Longer life

Today I did my 2 hour and 45 minute run.
The first half, although tiring as it was more uphill than down, was managed fairly well, however the second half was completely zapping. I had a few walk breaks, however restricted them to 10-30 seconds just to try and ease the aches in my quads, which worked well and meant I was able to keep to a faster running pace. All in all I ran 16.14 miles and averaged 10.10mm, which I'm pleased with. My back gave the odd twinge but overall was pretty good... until I got home and had a bath. Getting out I felt very achy in my lower back and have been putting heat on it since which has helped tremendously!

I'm shocked at how much my quads were hurting. When I do a long run, my hamstrings and calves are normally easily fatigued and it takes a lot to make my quads start to hurt. Looking at my training though, I've had a lot of weeks doing heavy deadlifts but have had a fairly conservative squat regime. This will be changing this week which is good, but I think William and Shaun have been very careful not to give me too much to do too soon.

Shaun has emailed me today with a speed session for deadlifts tomorrow with light weights (considering I'm still quite achy) as this is the same principle as doing a recovery run when aching from a tougher run. I'm looking forward to giving it a go, it sounds good.

I'm amazed to see that I have now done 310 miles in my trainers. They have had the longest life of any trainers I have owned. I have even started to notice the forefoot wearing down. I'm in the process of wearing in a new pair. I once read that new trainers were like running in a pair of slippers... I disagree. I feel like I'm running on 6 inch platforms... believe me, I could get anything off the top shelf if I'm wearing them! I also hate trying to sort out the laces. It seems I have to do about 6 or 7 runs before I get the laces to the right tension!

We put Lincolns' cage up today. Oh My God... it's huge! It fills half of the floor by the back bench. His collar and dog tags came today too. They're really cool. Less than 3 weeks and he'll be home! I've been reading Cesar Millans' book about bringing a puppy home. Apparently you need to have them sleeping close to you for 3 nights so they don't feel abandoned. When I did that with George everyone thought I'd lost the plot... turns out I'm cleverer than even I thought. ;-)