The rest of the week.

Thursday was an absolutely beautiful day.  Hills are never much fun, they are a serious toil........but everything is just so good when the sun's out, isn't it!  I did the same loop as last week, twice one way up the long, slow climb then reversed and twice up the shorter sharp incline, though mind you the sharp incline doesn't completely flatten at the top, so the period of effort is longer than it first appears. :-p    Its 4 x 1K loop, with the run there and back, its a total of 5K.

I pushed myself a bit harder this week, rather than just being content to get round.  I was disappointed that I had to walk a bit at the end of the first long climb, though I managed to run it all on the second loop. In the other direction I was OK on the first steep climb, but needed a walk break on the second.  The big consolation when I got back home, though, was to discover that I had actually taken 48 seconds off my previous time, getting round in 29:54.  Didn't feel quite so bad knowing there was a reason for struggling a bit.

Kettlebell class on Friday night was hard as usual, including a lot of squats and a lot of snatches.  Of course what that meant was that on Sunday morning I went out still quite tired, it definitely takes longer to recover at my age unfortunately.  Plus I'm going to blame the clocks going forward!  I decided to continue working up to my training plan's 1K intervals by doing 700m effort with 300m jog recovery, again on the Cycle Track.   I did 4 x 700m intervals, 3 took around 4 minutes, which was pretty much what I expected, but one, the third, was a rogue 4:20!!  I certainly felt particularly heavy legged for that one, but no idea why that one more than the others. These totalled 4k (2.5 miles) plus the run there and back - altogether 3.5 miles.

Sunday was such a beautiful day to run, and I definitely regretted my long sleeve top! The cycle track was busy with dog walkers, cyclists, parents and children, you would never believe you are so close to busy roads.  I like the friendliness of other exercisers too, its nice when people nod and say hello.

All in this has been a good week, three runs, all requiring effort, and my back is feeling good.  I think the patient build up from injury has paid off.  Next week I'll be having a wee change on the hills front, I'm off work on Saturday so I'm planning to do the Pollok Park parkrun.  It definitely qualifies as a hill session!!

Speak to you soon x