13 miles on Sunday, not too bad but my legs ached all Sun pm

4 miles Mon am to get moving again

4.5 miles Mon pm as Achilles sore and wanted to know that it would bear a run – reasonably ok after 3 miles but really sore after

5 miles Mon pm – hills x 10 (1min) achilles sore but good to get the smell of London off

So, this is the sort of thing that a blogging runner ought to put into his or her blog is it?

I do find, 10ish years after I started this running lark, that it’s harder and harder to get all the bits working at the same time. I live about 2 miles from work, and get marginally more comfortable as I get to the office in the morning, and just about moving properly as I reach the door – which means that I end up putting a couple of extra miles in to prove to myself that I can still run.

All of which is fine. Really.

However…where I do have a bit of a problem is in hearing some of the things that people say for why they don’t run*

“Terrible problems with my knees”

“Tried running but had to give up after a few days”

“It hurts my legs to run”

This probably sounds a bit too alpha-male, but the whole point of it, is that it does hurt.

That’s why it’s called training. It’s training your body to deal with exertion which either you’ve untrained it to do over the years, or, if you’ve kept yourself clean, is at the extremes of your capability. So of course it’s going to be uncomfortable, especially at first. But then it sort of becomes a (good) habit. Even if your achilles aches all the time.

*or cycle, or swim, or whatever