'This would be easier if...'

Today's run: 3 km (1.86 miles) in 22:50 + 2 km (1.24 miles) in 14:50.
Injury check: Hmmm.
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A two-stage run tonight. Not my intention from the start, but summer arrived at the weekend (I have the watch-strap tan to prove it) and this evening I had clear blue skies and bright sunshine on my outside run. This made it hot. I don't do so well in the heat. Still, I started out and after the first 1k or so I found a rhythm, slower than usual but fairly steady. 
I kept it up until the 3k mark when I was just too hot and then I sloped back into the gym (with its lovely, lovely air conditioning) and got on the treadmill for another 2k. So there was a break between the two stages of about 5 mins but I still totalled 5k - I'm happy that I managed the distance without a repeat of last week's Knee Fail. 


I was wearing a support on my bad knee this evening, which did help. It survived the whole 5k, although it's aching just a little now. But, again, it was my good knee tweaking just a little at the end of the run. 
I'm sure that I've unconsciously adapted my gait over the years of bad-knee/weak-knee/bad-knee-worse/bad-knee-fixed/bad-knee-hurting-again so that my steps aren't entirely even and I favour my right, good knee. So when I'm running my right knee actually takes just a little more of my weight than it should and suffers because of that. Well, that's my current theory, anyway. 


But it was the heat that really slowed me down today. And it was on my wander back from my route around the playing fields and up to the treadmill that I found myself musing on the weather and thinking: 'I'll find it much easier to run the marathon if it's raining.' 
This is undoubtedly true, although not as valid as my next thought: 'I'd find it much easier to run the marathon if it was shorter.'


Sigh.