In Part 1 of 7 Days to 10K I outlined why I’ve prepared awfully for a 10K race I have registered for and which is but a few days away.

2 days ago I executed – successfully – the first phase of my simple plan to be as ready as I can be for the race. I played a fairly taxing game of 5-a-side soccer for over an hour. I played rather well, for me, and emerged unscathed. This was great for me, as it was my first proper lung-stretching exercise in a while.

Later today I will execute the second phase, which is to run 8K on the treadmill, and see how I get on. This is the phase I’m most nervous about, since it’s my first sustained run over 15-20 minutes since I last tore my calf.

When I mentioned the race to a soccer pal, he said ‘oh, I registered for that a couple of years ago and just turned up and ran the race, it’s not too bad.’ A perfectly legitimate response, were it not for the fact that I have been doing some exercises to cure a biomechanical fault which is causing my calves to tear and pain after a quarter of an hour’s exercise.

One of the odd things I’ve noticed in the mirrors over the last 30 years of running at the gym is that any shirt I’m wearing pulls down at the next towards the right shoulder, and never the left. I could never figure out why, until the physio mentioned the fault with my running in my previous post that cause my right side to dip, and then it all made sense.

In 2 days time, as per my plan, I’ll let you know how the 8K run went and what bearing, if any, this has on my ‘practice’ 10K run on the streets of my home town, scheduled for later in the day.