The sun is out! On Saturday I have planed to run a gentle warmup for Sundays run and then go for a swim with Laura. The local pool is 3 or so miles away so it made sense to have a very gentle jog over to her before jumping in the pool for a few laps. Shorts finally out and it was lovely to run in the sun. No real issue on Sat but then again it wasn’t far! Good swim and then off for a relaxing afternoon, and some garden nursery time!

The schedule lists 18M for Sunday, and fortunately, Oliver, who I have run with before on a previous long run had volunteered to accompany me for a portion of today’s run. I had planned to meet him at Mile End and head round the 2012 Park and back to the flat, unfortunately things don’t always go to plan! At Mile End I saw Olly and he was already a little out of breath – thanks to TFL the route was to change, the central line was out between Liv St and Leytonstone and he had run down to meet me from Tower Hill! He had already covered 2.5 Miles to meet me and obviously I didn’t want to send him off on a 12 mile run! We doubled back towards the Olympic Stadium and I took him along the Greenway, hogging the side of the park.

My goal was to end up at Leyton as I wasn’t sure if it was planned engineering or a disruption to service, unfortunately it was the former and we had to carry onto Stratford where he would be able to continue on National Rail. I think it was hit Stratford after about 10miles for him (inc his first bit) and he seemed happy. He’s a good runner, wouldn’t take much to push him through a fast half marathon I don’t think! At Stratford, we parted ways and I headed home. I was 13 or so miles in so new the route home would cover the remaining 5 miles perfectly.

The run was certainly hot – the final two or three miles where a bit of a challenge as I’m not sure I had drunk enough – that said I followed my plans and run at a 9min/mi average pace so hopefully recovery time this week should be shorter! Lets hope that the temp falls a little bit otherwise we may have the same as last year on the big day!!

See mile splits

Woo that’s the last serious distance covered and it went well so brilliant! Rest day tomorrow

Till next time

It’s the weekend, so that only means one thing at the moment – time for a long run and this week schedule lists it as a 20 miler. Shifting the day forward to Saturday meant it was to be a very busy 7 days, racking up more miles than ever before.

The route was planned on Friday and thanks to Oliver who had volunteered to accompany me I went towards the river and over to Greenwich where we had planned to meet. He was to join me for the last 6 miles of the run which was very useful.

The run felt tough again, unlike last weekend it seemed an effort to even get to 10miles let alone double that. The run to Tower Bridge felt slow and heavy and unfortunately I had to break for a necessary toilet break in Stratford Mc’ds! The weather was foul with rain and wind not helping the progress and it felt like it was going to be one of those days!

Fortunately, the knowledge that I was to have company at the end pushed me on, perhaps on my own I may have fallen short on the distance as I felt so lousy but knowing Oliver would be there forced me on and into Greenwich. Peculiarly, my splits dropped a bit when I met up, normally I tend to push a bit faster with company but evidently this wasn’t to be the case on Saturday!

The sight of the Tower of London the second time was refreshing as it marked the 19 mile marker and I knew the post run swimming pool @ fitness first was nearby – wooo!

Laura had her uni friends down this weekend, all three of them are physios so before letting them depart I asked one of them to work on my calves which will hopefully help for the training this week!

20 miles completed, only a few more of them to go!

Till next time.

N