Better, much better

To quote The Amanda Show, tonight’s run was “Better, MUUUCCCHHH Better”.

After the hames that was Tuesday night’s effort I went out this evening under not inconsiderable trepidation. What if it was bad again? Will it knock me back? Will I take another break and feel like I’m back to square one again? You know the drill.

In the end I needn’t have worried. Sticking to the C25K Week 2 schedule and deciding to run 5k again I knocked over two minutes off Tuesday’s time and, in fact, set my fastest time since I started recording using my Garmin.

The first km was under eight minutes again, the following three under nine minutes with the last kilometre back under eight and, actually, faster than the first. That shows promising progress. Next week the plan changes again, longer running splits so hopefully my times will continue to improve.

There was no point in the run where I felt I struggled and I didn’t clomp. Granted I didn’t force things but I worked on my breathing – four in, four out – and that seemed to work and make things much smoother.

I also wore a new piece of kit, knee length compression socks which have an anti-blister device built in. Hopefully they’ll do the trick of my white socks and compression sleeves combined which will mean less faffing about. They felt pretty good.

I’m up to 19 miles for the month. All good advice says you should aim to increase distance by 10% per week/month/whatever so seeing as I did 21 in June that’ll mean I’ll need to clock up around 4 miles to bring me up to 23 for July. I’ll give that a go on Sunday.

Now that I know I’ve got a marathon place again I’ve found my focus changing, everything is geared towards that now.