Rebuilding

What a difference a week makes.  The bruising and swelling on my knees is gone.  They are 95% better but still not well enough to go into the swimming pool as the skin on my right knee is still open.  But I’m back running.
I’ve been so frustrated. My first run was 5km and it was to test my heart rate and fitness following the 53 mile Fling.  The following day was 6km and then I had a days rest!! Whilst I felt I could run further I am sticking with the programme. A 10km on Thursday with a 5km recovery run on Friday - I felt I wasn’t out of 2nd gear but orders are orders.  Yesterday was an hours run on heart rate and I felt I had plenty in reserve.  Today I was asked to go faster than yesterday with no reference to heart rate.
I went out with my pal Stuart and headed off at a decent pace.  After all I had a lot of pent up frustration.  I pushed ahead and felt great.  I couldn’t believe the average pace when I stopped, actually I was worried I’d be told off by my coach for going too fast!  Got a few PB’s.
I have 123 days till Tahoe and there is a huge amount of work to be done.  I’m excited to be entering this phase of my training.  Getting the running legs back and then start the strength work and soon the mountain work.  A saying that I think is very true is “if you want to achieve something you have never achieved before, you have to do something that you’ve never done before”.  So this is new territory to me and I am really looking forward to it.
If you set stretching goals , the path to success isn’t always set out in front of you.  But once you have your eyes on the goal, you require laser like focus to make sure it happen.  I’m programming my mind to think that 4 days of non-stop running, power walking, crawling and out sprinting bears will be normal.  Fortunately I mix with people who also don’t set barriers.  Being surrounded by friends who push themselves hard means the bar keeps getting higher so I’m always grateful for their encouragement.  The journey to here over the last 10 years has been unbelievable.  I never set out to do this, it started with trying to swim 750m in a sprint triathlon.  Funny where it’s led me! Dream big folks.