Much to my amazement, I did it. Nearly 10 miles on a pitch-black, hostile evening, when I really didn’t feel like it.
A desperate day at work. I got home late-ish, weary and disillusioned. I’m not into speed training, but twice on the way home I was forced to produce explosive bursts of sprinting — in vain. First at Paddington, between the Bakerloo tube train and platform 10 of the mainline station, where I arrived, panting, to see the 18:18 moving off without me; and at Reading, between the train and the local branch of Sweatshop, where I wanted to replenish my supply of Powergels in preparation for my 20 miler this weekend. But again, I missed it by the skin of my gnashing teeth. The shop shuts at 7pm, and as I rattled the locked door my watch said 19:00 and 26 seconds. The two guys inside glanced up for a second in response to the noise, then went back to their examination of the till roll. Frustrating.
No moon at all tonight. It’s hazardous running on roads with no pavement in total darkness, but with longish runs I don’t have much choice. I stuck to my shortish local circuit (3.67 miles) which I ran just over 2 and a half times. A total of 9.75 miles at about 10:25 a mile. I was knackered when I got back home at about 10:15pm, but it felt great to have done it. There were several opportunities to curtail the run but I managed to resist them all.
And so to the weekend, and the dreaded 20 mile long run. On one level it’s a horrible thought, though it does represent the peak of the training progrmme that I’m doing, and the start of the taper. Hmm, I shouldn’t feel too smug about reaching the taper at last though; too many runs have been missed for comfort.
I have a lot left to do — at work, in training, in fund-raising. I’ve had some donations this week from fellow QPR fans (thank you Nik, Julia, Jamie and PW), and have already received generous pledges from Ian Painter and Charlotte Dutch, and a surprise contribution from an old friend, Luke. These were all made through the Just Giving website, which can be found here. I still have other friends and relations and work colleagues to come, so I hope I can boost the total quite a bit further yet.
