Both of these two things helped me out on my 7 miler tonight. It was baking hot (although there was a stiff breeze in places), and so a nice new New Balance running hat and a pair of Sunwise wrap around shades came in very useful.

The run was good too. I felt strong and breathed well, but the last two miles were quite tiring on the feet. Especially the tendon on the inside of my left ankle - right where it joins the ankle.

I slightly twisted my ankle last Sunday on last week’s run, so I think it may be from that. Just to be on the safe side though I’m going to move Monday morning’s 3 mile easy run to Tuesday morning.

7 miles - 9:24 AvgPace (bang on the target!) - 144 AvgHR

Yesterday’s run ended in a post entitled ‘Ouch, ouch, ouch!!!’, so tonight I had to try and run through some stiffness.

I was pretty worried when I set out, but thought I’d give it a few minutes to see if I warmed up OK… and, I did.

It felt a prett easy 3 miler, although with a Pilates class straight afterwards, I’m feeling a tad worn out now!

3 miles - 9:26 avg pace - 136 avg HR

Ouch may not be the right word. But tonight’s run hurt. It hurt a lot!

It was the first speed interval session of the new training plan, and it went a little like this…

As ever I was supposed to start off at 9:24 pace. This, again as ever, didn’t happen, so the first 1.5 miles was run at 9:07. I felt good. The only problem was I still hadn’t really decided what route I was going to run.

Once the warm up was out of the way it was time to speed up for half a mile at the target pace of 7:04. I did a good job, covering the half mile in 7:06 pace. This section was slightly uphill and the breathing was very hard! I don’t think I’ve ever breathed so hard when running. It wasn’t a couldn’t breath, just a feeling of breathing really, really hard. I was glad when the half mile was up.

The next quarter of a mile was a gentle jog at 9:29 pace, before speeding up again for another half mile. This time it was easier (probably due to no uphill gradient!) and faster - with a pace of 6:56. Again though I was happy with the next quarter mile jog.

At this point I still felt pretty strong.

The final half mile was again uphill, and I started to tire quite badly. The legs really started to feel like they were full of lactic acid, and the joints started to stiffen. 7:19 was the best I could manage.

Once I finished the final fast half mile I cooled down for 1.75 miles at 9:32.

This is where it started to hurt. Everything felt stiff. My form seemed to go out of the window. It was hard enough just to lift my feet off of the ground!

I think I realise now how I’ve never really trained at this intensity before. And the sad thing is, it also felt great!

Yes…. I think this is what it feels like to be addicted to running!