Taxing Run 1 Tax Return 0. Only 3.4 miles this time, but the pace was 9:58 – fast for me, but still comfortable. Things are looking good for the Almeria Half on Sunday. Readers of the forum will know that there are 6 of our small but beautifully formed community running in Spain in a couple of days time. The hand of history weighs heavily on our quads.… READ MORE.... …
Month: January 2005
The Gospel According To Bob Glover? How strictly should training plans be adhered to? How bad should I feel about missing a run or falling a few miles short over the week? To find some answers, I decided to ask someone who is currently training for his 4th marathon. Myself. Don’t feel too bad about missing a midweek run, I opined, though it depends why you’re missing it.… READ MORE.... …
Coldest day of the year by some distance, and a rest day – but it seemed a shame to stay clear away from it. I had to go and have a taste of the pain. Only 3½ miles, and slow, but strangely important. If I’m to do better than I have in my previous marathons, I need to work harder than I did in preparing for them.… READ MORE.... …
Three juddering, frozen recovery miles, early on a Sunday morning, while the church bells rung out across the village.… READ MORE.... …
Mid-afternoon. The world was getting colder, wetter, darker. And the football was about to start. So I did what I had to do – put on my running stuff and ventured out along the canal for a twelve mile slog. The first of those miles was as long and as miserable a mile as I ever ran. I couldn’t see myself making it to the third.… READ MORE.... …
Back to the local road running group tonight for a vigorous 5 miles through the suburban capillaries of Tilehurst. This was one of the best runs I’ve had in a long time. It did what I wanted it to do – forced me to run a bit faster than I was accustomed to, and just a bit faster than I was comfortable with.… READ MORE.... …
Four runs, a new job, and no chocolate cake. It’s been an interesting week. And it’s one of those ironies that the more interesting and eventful life is, the less time there seems to be to digest the lessons fully and to regurgitate the wisdom. But perhaps there’s still just time to leave a blogoscopic scratch on the week’s surface before it vanishes completely.… READ MORE.... …
Dense, succulently moist, cloyingly rich and sticky. Chocolate cake. Laced with Cognac. I need to fix it in my memory, because that’s where it must remain confined, at least until after the Hamburg Marathon on April 24. Last night I opened the fridge, hoping to find a tomato or half a stick of celery to snack on – and there it was.… READ MORE.... …
This has become a bad week, and like a lot of bad weeks, it’s sprung up out of nothing, quite unexpectedly. It’s true that I popped out for an unscheduled 3.3 mile recovery run last night, but after returning, showering and getting changed, I popped out again, this time for an unscheduled couple of hours in the pub, followed by a frenzy of calorific feeding at midnight, and a very late night, leading to fatigue today which has removed the prospect of getting out this evening for my planned 4 miler.… READ MORE.... …
Mildly hungover and slightly bloated after yesterday’s family golden wedding celebration, I nonetheless managed to get out for a sporting 3½ miles late this afternoon. It was dark and raining steadily. I like it when it’s raining so hard that you can hear the water trickling into the roadside drains. Much nobler than namby-pamby drizzle. I heard on the radio the other night that 4% of food is consumed “in front of an open refrigerator”.… READ MORE.... …
Working from home today, so was able to get out at lunchtime on a grey and very blustery day. First half was a struggle against the wind, which might explain the rare occurrence of the negative split – running the second half faster than the first. Here was the first long run of the campaign, and it was a good one.… READ MORE.... …