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I haven’t ran for 5 days, my hip is still sore, but it is improving although slowly. I haven’t been completely resting though as I have to work, and work involves being on my feet for a 13 hr shift and walking to and from work (but only 3 days a week). The next few days should be more relaxed im not sure if I should go for a gentle run today and see what happens or leave it for a few more days before returning to running, after all a whole week off wouldn’t be a tragedy.
Well I went out for a gentle run. I just couldn’t resist and whether it was a good idea or not, well time will tell. I only ran for a little under a mile at around 11.30 minutes per mile pace which felt slow and I was very aware of how my body and my hips in particular where feeling. I went out without my mp3 player which was a pleasant change, and sometime I think I should do more often.
I’m sore, not too bad but that tempo run the other day has aggravated my left hip. I’m stupid really as it was feeling a bit sensitive and I pushed myself when I should have just been taking it easy. Never mind though I guess we all make mistakes, and if I learn from this one it won’t be a wasted experience.
Looking back at my log this hip pain reared its ugly head again about two weeks ago, although it has been an issue for the past month or so. My plan is to take a few days off and then plateau my mileage till it dies down and avoid running too hard for some time. I was planning on doing my first race in about a month, the Dublin Simon 5 mile Fun Run which is held in Phoenix Park which is where I do some of my runs but I’m not sure whether I should now. I guess Ill just see what happens. As it will be my first race I can just take it easy and enjoy the experience and I can leave registering till the week before or even the day if I am still not convinced.
I never realised I was quite as competitive as I seem to have become, if only with myself. I guess looking at my pace times improving slowly over time I expected this to continue and as in the past month they haven’t I became a bit frustrated and tried to push myself instead of letting things happen naturally. Well its all a learning experience.
I just found this and thought it was funny.
I had intended to rest and not run for a few days, but I changed my mind for several reasons. Firstly I feel great today; secondly it is a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky, but it is a pleasant temperature of 18°C; thirdly my hung-over boyfriend was monopolising the computer and finally I just wanted to run.
The course that I ran today is just a straight route up the canal, out and back. It is a path that I have travelled, at least in part many times before. This was the trail that I started running the Couch to 5K Running plan on, but now it just extends for another mile or so further than it did back when I started that run-walk plan. It is not the cleanest or most scenic place to run but it is relatively flat, just a gentle incline as the canal goes up through 6 locks up to this point. It also has the added advantage of being traffic free, except for one point.
The idea was to just make this an easy run, but once I got out there, with the heart rate monitor on my Garmin keeping me in touch with my pulse I though, why don’t I just push it a little and see if I can cope with running at 85% or my maximum heart rate (MHR) for the duration.
Well I did and it wasn’t as hard as I though it was going to be, although it wasn’t easy especially after the third mile. I ran the 4 miles in 41:08 minutes which is an overall pace of 10:16 minutes per mile. If anybody is interested my splits are:
Mile 1 10:32min 79% MHR
Mile 2 10:44min 85% MHR
Mile 3 10:09min 85% MHR
Mile 4 9:41min 87% MHR
I guess before I got my Garmin I was working far harder than I should have been, or that the runs where just shorter as my pace has definitely dropped. At 85% MHR I could speak a couple of words, if I had too, but I certainly couldn’t have spoken a full sentence. In the last mile I did make a bit of an effort to keep my MHR above 85% and was definitely working that bit harder than in the first couple of miles.
I am planning on doing a long run today, the plan is to avoid hills at all costs and then with any luck my left hip will not be any sorer than it is now. I have been doing the exercises found in a runners world article about hip pain and fingers crossed it will be effective.
I have also woken up this morning with a slight cold coming on, have I been overdoing it I wonder. My plan is to go out and see how I feel. Ill get back to this blog later and let you know how things go.
Recently I have been listening to some of the archives of phedippidations which is a podcast from an guy called Steve runner, I have also been listening to the Zen Runner which is another podcast with a slightly Buddhist take on running.
Well ran 5 miles as planned, although I did run a totally different route than the one intended it was just that I was sick of being on the road that made me change my plans. I was trying to keep under 75% of my maximum heart rate, which was pretty much impossible and I ran at between 75% and 80% much of the time, my overall pace was 12.05 minutes per mile which is slower than I was running before I got the forerunner but I guess I had no idea of my heart rate then so might have been over-training a bit, and it was a long run and therefore should have been slower. This run felt a lot more like hard work than the last long run. The weather wasn’t quite as nice but I guess I just wasn’t feeling quite as buoyant today as last week. I feel a little sore following this run but its my quad’s that are stiff not my hips, my quads just feel like they have had a bit of a workout.
This evening I am going out for dinner with some of the girls from work, it is a leaving do for one of my colleagues. It should be fun, my plan is to have a maximum of 4 glasses of wine, 3 if I feel little tipsy and then come home by 11ish. As it is I am feeling a little weary already so it shouldn’t be hard.
It has been an interesting few months. There has been much change in my life but much has stayed constant. I am still living in Dublin, still have the same job, still have the same boyfriend, and am still living in the same house although all my flatmates are different and have changed several times.
The major change in my life is that I have taken up running. I started in April with the Couch to 5K Running Plan and with a slight mishap and injury that delayed things for a month I graduated that plan in July and have been running ever since. Generally I am running 3 times a week and am gradually increasing my mileage. My intention when I started running was to lose some weight, I have lost some but not as quickly and as easily as I initially hoped but I have found that I enjoy it for its own sake.
I was never athletic as a child, or teenager. I remember cross country running at school as a form of torture inflicted on us by a sadistic PE teacher and never understood how some of my more sporty classmates seemed to enjoy it, well now I understand.
I have a new toy that arrived this morning, a Garmin Forerunner 305. I have wanted one of these almost as soon as I knew of its existence. I bought it from amazon.co.uk in the UK (alas amazon.co.ie doesn’t exist yet) , couldn’t get it delivered directly to me in Ireland though, I have no idea why but I had to get it sent to my folks in the UK and they mailed it on to me (thanks guys).
