Hi I am new to this forum. I have been posting on the diabetic forum. I used to run about 6 years ago but due to over training my knees caused me to quit entirely. I have run 4 marathons, 3 halfs, 12k and many 10ks. Last year I developed some very serious serious health issues mainly due to lack of exercise and overeating. Now I have dropped 110 lbs and started running (more like jogging) again on Aug 1 this year. It seems to be going well and yesterday reached my goal of 16.6km (10 miles) It's got me thinking about doing a half again. The closest one is next spring but I don't want to run it until I get to a more respectable speed. I am getting older and I know I probably will never run as fast as I could 6 years ago but my desire to race is coming back. I hope I can get some advise and encouragement from other runners with similar goals and perhaps offering some of my own based on my experience. Dave

Matt My instinct tells me you are right, I should concentrate on distance for a while but the runner in me wants to go faster. I did 3short fartleks tonight in my 5 km run. I thought my recovery in between was way too slow but turns out my overall average pace for the run is better. I think I will continue to add 10% to my weekly long run and do fartleks once a week on my shorter runs. So far my knees are holding up great. Dave