It feels like years since it's been here

During my run last night, I realized that I forgot to make a post for W7D3 which I completed Friday the 15th. After doing some research on knee exercises, I decided to try one out that a member on the RunnersWorld.com forums suggested. Basically, you stand on one leg and swing the other back and forth a few repetitions; I stuck with 10. It definitely did the trick as my knees were essentially a non-issue during the run outside of a minor blip early on. I wasn't in the clear, though. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was the result of the new stretch or something else entirely but I aches in my shins and calves for the first time in a couple of week.

Although they've been there during that time, it's yet to be to the degree that it warranted mentioning. As a result, I had to slow my pace down considerably from what I prefer to run at because I didn't want to risk injury. Regardless of that fact, I was able to finish the 25 minutes without stopping and I was glad to have another week in the books.

Monday evening rolled around and it was time to get back in the saddle and start W8D1. For this week, each run is 28 minutes long. For those at home keeping score, that's an increase of 3 minutes, or about 3/10ths of a mile, for each workout. Oddly enough, it didn't seem all that daunting to me in the days leading up to it. I can safely say, though, that this was by far the best workout of the program for me so far which is surprising considering how sub-par each day of W7 felt.

I went at a pace that I would guess may end up as about 3/4 of my 5k pace for 90% of the run (25 of the 28 minutes) and I managed to cover roughly 2.53 miles in the time allotted. To be honest, I was tempted to continue running for another couple of minutes because I felt so great but I'm doing the program "by the book" so I eased into the cooldown walk when prompted.

I started the run off at a moderate pace because I didn't want to overexert myself right off the bat since I was tacking on 3 minutes to my previous high. The random flare up in the heel spur in my left foot also had a say in that decision. About a minute into the run, though, I was feeling fine and upped my pace to the level it would stay at until about 2 minutes left in the run. I think I was right about the source of the aches in my shins and calves last week. Tonight was the second time I've done the knee/hip exercise before a run and the only aches present in my shins or calves were minor expected aches from working out. Tomorrow's a rest day and it's back to the grind Wednesday night. I can't wait!