Back to the Hills

The nett result of the minor strain on the knee from a stumble while doing intervals has been a re-occurring ache after almost any exercise involving legs. That includes walking. For the most part it comes on an hour or so afterwards and is at its worst when starting off from rest. The judicious use of cold and hot compresses seems to mitigate it somewhat, but it still bloody hurts. After the curtailed run last week I thought better than to take it out again for the Saturday ParkRun. In fact the weather was truly awful. Cold, Wet and miserable, there was really no way I was going to get going to even warm up, so I gave it a miss this time.

By the following Monday it had settled down enough to carry on with the coached session. On this one we were introduced to the pleasures of ‘hills’. In reality it was a hump-backed stretch of road  about 400 yards long with the apex in the middle. So it was a 200 yard incline with a jog recovery down the other side, then after a minute recovery, back the other way. Repeated four times gave eight hills. Not a bad introductory session which most of us coped with adequately. I was pushing them quite hard and it felt like a workout.

But, the day after the knee was making me pay for it again. So much so that I again had to lay off the the ‘homework’ long run session that I was slated to do on Thursday. Much stretching and hot/cold applications followed through the week to the point where I felt confident enough to take on the ParkRun this week. However since the last session had concentrated on hills I thought I’d revisit Richmond with its hills rather than the pancake flat that is Bushy.

This morning’s run at over 30 minutes was about one of the slowest I’ve done. I’d elected to start from the rearmost quarter of the throng to ensure a slow start and not overload the knee overmuch. It took all of 45 seconds to get through the start and I was still blocked in by the throng of slower runners as we passed through the first mile mark. That, along with the hills at the end of the course made sure I did one of the worst times I’ve posted, which wasn’t the plan. The splits were:   ml 1: 9:50.   ml 2:  9:16.   ml 3:   10:26.   

The slow jog seems to have done some good however as the knee hasn’t played up at all today. Hopefully I’ll get a full week in this coming week.