First lunchtime run in a long time with the added benefit of a new route. Went out with the full mse crew, headed up-to a busy Kensington at a fairly fast pace. Through hide park and back home again. This was actually one of the faster runs I have done recently. The first half was certainly above average pace and the whole group stuck together as a pack. During Hyde Park the numbers dwindled a bit before getting to Queensway and being left to my own devices….

Good run and pushed the miles upto over 26 in the span of 5 days…No nike+ today as used part of the run as an opportunity to calibrate the device alongside the Garmin watch so hopefully the run data in future will be more accurate.

Route as shown by this grab

and more info can be seen here.

What could possibly break today! The last two runs have been far from succesful, breaking my earphones two weeks ago and then the nike+ footpod last week I was certain something may go wrong! Fortunately not, only a little splash as a car drove through a puddle but I got luckier than the person who just overtook me and got completely drenched!

Anyway – standard run really other than I got the opportunity to run with a garmin watch today. Will add reviews of this watch later when I have run a few more times. First impressions are good, other than somehow mid-run I ended up with a compass on the screen that I couldn’t get rid of! Annoying.

Its that time of the week again, back to niketown regent street to run round regents park a couple of times. Less of a turnout than last week – new years resolutions starting to end again….

Standard run really, first lap was on my own, no music – until about 3/4s of the way round. Second lap did not pass without an event….

Neil Lock vs Tree…

…tree wins

To cut a long story short earphones caught round an overhanging tree, ripped off my head and proceeded to break – i guess if there is any consolation my ipod carried on going! just need to buy a new set of earphones now!

Second lap was actually pretty good – one of the nike team members ran with me, meant had someone to talk to and when the loop is 3 miles thats pretty damn useful.

Next NTR on tuesday – next long run at the weekend. maybe get an interval session in on thurs/fri.

Tuesday night marks the return of my “Mid Distance” runs. 7-8 mile distances with either my dad (who is currently on hold on running training) or with the NikeTownRunners(ntr).

The ntr setup involves rocking up to NikeTown Oxford Circus at 630 on a Tuesday night and running with a group of other people. Unfortunately im not quick enough to keep up with the front batch of runners so it has the potential to be an individual run. However, it is a routine event meaning that I can calendar it in and hopefully maintain a run at a time i probably wouldn’t normally bother with!

From a physical perspective this run was again a testing one following the long distance Sunday run, the back of my legs were a little tense at the end of it and I also didn’t really have the best preparatory food for it at lunch (pizza!) so had a bit of a stitch for the first lap. Perseverance is the key though and the second loop went by quite easily. Darren from work came along with me too so managed to have a chat as we went round which always helps the run fly by a lot quicker.

I have attached the map of the route here7mile_map_web. Its fairly simple and has a massive plus to it – its FLAT! Awesome. The course is a little dull on the whole but at the end of the day its miles in the legs…