The first blot on my copy book. Not bad going I suppose, although under the less-is-more regime there is little room for excuses.
I had planned to complete my three runs on Mon-Wed-Fri, leaving the weekend free for a visit to friends, and a total of six children (excluding the infant) terrorising us more and more as the years pass. But I opted to slip this to Mon-Fri-Sun, leaving more time to finish my decorating, and optimistically thinking I'd be up for a short fartlek on Sunday night, having driven home and unpacked all the luggage.
Monday night was good, as previously mentioned: 7 miles at a relatively sedate 51:42 10K pace, but a good result nonetheless.
Friday night was my longest effort to date, a small stagger short of the half-marathon distance. This was completed in 3:55 marathon pace, again a decent result. I tried out Mr Sainsbury's excellent fruit jellies - softer than your common or garden jelly baby, and packing 10g of carb each (50/50 sugar and starch, just like those expensive gels) I happily necked one per mile to keep the batteries topped up. A success I think, I just need to work out how to transport them on the day.
Saturday, unsurprisingly, I was stiff and a little jaded, and then in the afternoon a very mild stomach bug was evident - nothing serious, but enough to put me completely off Saturday night's beer, curry and home made butterscotch pudding
. By Sunday lunchtime I was back to two-helpings-of-roast-pork fitness, but a tiny seed of long-runs-make-me-unhealthy-how-will-I-ever-get-to-26-miles fear was sown. Needless to say I cancelled the short fartlek.
Fortunately this week is another step-back, so only a 10 to look forward to at the weekend. Another 7 mile tempo on Tuesday night and hopefully I'll be back on track.
Blimey, only another four ground-breaking long runs left to go (15, 16, 18, 20) before the big one.
Feb 09 - A Hazy Shade of Winter
