first 10k of the year coming up...

...and my body's in shocking shape. It would appear that my smoke free lungs have enabled me to run like the wind without noticing - with the result that my knee and foot have both capitulated under the pressure.

I'm annoyed and frustrated; have been training since the beginning of January and anything more than a slow jog causes my knee to scream in pain. My foot joined in for good measure last Monday after I had to walk four kilometres home following my latest knee-tastrophe - I think overcompensating for my lack of leg-bendiness caused me to strain a tendon. Weirdly, all this has happened since I finally splashed out on expensive trainers, supposedly suited to my running style following gait analysis. If anything, they seem to damage me more than my off-the-shelf numbers that did me right for the past 5 years.

Not only do I have a 10K on Sunday (starting and finishing at the old/permanent home of UK Athletics, Crystal Palace stadium, which at least will be good to say I've "competed" in), that I may just about hobble round if tonight's 1:06 training jog is anything to go by, but more importantly the Reading Half Marathon is only 5 weeks away.

I have severe doubts I'll be able to make it all the way round the 22km of the half marathon given I can barely cover 12 at the moment, but I'll give it a go. If this is old age I don't wanna know. I assumed I'd have some sort of adonis-like physique by now with the non-smoking, non-drinking (although admittedly that began again on 03 February) and exercising. As it is, I feel less fit than I do when I don't make any effort at all.

Apologies for the shoddy writing demonstrated in this post by the way. Just a bit ranty today and can't be bothered trying to make it more readable.