Week 21: Signed up for race

The week started with sore knees after yesterdays long run.  I have been doing stretches on by Illiotibial band in the hope that this would get better.  Strangely my knees do not hurt while running and after some exercise the pain goes away.  I went to the gym and did some cycling and weight training.  My knees felt better afterwards.
This week the Echappe Belle subscriptions opened, so I signed up.  I am only doing the 'Parcours des Crétes' but it is still 47km in the mountains, with 2750 metres ascent and 4000 metres of descent.  Now I am committed and there is more motivation to run.  I studied the road book and began to plan reconnaisance runs over certain sectors.  I will have to wait for the spring when the snow has melted away.
Tuesday I headed out for my first short run of the week.  I wanted to do some hill work as I am still worried about running up hill.  I ran 6.4km on a circuit that mixed uphill and downhill.  I felt quite good and managed to run, all be it slowly, on some of the uphill stretches.  I felt like going further but I am following the advice from different sources and sticking to two short (speed and strength) runs and one long run per week.
After my midweek rest day I went back to the gym, which was unfortunately busy, and worked on the static bike, the rowing machine and some weights.  Friday was a short, fast run around the local reservoir.  My time is still inching down towards the 5 minutes per kilometre mark.
Sunday I set out for the same long run as last week with my fingers crossed that my phone would hold out.  There was a hard frost on the ground so I wimped out and waited until the sun peeped over the mountains.  The first ten kilometres went very well.  I was able to dissassociate myself from the running and didn't seem to suffer at all.  The return leg also went well with a quite fast run uphill.  However after the 16km point things became a little more difficult.  My hip began aching and my knee was sore.  I soldiered on and so did my phone.  I finally clocked 21.5km, so that's my first half marathon in 2 hours and twenty minutes.