Rob's Running Blog

A 5 mile birthday run – 47:16

Had the week off running after a disappointing race and some soreness in my ankle when bearing weight, so wanted to get a run in, even though it was my birthday, not sure I have run on my birthday before!

Set off at a very gentle pace after a chap on the road had joked I should be running dressed in shorts! Legs felt a bit painful, not sure why, knees were protesting a bit but it settled down and first km ticked over in about 6:30. Decided I was in the mood more for 5 miles than 5k, and planned a route accordingly, as I hit the road towards Hyde a boy on his back high fived me, which was nice, and then I took the uphills without too much pain, and once 3k was completed I felt strong and moved up to a tempo pace. I felt the odd protest in my right leg, but kept going, trying to keep cadence up and stride length a bit shorter, and was hitting 5:30/km pace. At one point a little bou started racing me and kept up a good pace for a bit so I told him he was really fast, who knows, I may have inspired a future Olympian!

Had to stop for traffic in the latter stages, and started to hurt around the 6km mark, but kept up a decent pace and at one point the garmin was showing 4:25/km pace though I couldn’t keep that up consisently. I thought I had run really well and might be in with a shout of a season’s best, and clocked 47:16. I checked it against previous runs and it wasn’t quite a season’s best – in fact the 3rd fastest 5 miler of the season, a little bit of my 46:45 in May, and still way off my 40:01PB set in 2010 I think. Still, it’s hard to tell from this run, as I had just had a week off and normally feel very rusty, so for all I know a few more runs and I could see some improvements.

Unfortunately my right leg seemed to flare up a little bit afterwards, did some stretching but will have to keep an eye on it, as I would like to keep running, even if I have to slow down – it’s hard to judge what I should do sometimes!