28th April - Gently Gently....in my own kinda way

With the knee still just gently reminding me that things are not 100% I delayed my next run until this morning. If I get through today with no change in pain, then I'll run again tomorrow night. With just over a week from GTR, there is no point trying to push the boundaries.

In order to avoid a hilly course, I drove to Lillydale Lake, then after about 1/4 lap, I left the lake to run into the Lakeside Estate.....the hilly Lakeside Estate :? I know I know, its a sickness....
Anyway, there was really only 2 long climbs, then I knew it would be out of my system.

After the success of the midway stretch last run, I did the same today after about 30min. As I was stretching, I realised I used to do this during my last injury comeback. Then after the stretch I realised how much freer the legs are after a mid run stretch, and if I wasn't watching the watch so much normally I might do it regularly.....mental note, when its just a training run, its OK to stop and stretch, since it feels great in the second half!!

At this point I was in the wetlands, which unfortunately are pretty dry in the top end, so headed back to the Lake. I knew I'd tested the leg in the hills, now it was time to test the leg under pace pressure.

Once back on the lake trail, its a 2.5km loop, the plan was to see if I could hold sub 4min pace. I resisted the urge to take splits and push based on times, so I just ran with effort.
It felt good early, but the second half was a bit of a struggle, I'm sure the pace dropped a little there.
1 lap down in 9m32s (3m48s/km), I think it might be a pb, but I've not often time trialled the lake.
After a 38m warm-up at 4m45s including hills, I was happy with this result, knowing that I could have backed off by 28s and still made my goal.

Overall distance about 11km with 49min of running. Pretty happy with that.

Knee: no pain when running, just gentle reminders every now and then. Post run, no change. So I'll keep stretching, rubbing, anti inflam this week.







Shoes: Perseus