Pant, gasp...

Run - 6.4km total
10min walk warmup
2 x 2.5km (00:06:20 pace) with 200m walking recovery
1 x 1km (00:06:00 pace)
10min walk cooldown

6.4km! Four long, long months ago, 6.4km would have been nothing more than a tiny blip in my weekly mileage. Now however, the excitement of actually having gone as far as 6.4km is eclipsed only by the fact that I did a grand total of 18km last week. The joy, the rapture! It is so worth the stabs of pain that radiate from my quads with every thud of my foot on the ground. It is so worth the burning in my chest and the rasping sound of my own breathing heavy in my ears. And most of all, its worth the occasional twinges of pain from my knee, even though I still gasp in fear each time I feel one.

All in all, my knee has been quite well behaved through all of this "return to running" business. It has its moments of course, and plenty of times that, while it doesn't actually hurt, it just doesn't feel 100%. But I'm playing by the rules, doing my stretches and taking things fairlyly slowly, so I guess all I can do is keep on hoping, and keep on running!