by the time most of them had lapped us the legs were startiong to get a bit restless. While they'd appreciated the pace, and it was nice to trot along, with just under a mile to go I politely asked if they would mind if I stretched out a bit. The last 0.74m came in at 9:19 pace,a nd it felt great to give the legs a blast.

I could probably have done the full 7m, it's what I would have done for a hill session had I not done hills on Tuesday, but I am happy with the 4.74 I did. I'm still playing things sensibly, and don't want to push it being cocky thinking I can do more than I can. Legs feel great now, and I managed to find some railings and a wall to do my usual stretching routine, so hopefully tomorrow the hips will have sorted themselves out. It's nothing serious to worry about, but I don't want it GETTING to be anything serious.

So a reast from running tomorrow with just a 3m something cycle down to a cafe in the village to drop my cv in. Noticed today they were looking for staff, so fingers crossed.

Got 13m to do on Saturday - and (shock horror!) I might actually do it outside! Will bring my total miles for the month to over 100. Amazed by that - mainly the fact that I've made myself do it and appear to have had no side effects so far. Just shows how much I've been keeping back 'just in case' because of the times I pushed it in the past when I was fatter and slower, and ended up injured so easily. I must remember that I'm smaller, stronger and faster, with more stamina now, and the body CAN do these things. I just need to have the confidence to push myself out of my comfort zone.