Good Hilly Run

This morning was another early long run.  I met up again with the Women's Fit for Life Group and joined them on their long run.  The group is really nice and it is great that I feel a part of the group.  It is much easier to run in company.  Last time out with them I started at the back of the group because I wasn't sure of the pace of the group and ran my own pace.  This time I decided that I would try to begin by running with the front runners and see if I could keep up.

We went out the same route as before, a nice route with 7 hills along the course.  The satellites hadn't kicked in on my Garmin when we started so I lost about 150 metres or so or recording before I hit start, which would have been enough to hit 15km.  The pace started nice and easy and I was enjoying the pace until about 6km.  At this point the group trainer moved up to the front of the group and began pushing out the pace.

From here on in the pace was fast and I was glad that I was keeping up.  With 2km to go I was still managing to keep up with the front two runners and we upped the pace again and kept on pushing.  With 1km to go we got faster still and with 200 metres to go we broke out into a sprint  back to the club.  It was a tough run (felt like a race), my calf's are quite sore as I write this, but I really enjoyed it. I was delighted that I was able to keep going the full distance at that speed, my fastest ever 15km, and still have a good kick at the end.

How was your long run? Enjoyable I hope.

Hilly Long Run

This morning I joined the Carlow Women's Fit For Life group for a long run.  The Carlow Men's Fit for Life group has only just been established and as of yet doesn't do long runs as part of the group.  For the past two months I've been doing my long run alone, as the person I normally run with is injured so it was great to have company again for the run.

At 9.30am we met and began our run.  The run was at a nice pace and was on a route I never ran before.  The majority of my runs over the past year or so have been mostly flat as there are not many routes around the town that have hills.  Today's route went out of the town.  The weather was great and before long we had hit our first hill.  As I wasn't familiar with the route I wasn't really expecting any hills.  Today's run was really enjoyable and felt great.

It was the first time this year that I've run more than 12km without having my right knee strapped up.  With seven hills on the run I happy with how the knee held together and think as long as I look after it I should be able to run without the ITB strap from here on in.