Oh, Mr. Belpit, your legs are SO swollen!*

[EverTheOptimist]

It's been three weeks since I've posted as my motivation took a serious nosedive after completing W8R1. Yet again, I suffered a reaction in my knee, which did a lovely impression of a party balloon, and has only just settled back down (if you haven't heard of Devil's Claw, google it - it's helped me no end!).

However, today I bit the bullet and got back out there again - well, I say 'out there' but having struggled outdoors I took to the safety of the gym for W8R2. BORING!!! I did my 5 minute warm-up walk, and settled into a nice 8kmh rhythm, trying to ignore the really dreadful music on the podcast. Plod, plod, plod, staring at the same piece of wall, or trying to read the rather random subtitles of The One Show on the TV. It wasn't helped by the gym's own music system being turned up to 11...

Halfway and I'm feeling ok, but then around the 20 minute mark things start to go downhill. Legs got increasingly heavy, my left instep suddenly started to behave like a piece of Yuri Geller's cutlery, I was breathing like an asthmatic rhinoceros and had probably turned a rather vivid shade of scarlet (no mirrors, fortunately). Valiantly I soldiered on to the 28 minute mark, having slowed down to a paltry 7kmh (I can walk faster!), but I did get through it, and touch wood my knee, heavily strapped though it is, is behaving itself at the moment.

Hopefully I'll get back outside later this week to complete week 8. I much prefer running outside, I just hope I'll be able to complete the programme in the open air.

*If you recognise the quote, have a can of spam.

[no-excuse Graduate]

Spam, spam, spam, spam,.... hahaha I remember! At least you got through the 28 minutes, and hopefully you will get outside later and choose your own scenery. Take it easy and I wish you luck for completing week 8. x

[LSBeech75 Graduate]

Sounds like a tough one & you did really well. Your post did make me smile though. I too had to put off starting week 8, due to a mis-behaving knee, fingers crossed it seems ok now. Good luck with the rest of the week!!

[Oldgirl Graduate]

Well done for finishing, 28 minutes on a dreadmill is way beyond me, they are so boring. Sounds as if the brain kicked in and started to send all sorts of negative messages to your body, we used to term this as demon monkey who appeared on a shoulder and could cause total havoc to a runner. You did very well to finish, hope the knee is OK after your run.