Tuesday I was out for my regular 2 mile easy/recovery run. I was a bit anxious after feeling tired at the end of the previous week but I was surprised to find myself running at a reasonable 10:50 pace. This gave me confidence for Thursday's tempo run, only 3 miles with the middle mile at race pace - 9:40 - but another reasonable effort. Sunday is LSR day and I've now reached the dizzy heights of 4 miles. I'm keen to run this nice and slowly and also to ensure I don't go off too quickly so I was delighted with miles of 11:20, 11:20, 11:18, and 11:16. Although once again there were a few aches and pains in the legs for the last half mile or so, I'm pleased to have completed a 45 minute run, and pleased also to have upped my weekly mileage to 9 miles.

Running is both a mental and physical challenge for me at the moment - the encouragement I receive from comments on my posts are really helpful so a big thank you for all those! Physically it's a challenge because the legs seem to be finding it a struggle - whether it's age catching up with me or just natural that after a 4 month break that it takes a while to reach a good base level of fitness, I'm not sure. There are just no easy runs for me at the moment. The mental challenge is more to do with the fear of breaking down again - and I think that is the reason why I'm so concerned about the tiredness in my legs towards the end of a run - I'm really nervous about pulling the calf again. Having had it go 4 times in a year, any ache in that area always causes anxiety - and it's usually when I'm tired or straining to maintain a tempo pace that the calf goes. So one thing I've decided to do is a little strengthening work on my non-running days - nothing too strenuous - just to try and give myself a bit more confidence that it won't go again.

Enjoy your running!