Bloody concrete

Unusual title for a blog post, but I really hate the stuff! Since moving North of the city for work, I thought it would provide me with a great opportunity to get the longer distances running to and from work. However it's all on pavements and really solid concrete, which plays havoc on my calfs. Plus the endless stopping and starting at traffic lights makes this a bit of a no-goer, which is disappointing really. Last night I ran home, a nice 13km jog, but the left calf is still slightly sore. It doesn't stop me running, but it always feels like its going to pull, so I am wary of it. This means I'll have to carry on running when I get home from work as around Balmain, I can get onto the roads where its much softer believe it or not!

Last night I carried around 4kgs in the backpack, and will gradually increase this and the amount of runs with it over the coming months. The next 5 months are pretty critical now, and I have to stay injury free as I'll be doing some serious work load on the running front, gradually getting to around 160kms a week for a few weeks in February before bringing it down for some well-earned taper.

Tonight will be a slightly longer and slower 16km run with a slightly heavier backpack, before a faster lighter run on Thursday. Pretty much the par do course now for the next 3 months. I've felt that I've lost a slight bit of fitness over the last couple of months. I'm still around a 3hr 35 marathon I think, but I want that down by 10 minutes, so doing that at Melbourne will be the focus. So some nice fast runs between now and then I think! Following that it will be head down for the slow heavy stuff.