Friday run

9AM

Today is my last weekday of no school. I'm going back to school on Monday, so I'm going to soak in the sun and enjoy this day! I think I'll go for a run.

I haven't ran in over a month. A little recap: My left foot got injured a few months before Tokyo Marathon. I took a lot of days off running and was worried I lost some valuable training so I didn't have any confidence during the race. But my foot felt better on the day and I actually really enjoyed the freezing run and got my PB (personable best) by 11mins! I finished in the total time of 3:39.38. I couldn't have expected anything better and didn't care that I was off my original goal by 9mins. Unfortunately though, I had to walk quite a bit at the end because my right foot started giving me some bad pain. I was limping a week after the marathon and a visit to the Physiotherapist showed that I strained my foot and was it very close to being a stress fracture. The physio ordered me off running until the pain had subsided. So that's what I've been doing. I've been too scared to run because I'm doing Oxfam Trailwalker this month (100k hike) and I REALLY want to do it so I don't want to take any chances of getting injured.
But today I really feel like running. I've been pain free for weeks and I'm starting to feel a little pudgy from lack of cardio. I've been doing a lot of strength training and I'm seing great results with my strength increasing. The bad thing is that I'm kind of bulking up....I want nice slim muscles and I think I need to do more cardio to get there.
OK, so I'm going for a short short run. I'm a little nervous about it....I'm imagining a red faced, huffing and puffing Meg. Oh, well....lets give this a shot.....


12PM
I am SOOOO happy! I'm sure you can guess why!
My planned 30min light jog turned out to be a 47min jog/run up as many hills as I could find. This is only my 2nd run after Tokyo Marathon since the end of Feb and my 1st run WITHOUT PAIN! I was also pleasantly surprised that I'm not as out of shape as I thought. Perhaps the short Tabata cardio sessions I've been doing recently as a substitute have something to do with it.
I wasn't as out of breath as I thought I'd be (although I got sweaty since its a warm day) and easily could have gone for an hour, but I shouldn't push it. Depending on how I feel next week I think I'll run a little longer 2-3 times. We'll see after the 36k hike planned this Sunday.
I think I enjoyed this run so much because I didn't have the pressure of absolutely having to run a certainly speed or distance. I just put on my shoes, carried my camera and was relived every time I landed on my right foot with no pain! YAY, this calls for a celebration!



Ran up and down these hills a couple of times. I figured I should so some hill training since Oxfam course is very hilly!

Finished the run with a run up these flight of stairs in our building. 13 floors x2! Nice burn in the legs.