The Big Freeze

Interval Training - 30 minutes
6 repeats of 3 minutes at effort 4 followed by 2 minutes jog recovery at effort 1

plus, 4.6 miles in 37:13
Route: DfES – Home 1

As Laura Pask used to say, it’s nipsy noo nah outside today. This was the view from my bedroom window this morning:


Not exactly hospitable conditions for a marathon runner, but I have been slacking again (no running since the weekend due to a brief but boozy ‘Lads Tour of Duty’ with Saunders and Bury – welcome back mate!) so I dutifully hauled my kit to work and prepared to go interval training, my second least favourite training activity behind threshold running.

I decided to do laps around St James Park because it’s near to work and has a wide and flat path running around the perimeter. I wore my tasteful new running leggings (complete with London Marathon ’07 logo!) to keep off the cold and make me look like a ‘serious’ runner. Was too chicken to join the Serpentine Club track session for fear of looking like an idiot.

All in all the interval training went ok. It was hard work, but the course around St James Park was good and allowed plenty of room to manoeuvre. I lost count of how many circuits of the park I did, but I lapped a bewildered pair of policemen three of four times before I was done.

Afterwards I decided to jog home at a slow pace. It was ok, but I wonder if I was pushing my luck a little here. The speed training used up a lot of energy so I had to keep it pretty slow and steady. Legs felt tired.

Knee is still only at around 70%. It’s coping better than it did, but it was sore tonight after the run. Saw my osteo yesterday morning. She still thinks I’m doing ok, but would prefer it if I didn’t still have pain. She has identified my ‘TFL’ (can’t remember what it stands for) as the problem. She massaged my knee and bent my leg back over my head again. She also gave me another exercise to do:

Clock squats – standing facing forward, imagine a clock face around you with 12 o’clock directly ahead. Keeping your right leg straight, step forward with your left foot to 11 o’clock and squat down half way, then repeat at 10, 9, 8, 7 o’clock – always keeping your body forward so that you work different parts of the knee. For 6 o’clock, do a single leg squat.

I’ve never known my morning routine to take so long – all these stretching exercises (I think I’m up to 6 now) take ages. I used to be out of bed and to school in 20 minutes, now it’s more like an hour – and believe me people, it doesn’t take long to wash my hair…

In other news, I am thinking of tinkering with my training plan. I’ve followed it pretty closely so far, but I’m worried that I might not be clocking up enough miles. Stamina in my legs is a problem, so am considering adding a long run each week on Wednesday, with the club. Might try it once or twice and see how it feels – don’t want to overdo it.

Planning an 11 miler around Richmond Park with Stephen on Sunday. Will try and squeeze in a hill session before then.

Looking back up my street on the way to work this morning - look at all the snow!