Making the Grade

Despite two missed runs, one of the mid-week variety, the other of the long weekend type, I still managed to hit my monthly mileage goal! Even though I'd missed 30km of mileage I was able to hit the 172km target for April by including some running to AND from work.

Today was what put me over the hump as I ran 5.5km in the morning at a nice easy pace, and then ran another 7.3k in the afternoon on the way home to total 12.8k for the day and 172.8k for the month. The target was set based on the 40km per week that I'd wanted to average (ie. (40/7)*30 = 172). In keeping with my plan, which started off in January where I wanted to average 25km per week and adding 5km to the weekly total each month thereafter, I will be trying for 45km per week in May. The total will have to add up to 200km. Yikes! I know that for some that is a total only worthy of off-season type routines, but for yours truly it will be a new milestone by a long shot.

Anyway, things are looking pretty good even if I am running slow as molasses and continue to baby a couple of aches and pains, namely those of the right kneecap and left Achilles. I am starting to see some benefits from the leg weights I've been doing and have stopped wearing my patellar strap for running, which is nice. I've even stopped icing the knee throughout the day as I've found that stretching and strengthening are more beneficial to my recovery than simply numbing the hell out of it.

I guess that counts as a monthly recap, of sorts. But here are the detes:

• Total mileage: 172.8km (goal was 172km)


• Weekly average: 40.3km (goal was 40km per week)


• Body weight: who knows, who cares, feeling good, eating pie.

Here's hoping your April was great, and that May will be even better!