An enjoyable 7km run... well, the last 2 km was hard work, but enjoyable when it was done!

It's good to be training on a Tuesday again - getting a third run in Thursday will be much easier than getting motivated on a Friday night. It was also the first training run with Running Cat in a while - it's great to be training with RC again! I tagged along with her to the Hobo's running club, who run along the water from Newport down to Williamstown and back on Tuesdays - a 7km run. I turned around the halfway mark at 22:08 and got back at around 45:30. I was reasonably happy with the time and would hope to see improvement on this each week.

Here's the route:


A really lovely guy ran with us the whole time - we kept up with the group until the halfway mark where we dropped back a little. I can't remember his name, which is annoying. Running Cat pulled ahead a little at the end and I dropped back a bit, but he continued to run with me. He asked if I had much left in my legs with about 700m to go, and I said I didn't, but he could race to the end. He said that no, if he does that I'll back off and I was going to keep up the pace we were running to the end - he was so right! I would have slowed up as soon as he ran up ahead.

It definitely seems to be a friendly and supportive running club - great find from RC!

Skipped the Melbourne Marathon training, but ran 8km on a lone run

I got up late this morning and then Running Cat said she was skipping the Melb Marathon session due in part because of the weather... I looked out the window and considered the rush I'd have to be to get there in time and went back to bed. I really wasn't looking forward to trying to keep up with a group that would probably be running faster than I can for a distance longer than I've run before in the rain anyway.

I didn't want to skip a run though - 2 runs a week really is the minimum - I remember when I left it a week between runs when I was sick and it was hard hard run the next week. I'm sure it was hard going because I was still a little bit ill, but don't want that feeling again! So I headed out with the aim to do an 8km run at a slow pace. I've read in many places that it's important to run at a slower than usual pace when you are running longer distances than you have before, so that was the plan. And I'm happy to say I got it done.

Here was my route:



Split times were 6:21, 6:23, 6:36, 6:49, 6:57, 7:28 (a killer km), 7:14 (feeling better), 7:00 (feeling good but a tad sore).

There's just no getting around it though - running alone is damn boring! You notice the kilometres crawling by whereas there's so much more to think about in a group.

I've chatted to Running Cat about joining her at Hobos... it sounds like a fantastic group and the Melb Marathon sessions have been a tad disappointing. I'm not sure that Wednesday night works the best for me either - training on Friday as the third session hasn't happened yet and I'm keen to start getting a third session in, but Fridays, eww.