I have a cold and a pair of tight calves but I didn’t let that stop me from going for my Thursday run with the fabulous KimSpiration (one of my running partners).  My SmartCoach had me down for 8km speed work run.  This was hard.  The run went as follows:

1. 1.5 km warm-up – easy pace
2. 1.5 km fast – this means fast enough for it to be uncomfortable to talk but not a sprint
3. 750 m recovery – easy pace
4. 1.5 km fast – to be honest, this wasn’t all that fast because I was still buggered from the first fast interval
5. 750 m recovery – (very) easy pace
6. 2 km cool-down – managed to get back into a comfortable rhythm and ended the run feeling pretty good

You can check out the route and my times etc on my RunKeeper page.

All this running has started to take its toll on my body.  I’ve been carrying my phone with me so that I can track my runs and to do that I wear an armband.  I noticed after my long run last week, that the armband had given me a nasty case of underarm chafe.   It doesn’t look like much, but let me tell you that this stings like a bitch when you have a shower after the run!

Several years ago, I was running in the Perth City to Surf with my sister Terri and we had just completed about half of the race, when I had to stop at the first-aid post to pick up a bandaid for such a serious case of underarm chafe, that it had drawn blood.  It turns out that there is a surprisingly large amount of paperwork involved in picking up a bandaid during the City to Surf, so our stop at the first-aid station seriously affected our race times.  Terri wasn’t happy as I recall.

Anyway, the weather has turned cooler so I’ve been running with a jumper on since the weekend and the armband over top of that.  This has solved the problem of the chaffing.  Tonight, however, it was a bit warmer so I decided to run in just a t-shirt.  I wore the armband on the other arm to avoid aggravating Sunday’s chafe but unfortunately I’ve chafed up that arm too now.

I’ve run out of arms to wear my armband on!  God knows where I’m going to put it for my long run on Sunday.

My first week of working and training is nearly over and so far, so good.  I will do a short 3 km tomorrow before school as I’m going to an important meeting after school off campus.  Then a long run on Sunday before going to school for the Food Fair.  I’ll be able to justify eating anything I want.  I can’t wait!