I upped my distance this week, covering five miles for most of my runs. I did a couple of five mile runs back in November, stretch goals while averaging four miles per session.

However, this most recent change was a concerted effort to take my training to the next level. I had been hitting my distance and time targets consistently and wanted to avoid getting too comfortable or reducing the effects of my runs. This was also a conscious effort to get my body used to covering longer distances ahead of the Kleinerman 10K on January 7th. I have never run that far before, so need to get a couple of longer runs in beforehand if I am going to last the distance and not come out the other side with any injuries. The next couple of weeks are also tricky, with Christmas and holiday travels throwing off my regular training schedule. It’s going to take a little more effort and motivation than usual to get some training runs between Christmas and New Years – testing my physical and mental strength abilities at the same time. So far there have been no ill effects, combined with my new stretching routine my body is taking less time to recover between runs.