A good short run!

I completed week 9 today, and although the temperature outside was absolutely freezing, I was at least rewarded with the view above. This week I finally had a good short run. After 8 weeks of terrible short runs it has now been proven that a good short run is possible. If you haven't been following this blog, ever since I started my running training the second run of each week is a designated short run. This has always been the least enjoyable (until this week), as I have always felt tired, my legs always hurt and felt heavy, and I usually struggled to breathe comfortably.


At the start of week 9, it was the first run that was the worst. I had no energy. I couldn't manage more than a shuffle. I was constantly clock watching to see when it would be over. It was rubbish. I was dreading the short run as historically that's usually worse. I changed things a little on the short run to see if it reduced some of the impact on my joints. My right hip occasionally gets sore when I'm out, and my slow cadence has been causing some shin pain lately. So I experimented with my cadence by running to a metronome beat. I set it to 160 bpm (lately I've been running at around 150 bpm) and set off. Great run. Was actually enjoyable. No shin pain. Much milder hip pain on and off.

On my long run I did the same again, running to 160 bpm. Managed no problem and again, a pretty good run, even if it did take a quarter of an hour for the heat to reach my frozen fingertips.

I can highly recommend training with a metronome. Ok, if you're training somewhere with lots of people around the noise may attract some attention. I've heard some that are more obvious than others. The one on the Runzi app that I use is pretty indiscreet. It's more of a ticking than a beeping, but I'm also lucky as I train in quite a remote area with few pedestrians. The image below shows how consistently I was able to run at a cadence of 160 with the help of the metronome.

The spiky bits of the graph show when I'm walking. The steady line at the top is when I'm running.

Week 10 lies ahead. The next run I do will be the last one with a walking break, and my long run will be for 40 minutes. Still sounds rather intimidating. Let's see if I surprise myself.