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

10miles scheduled for today and that meant the standard run to Ox Circus. Flicking through my diary now this is the last long midweek run and the last time I’ll have to run up the hill on lea bridge road for a while!

Following a restless night sleep I set off out of the flat at 730. I know the route now without even thinking about it, as usual the first mile sent my heart-rate through the roof and I questioned what I was doing (just to fill you in the first mile is a very slow incline but a bugger to start with!).

Right now I’m struggling to think of anything eventful during the run so can only assume that is a good thing as obv there was no pain or issues! I didn’t check what pace I should have been doing today at and after looking annoyingly I was down a little bit. Hopefully not an issue but that said I haven’t done a street speed session for a little while so need to consider going out and widening my stride a bit.

18M scheduled for this weekend need to slow it down on that one so as not to kill me for the following week!

Till then.

N

Having suffered from a bit of a dodgy tummy on Tues night and during the day weds I was slightly apprehensive about this run but as it turns out baring a moment about 1/2mile from home there was nothing to worry about.

Legs still feeling quite heavy I set off from Stratford to home which is 5 miles. Fortunately unlike the last time I did it the rain held off and the weather was quite nice – also following the clock changes a few weeks back it’s much nicer running at 7pm and it still being light. The sched said 6M in 58mins which I did. Guessing that’s a 9:30 pace and I certainly was under that.

Long soak in the bath following that and an early night. Thursday was the longer run of the week and it was going to have to be a morning run due to eve commitments.

Reasonable run, heart rate quite low – nothing overly challenging.

N

Long day at work meant I didn’t want to get up early for a run so I had to factor it into my working da which meant only one thing a lunchtime dreadmill session at the gym.

Limited by time I covered 6.5km interval-ling between 12&14.5km/h. Was fast but not too bad. Warm down stretches and back to work in under an hour…slightly longer run tomorrow.

Completely unscheduled following shifting my long run to Friday I decided to go out for a very short gentle run.

It always amazes me how two runs can feel completely different – during this run if you’d have asked what I found more difficult the last 3miles of the long run or the run I was on I would have said the former. My legs felt heavy and nothing seemed to be smooth.

Oh well, to be expected really as my body was still recovering from the long run. Treadmill interval session for Tuesday to get my legs moving fast again!