ok finally got around to doing this -

The left foot is all good again. The adjustment of the cleats made a huge difference. On last ride I did still notice a small niggle though so i'm considering putting a soft (not structured) insole in it.

The dude in the bike shop said he wears thicker socks to prevent this. He's had it and suprise suprise he also has feet of slightly different sizes and it's his smaller one that hurts. I'm thinking the socks probably work just because they improve the fit of the shoes (sized for the bigger foot).

I've started a circuit in my neighbourhood. It's only short but the aim is to get myself to really enjoy running again. The last time I did was about April this year - then I got either hooping cough or glandular fever (docs have no idea / time to diagnose) for several weeks and lost a lot of fitness.

Expecting to jump back to that fitness too quickly has made running less enjoyable than it should be and me less inclined to feel like running.

Phil Maffetone is a trainer of distance runners and he has a theory of training at a low heart rate and gradually and very slowly building up to prevent chronic fatigue, heart disease etc. I'm not patient enough to stick to his routine but I did take something from his ideas. He used gradual build up to allow people to mentally enjoy their training even if they started very small.

I think i've self sabotaged a lot by trying to start training the way i did at my fittest and being constantly frustrated by my lack of success!

So this small circuit is something i plan to do most days. It will keep my body and mind familiar with running. It's long enough to get me through that heavy legs warming up feeling and into a more comfortable stage, get a bit sweaty and then stop. As it gets easier i'll add more laps but i'm aiming to get faster before i make it longer.

I've done this for the last three days. Yesterday I also rode about 50 km through the hills and today i cycled to work and back. My gym closed down over christmas so i haven't been there for a while.