After the high of new running shoes wore off (only took a week this time, boo!) I wanted a bit of a boost, so I tried out another Zombies Run mission - it’s always good to try something different. I noticed that the people behind Zombies Run are creating a spin off version based on the Couch 2 5K thing. I’m jealous! Can I go back to the beginning and start again with the zombies chasing me this time?

After the last update, I did go out and purchase some new shoes. They’re in a similar fashion to my old ones - white and Nike - but they’re also quite awesome. They have purple insides and purple laces! How can they be anything but great? Instantly, I wore them and was back on form… if you can call what I do any kind of form. I completed another 10k, which is always fun.

It’s not been a good couple of weeks, I’ll be honest. I had hoped to go out for a longer run this weekend but I only had two opportunities - one of them was far too hot to even consider and the other one… well, I went for a nap instead. You know how it is. The last six runs I have done have been thirty minutes each, and have gradually gotten worse.

There hasn’t been too much to report for the last two weeks, I’m afraid real life has just got in the way of my dreams of Olympic stardom. In reality, I have been training at work for two weeks, with another still to come, and it’s amazing what a difference this change of pace makes. Firstly, I’ve been getting home from work a little later than normal. With time such a precious commodity in our house, this has a significant impact on my opportunities for running.

I renamed the category for these posts a while back, opting to call it the Running Diary. As that is the case, here is a true day by day diary of last week’s workouts. Monday Definitely in the mood for a run today, having not been out since Wednesday. It was a busy weekend, so no real time to hit the pavements. Went out for thirty minutes, felt good, relatively fast and it just started raining as I got in.

Firstly, I can’t quite understand where the last two weeks have gone. These are meant to be weekly updates but they keep turning into fortnightly ones because the days are escaping me. It felt like it was going to be a really good week/fortnight for running this time, although now I look back I didn’t go nearly as much as I had thought! After running on Sunday, I also went out for two thirty minute runs, one on the Monday and one on the Wednesday.

(Bit late posting this one, but the heat! When you get to read about this week’s running adventures I already know it will say TOO HOT TO BE ALIVE! But that is for the future.) I don’t know. Each week I start with the best intentions and they just get brushed aside as quickly as I can snap my fingers. Instead of whining on about when I did and didn’t run, here’s an interesting comparison.

I had to take it easy the week after my first ever 10k as I wasn’t feeling too good, and then the weather began to turn. It worked out okay, because the rest did me some good. Last week, things were a lot better, and I went out on Monday and Wednesday. Finally, I was seeing 30 minute runs with average paces under 8:30 again. Phew! I thought I’d forgotten how to do that.

This week, I did good. I ran on Monday and Wednesday and Friday. I didn’t do anything in between, which isn’t really sticking to the plan, but hey, running more. Go me! I had Friday off work, which meant I had some time to do a longer run. I also needed to do a longer run due to some over-indulgence during Film Watch the night before. So, I started slow, and I ran and I didn’t really have a plan in mind.

My weekly updates are more often than not becoming fortnightly, but that’s okay, there has been so little to report of late. This week has been a complete washout because back pain has stopped me doing anything more than walking like a robot and sitting. I don’t really know what happened, I thought at first I had just slept funny. I went for a run that first day but then as the night wore on, the pain got worse and worse.