Aiming for Athens - week 9

This was the first week when I wasn't able to fit in all three of the scheduled running sessions. It turned out to be good week anyway.

Tuesday: - Nothing -. A busy first half of the week made it impossible to get the time needed for exercise. But when thinking it over, maybe it wasn't all bad. Maybe it was good to get a few days extra rest time after the challenging run I did last Sunday when I finished on aching knees.

Thursday: Even if most of my runs have been very enjoyable, this was one of the most fun. I brought the recorder and recorded some audio for the podcast. I chose roads where I found shelter from the wind and ended up in an area where I've never been before. The "new" area turned out to be very beautiful and there were so many nice paths and small roads that I had some trouble finding my way back home again. Eventually I sighted a familiar road and then it didn't take me too long to enter my home, tired but very uplifted and happy. I'll go back there shortly to explore more of the environment. The run turned out a bit longer (13km/8miles) than planned especially since my intention was to run a short distance at an easy pace to see how the knees held up. But I didn't feel any pain or discomfort in the knee area so that was all good.

Sunday: According to the plan I was supposed to run mile repeats today but since I'm not training for speed and it is also a bit difficult to run mile repeats when living in a metric part of the world and I don't have easy access to a stadium track. Anyway I decided to train for strength rather than speed and looked up my "hill" from week 5. I followed the same routine that I had come up with then including picking up a pebble for each completed run up - jog down - walk break. The pebbles helps me keep track of how many times I've done the exercise. This time I did 15 repetitions and felt good. I could probably have done a couple more but for the last two I did have to put some effort to it so I figured it was time for a longer walk break and then a slow and easy run towards home. Before I left the area I put my pebbles on the same tree stump as I did last time. It is fun to see the tiny pile building up but I hope my muscles build up quicker. Maybe I'll use bigger stones next time for a more inspiring effect.

Total distance for the week ended up at 25.3km/15.7miles which I think is pretty good since I missed out on one of the training days.