Last week’s report can be found here.

Weekly Training:

This week I had planned 7 sessions; 5 runs, 1 Yoga session and 1 weights session.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Weights	Club Run	Run	Club Run	Yoga	Parkrun	Long Run

Monday 4^th March:

I hate missing a Monday workout as it just sets a bad tone for the week. Still, that is what ended up happening today. I suck at being injured! Instead of making the most of a bad situation by focusing on weights or strengthening exercises, I just feel disheartened at not being able to run. Even though Monday isn’t usually a run day, I still felt disappointed to be suffering with my knee. My half marathon is looming and training had been going well, so I was feeling a bit down. As such, I decided to “reward” myself with a day off…

Tuesday 5^th March:

My knee wasn’t feeling any better, but that didn’t stop me from remaining optimistic about running. I took my duffel bag filled with my running gear to work with me, hoping to be able to attend my club session on the evening. This plan was soon cut short as I struggled to climb the stairs to work. On my lunch break I promptly ordered a knee brace from eBay in an attempt to support my knee and speed up recovery.

Wednesday 6^th March:

Half of me was really tempted to attempt a run on the treadmill. To my surprise, my knee brace had arrived when I got home from work. I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk of making my knee worse and to spend another day resting.

Thursday 7^th March:

Tonight was supposed to be a run with my club, and whilst my knee felt better in general, I was still struggling to navigate the stairs. As such, I opted to take another day out. However, when I got home I felt a bit guilty that I hadn’t trained at all so far this week. In an effort to resolve this I completed a spontaneous 15 minute bodyweight session.

• 2×10 Push Ups
• 1×30 Bicycle Crunches
• 1×10 Squats
• 1×10 Triceps Dips
• 1×10 Side Lunges
• 1×10 Back Lunges
• 1×10 Glute Bridges
• 1×20 Side Planks
• 1x 60 second Plank
• 1×10 Clam Sit Ups
• 1x 60 second Wall Sit

It wasn’t the most rigorous of workouts, and my knee struggled with the lunges. The squats and the wall hold weren’t too bad. I know that I need to spend more time strengthening my glutes, hips, knees and core, but I just can’t stick to a routine. Really I should be doing some key exercises a few times a week, even if it is just a short circuit. I don’t know why, but I just find it boring, even if I put my music on. My attitude towards strength training does need to improve as I need to iron out my joint weaknesses and imbalances to minimise the risk of further injuries.

Friday 8^th March:

Still licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself as I hadn’t been able to run all week, what better way to feel better than to take another day off? Yesterday I did some light bodyweight work, but it was only 15 minutes, so definitely not strenuous! The silver lining was that I was going to attempt Parkrun on Saturday.

Saturday 9^th March:

I’ve never been so happy for Parkrun day! Chris was also going to be running today, so I decided that I would just run with him as I didn’t want to stress my knee out too much. The weather wasn’t on our side as it was raining really heavily.

We set off on the klaxon and I instantly started to regret my decision to run. I had a sharp pain in my right kneecap. It was the first time I had ever felt like pulling out of a Parkrun. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was already soaked, I probably would have! I decided to push on at a slower than usual pace. At this point Chris had passed me. I made it up the first hill climb in some discomfort, however it seemed to pass as I reached the top and was back on the flat ground. By this point I had also managed to catch Chris back up, so we were just running alongside each other. I’m not sure if the pain stopped, or if I had simply gone numb to it.

The first lap was horrendous with the rain. I couldn’t see where I was running for most of it. My eyes actually hurt from the sharp rain hitting my face so hard. We also had a lot of puddles to avoid on the course. Midway through the second lap the weather started to change drastically. Gone was the rain, and now the sun was even starting to make an appearance. The damage had already been done though as we were both soaked through!

We finished in 34:47 (34:49 for Chris) and even managed a bit of a sprint finish race at the end. I enjoyed running with Chris, and was glad that I managed to run the entire distance without having to stop or walk. I’m now hopeful at being able to run tomorrow, even if it’s not very far.

Sunday 10^th March:

Yesterday afternoon my cousin text me to ask if I wanted to run with her today. She advised that she wanted to do 8 or 9 miles, which would be her furthest ever distance and that it would be slower than I usually run. I didn’t mind either of these things as I wasn’t sure if my knee would be up for a long, long run and a slower pace may be beneficial to help it recover.

We set out at 10am and ran towards the canal path. It was exactly a mile to the canal and then we headed towards Walsall town. There were a few walk breaks thrown in, and a lot of complaining on her part, but I enjoyed it. Some of my favourite quotes were:

• “This jacket makes a lot of noise and it’s annoying”.
• “I’ll be the sacrifice, you carry on running” – this is when a strange man seemed to be following us and closing the distance behind us.
• “I need to take my jacket off”, followed shortly with “I need to put my jacket on”.
• “Ooh, a condom!”.
• A serious of strange, labour like noises… “aaargh”, “uuurgh”, etc.

We also managed to avoid most of the rain. The wind, however, was another story! The way into Walsall wasn’t too bad as the wind was mainly behind us, but the way back was tough due to the headwind and cross winds.

All in all, we ran 9 miles in 2:10:51. Excluding some of the inclines, my knee held up well. I’m still getting the sharp pain when I climb hills or occasionally up the stairs though. This makes me nervy about attending my running club next week as every route they run involves hills.

Weekly Summary:

Total Miles = 12.1

Training Hours = 2:57:12

Positives = there really isn’t much that I can take from this week in a positive sense… my knee feels slightly better, so hopefully it still feels okay next week.

Negatives = I think this week speaks for itself here… only 2 runs and 1 short bodyweight session. No club runs either. Definitely lower mileage than I wanted, but hopefully it allowed my knee to heal a little.

Next Week = I’m hoping to run 25 miles across the week. It’s my taper week before my half marathon on the 24^th. I didn’t really have a goal time for this half marathon, and judging by this week and my knee issue, that may be a good thing! If my knee holds up I might increase my planned Sunday long run from 7 miles to a bit further, but we will have to wait and see.