Struggling with hamstring but starting to come good. Also thanks for the support for Team World Vision.

As you can see from the widget in the sidebar - $375 has been donated so far and we are nearly 80% of the way to the $500 target. A couple of people have said to me that they are still planning to donate so hopefully with those donations and maybe a few more we will make our target before race day.

Thanks to those who have already sponsored me - I really do appreciate your support.

Here is the link to my fundraising page:

http://www.teamworldvision.com.au/simon_ward_6

Ran 106km last week on 6 days of running (had Sunday off).

I got in some good runs early in the week with three runs over 80mins and a Mona fartlek on the Tuesday where I covered 40m further than I have previously for that session on that course.

My hammie was quite tight and sore after Wednesday and Thursday's runs so I went to the physio on Thursday which improved things considerably - so much so that I stuck with my plan to run in the hills on Saturday morning.

Unfortunately it was a bit of a disaster as although the hammie felt good when we set out, it did not like the 2km uphill we went straight into. It settled down ok after that until about 5km into a long steady uphill from about 10km. The hill kicked up and my left leg basically went dead. All down the back of my leg, through the back of my knee and into the top of my calf. It felt like I had a club foot as I had no drive in that leg and my foot was basically just thumping into the ground as I swung the leg through.

I had to stop and walk and walked for about 1km with a short run on a flattish section until I got to the top of the hill. Sugar and Liam had waited for me there and I tried running again as it was going to be a long walk back otherwise. it was manageable on the flat and the slight downhills at about 4:30/km pace and I was able to even run a bit quicker over the last couple of kms on the really nice downhill into Darlington.

Ended up running 26km instead of 27km and got changed and sat on the tailgate of my car feeling sorry for myself for a few minutes. 26km in 1 hour 56 mins (4:27/km pace).

I took Sunday and Monday off and took anti-inflammatories. Back to the physio on Monday which again was very beneficial and I was able to run an easy lap of the Bridges on Tuesday and Wednesday. I had an osteopath appointment on Wednesday afternoon which involves some "adjustment" and identified some problems with the alignment of my pelvis and a lot of tightness through my piraformis and glutes.

My physio was keen for me to push things a bit on Thursday (today) to see how I am going and whether running long on Saturday was going to be problematic so this morning I met up with Clown and We did the regular Thursday morning run out to the Maylands Police Academy. We then ran tempo back to the Marathon Club which was 6.5km. We worked our way into it starting just under 4.00/km down into 3.40s and then 3.38/km for the last. We averaged 3.49 for the last 6km of this section. Clown was travelling pretty well towards the end and looked strong. Hopefully he gets his City to Surf entry sorted today.

Rest of the run was at a steady pace around 4.30/km or slightly quicker so the whole run was at a pretty reasonable pace. All up this was 21km in 1:29 (4:16/km pace)

Hamstring wasn’t too bad. Could still feel it slightly and it got a bit tighter over the last 2-3km of the tempo section. Still I’m pretty pleased to get through this run without it blowing up and feeling like I can stick to my normal program from here on.

Below are a couple of interesting videos. One is a Ben St lawrence, Collis Birmingham, Ryan Gregson workout and the other is about Active Isolated Flexibility. I have been doing the hamstring stretches in particular and think they are very effective.