My son ran his first half marathon in under 2 hours! I ran the 8K at the Portland Shamrock run.

I've spent the best part of a year on physiotherapy and strength training as a recovery process from a knee injury. I'm now slowly, slowly getting back to running. Six years ago, with no history or running, I followed the couch to 5K programme and went on to run 10k on my 71st birthday. Since then a typically ran 5k two or three times a week until, a year ago, I experience sudden acute pain in the right knee. There was no warning discomfort just immediately sharp pain while running. My physio did a thorough assessment and diagnosed muscle weakness in the right leg. The training has paid off it seems, my muscles have more bulk and I can run up stairs again! For the last week I've been doing intervals: 30seconds running 1 minute walking. Today I stepped it up to 1 min running 1.5 min walking for a total running time of 6 min. It may not look like much if you regularly do multiple miles, but to me it's a huge step forward. It feels great to be out on the tracks again.

Let us know your plans.

Easy 10.5km training session. Zone 2 where, for me, the maximum heart rate is 132 bpm and I had an average of 126. In this session, my pace was 8'22'' per km in a time of 01:28:08. This training was done in the afternoon. When I do it in the morning, I get a much more satisfactory time within my Zone. Does the same happen to you?

Recently I've lost motivation when it comes to the daily run; it's been cold and I'm not a fan. So in my little mind I thought the best way to encourage the motivation to return was to sign up for a 12 hour event. Never run that far/long (have a few 50ks under my belt) but, here we go. There is work to do in the 25 weeks until the day. I want to drop 30ish pounds, learn to love (or at least tolerate) the gym, and get time on feet. But I'm pretty fired up and here for it. So what does anyone else to to break a slump? Especially this time of year.