Whitford Forest Off-road Run.

Sunday 16/07/06:

Hamstring was still a bit tight this morning, but as I had arranged to do another off-road run with James today, I was very naughty and chose to ignore it. However I knew it would not be a long, fast run anyway (hes not really a runner, just indulging me!) and let him know that I needed to keep it flat. However we ended up at Whiford Forest, where neither of us had actually been before. I'd heard it had great off-road trails for runners and mountain bikers, so we decided to give it a go. When we arrived at about 11am, we discovered that there had been a 14.5km off-road running event on earlier. The tail end of the field was just finishing - some of them looking very much the worse for wear! But it got my adrenaline pumping and I was gutted that I had not known about it earlier and been able to enter... Anyway, we headed off on the main trail in the opposite direction to the runners, calling our encouragement to any stragglers we saw! It was a gorgeous, sunny winters day and the forest was filled with birds. It felt great to be running there and with company. We encountered several hills, including a couple of big ones! But by then I had decided that if the hammy was going to be sore, it had might as well be really sore! Not the right attitude I know - but just couldn't help myself. We got about 3km in before another really big hill made us stop and head back. I was so enjoying myself and did not want to stop at all, but had to remind myself of both James' physical state and my leg! We made it back to where we had started in approx 40mins, but this included walking one big hill and the short stop when we first came across the event. 6kms is only an estimate of how far we went, but think thats fairly close. I realised on this run that my cardio state is actually quite good, as even when I was feeling quite puffed on the hills, I could still give it a kick and step up a gear. Also recovery is much quicker.

So all in all, a fantastic running weekend and 36kms for the week, so getting back to where I was a couple of weeks ago, before the knee started playing up. Spent the afternoon round home catching up on chores while listening to some favourite music, but also spent time relaxing in the winter sunshine, which was fantastic. In the evening I used a heat pack on my hammy several times and also rubbed in thermo-gel. Not seeing the physio till Tues, but have also decided its time to head back to the podiatrist for new orthotics. The ones I am currently using a now over a year old and they are usually only good for 12 months. It could well be that he can help to solve my hamstring problem, with an adjustment on my new ones, and as I want to start my half marathon training soon, I want to get all of these issues sorted prior.