Next time round do this week on your own.

Mon 16 Rest
Tue 17 7 miles slow - went out with usual group at club night.
Wed 18 5 miles slow
Thu 19 7 miles easy - group went slow all the way round
Fri 20 Rest
Sat 21 5 miles easyish with a bit of fartlek in the middle.
Sun 22 10 miles slow. Went out early before the weather was due to get worse. All done by 9 am.

Mon 09 4 miles dead easy on the cycle path with A from work.
Tue 10 7.5 miles steady with a couple of efforts up the hills. My older shoes are definitely on their way out.
Wed 11 3.5 miles. Calf went really tight. Abandoned ship and iced it when I got home.
Thu 12 Rest.
Fri 13 Rest. Went to M for a good pummelling.
Sat 14 3 miles. Ish? On grass. Felt fine.
Sun 15 15 miles. Mostly on grass verge. Felt fine until about 11ish, when calf started tightening up again. Cut run a bit short and got home just on 15. More ice!

Mon 26 Rest. 40 min bike ride, easy.
Tue 27 6 miles easy along the footpath.
Wed 28 7 miles easy Sefton Park/Carnatic from sports centre.
Thu 29 6 miles. 1 easy, 3@HM, 2 easy.
Fri 30 Rest
Sat 31 4 miles easy with a few 100m sprints.
Sun 01 15 miles. Plan for today was to do 1 easy, 13 @ HM, 1 easy. In the end we only managed marathon pace for the 13, and it's left me more knackered than I was last week after 21. It's bizarre. Not sure if this is the combined effect of a hard workout 2 weeks on the run just today's conditions, because I've never managed to do last week's and this week's exercise in tandem yet. I've done either one or the other, but I've never managed both.

I had high hopes that it would work this time, unfortunately the weather didn't help. In complete contrast to last week, when conditions were just about perfect, today they were completely the opposite. This morning we woke up to nothing short of a monsoon. We knew it was going to happen, so we'd decided to go out mid-morning, when the conditions would be at their least damaging. We'd been promised 50mph winds this afternoon and there is little point in attempting a fast pace in that unless you happen to be Wonder Woman. Earlier on the winds should have been no more than 35mph but we'd have driving rain. We went out at 9.30am when the rain had sort of slowed down. Unfortunately by then the roads were like rivers, with the water about an inch deep even on some of the pavements. Since the wind was up to about 35mph in the open, we tried to stay within built up areas as much as we could, but then you have all the crossroads, driveways and masses of leaves. It was more like training for xc than road running, lol. And the wind was fierce. I take heart in the fact that we still managed to stay well under 8' miles on average given the conditions, but we did clock a couple of 8'10"s and 8'15"s and only 3 or 4 7'30"s.

I'll be glad for the nice easy long run next week.

Mon 19 3 miles nice and easy along the cyclepath.
Tue 20 3 miles and a bit of yoga at lunchtime, 6 miles - ish - including efforts in the evening. 400m hill efforts up Carnatic x 8. Small group, convinced them to do the whole hill. Worked for me, but it took us forever, LOL.  Did I feel guilty? No.  It'll do them good.
Wed 21 7 miles dead slow. Work was manic, didn't stop all day and ate badly. By the time it came to run at 17:30 hours, 9' miles felt like sprinting. I've a feeling tonight I'm going to sleep like a log. (I did).
Thu 22 7.5 miles. Generally slow with about 15' tempo about halfway through. I'd planned to do the whole distance easy given the way I felt yesterday, but tonight I had a spring in my step. Felt like I could have legged it forever. You work that out cos I can't.
Fri 23 Rest
Sat 24 6 miles easy. Supposed to do 25' fartlek somewhere in there but have to admit tomorrow's exercise is playing on my mind. Don't want to get myself too tired beforehand.
Sun 25 21.5 miles. Progression run, 7 easy, 7 slow, 7 @ marathon pace and a final mile slow. There's only one of these in my programme, and rightly so. ( It's a beast of a session. )

Mon 12 4 miles nice and easy along the cyclepath with A from work.
Tue 13 7.5 miles. 15 min easy, 30 fartlek, 10 easy. Ran around the hills of Woolton in a reasonable approximation of a fartlek exercise. Either I'm getting fitter or we didn't work very hard, because I only really felt like I was pushing myself a couple of times. Having said all that, I'm falling asleep and it's only 22:00 hours.
Wed 14 7 miles slow. And we did just that. Felt a bit tired today. Had a long day at work and I could have eaten better. Missed my afternoon fruit & yoghurt. Never mind, more for me tomorrow. :)
Thu 15 6 miles.
Fri 16 Rest
Sat 17 4 miles easy.
Sun 18 16 miles slow. Go to town. Use the grass. We sort of did, and it felt nice and easy. Bizarre really.

Mon 5 3 miles easy. Recovery run with A along the cycle path.

Tue 6 7 miles. Should really have been 9 with 1.5 warm up, 6x1M efforts @ 5k to mile pace & finish with 1.5 cool down. Plan was to do 3 at 5k & 3 @ mile or as close as possible. Plan looks good on a piece of paper. My little group nearly fainted at the thought of six efforts and immediately re-negotiated it down to four. Since I didn't want to be abandoned in the middle of an industrial estate in the dark, I went along with it. I did 6'51", 6'50", 7'03" and 7'01". I found each effort reasonably hard going, which I expected. What I didn't expect was that I would have been happy enough to do another, and I'd have probably managed all six without crying, LOL. However I did not manage to get between 6'45" and 6'30" for a couple of them, which I would have liked to do. I think I need to do this kind of exercise earlier in the day, not at 8pm after a full day's work.

Wed 7 8 miles slow. Went out at lunchtime. Beautifully sunny autumn day. Did 5 miles on the cycle path and then the 3 mile loop that takes me past the hairdressers. Now I've an appointment for 09:30 on Sat morning! Kept to time fine on the flat, went a little too fast on the last loop. I keep on forgetting to curb the effort after cresting the hill. Anyway, I don't think it was anything too mad, I was only about a minute early.

Thu 8 9 miles. 2.5 slow, 4 @ marathon pace, 2.5 slow. Worked out just about perfectly. Felt relaxed throughout. It's getting a bit colder now, though. Need to start wearing long pants.

Fri 9 Rest.

Sat 10 4 miles. Short & easy with five 100m @ mile (22" efforts). Went from the sports centre to Rose Lane/Mather Ave & back. Just over 4 miles, 35 mins. Worked fine.

Sun 11 21 miles slow. Today I felt like death warmed up, so I was fully prepared to slow this right down. In the end I didn't have to, although the last 4 miles felt more like tempo than a long run. Still, after my longest week since records began, I guess that was only to be expected.

Mon 28 4 miles dead easy. 9'30" or thereabouts along the loop line with A from work. Nice way to spend your lunch hour, I think.
Tue 29 6 miles. Ish? Champions league efforts at the park, early because of the big game. Easy jog for 3/4 mile to the park and then two laps fartlek around the park for 4.6 miles. Easy jog home. I found tonight's session quite challenging because the group was entirely made up of fast runners. I was the only woman in the group and it showed. However that meant it all was over pretty quickly, LOL! I was back home in less than an hour even with all the chatting at the beginning and the end!
Wed 30 7 miles easy. Usual round from the sports centre to the park and up carnatic. 8'30" felt nice and easy.
Thu 01 7.5 miles. Did an exercise of sorts. 15 minutes easy, 15 @ marathon pace, 5 easy, 15 @ half marathon pace and a final 13 or so at slow pace. The whole thing took 1 hour and 3 minutes, which was about right for the correct paces.
Fri 02 Rest
Sat 03 5 miles. Easy fartlek exercise on a rolling route. 1 easy, 3 fartlek but never beyond half marathon pace, 1 easy.
Sun 04 21.5 miles. Should have been 20, but the internets weren't speaking to me properly yesterday, and by the time I'd assembled the route - in bits - I managed to sneak an extra mile in. I was also quite tired this week, which added to my confusion. The good news is I did my 20 in 2h50' as the plan commands, the bad news is that I was knackered from the word go. Also I hope that the jump from 17 to over 21 isn't detrimental to my general wellbeing. I'm off for a nice aromatheraphy massage in a few minutes, definitely looking forward to that!

Mon 21 Bike ride.
Tue 22 7 miles Track efforts. 2 miles easy, 5k time trial (8x400m @ 7' with 8x200m @ 8' plus a final 200m @ 7') and 2 miles easy home.
Wed 23 7 miles. Should have been slow but we ended up going at marathon pace. Nice easy one tomorrow then.
Thu 24 6 miles. We ended up doing pretty much the prescribed exercise. 2 easy, 3 @ half marathon pace, 1 easy. Felt ok but I'm getting a bit tired. I need to be more watchful of the easy days to make sure we don't do anything silly like last saturday or yesterday.
Fri 25 Rest.
Sat 26 5 miles. 1.5 warm up, 7 hills @ mile pace with very slow jog recovery, 1.5 miles cool down. Today's efforts felt hard. At first I thought I was paying for the extra work I'd done coming up to today - and the fact that the mileage is creeping up - then I checked the distance we were covering. I'd managed to sneak an extra 50 meters into our hill, LOL! At an average of 55min per hill that makes it just under 6min miles.
Sun 27 17 miles @ marathon pace. With a few ups and downs due to dodgy mile markers (mine) it worked out pretty much to the minute until the last mile, when we decided to let off and cool down. Today I had trouble finding a running chum for the whole distance, so I did 6 miles on my own before picking up C from the sports centre and doing 11 with him. Only I'd sort of said we were only going to do 10, and as we were both getting tired towards the end, I bribed him to stay with me with the offer of doing 10 of our 11 miles fast and the last one home very slow. Turns out we did 8'40" for the last mile, so it wasn't even that slow in our terms, but it did the trick. Last time around I could only do 1 easy, 14 @ marathon pace and 1 easy at this point, so I'm very happy that I could have done all 17 at marathon pace if I'd wanted to. Tired, but happy.

Mon 14 40 min bike ride.
Tue 15 6 miles. Club night efforts. Tonight I was able to do my own thing alongside everyone else, which was nice. :) Whilst everyone was doing one lap of one the local fields in pairs, I did 2 laps on my own. Worked out at about 4' per effort, with 4' rest in between. The rest seemed a little excessive, to be honest. 1.5 miles easy there and back.
Wed 16 7 miles slow.
Thu 17 7 miles. 1.5 easy, 4 @ marathon pace, 1.5 easy. Went out with the usual group, who weren't going to entertain 8' miles. I legged it a bit at halftime and then we generally picked it up together. Not quite the right exercise, but close enough for today. Next week I'll have to do something different.
Fri 18 Rest
Sat 19 7 miles. 15' easy, 25' fartlek, 15' easy. This one worked better, although we should only have done 6 miles. Next time we'll have to use the 5 mile route and do our cool down as an extra lap of the park by the sports centre at the end.
Sun 20 14 miles slow. Very impressed to find that slow feels almost like easy, and still we made it back 2 minutes early.

Holiday week. Never thought I'd get a full week out of this one.

Mon 7 4 miles easyish around Bergamo. At least as easy as it gets in a place that appears to be entirely uphill, LOL!
Tue 8 Rest
Wed 9 7.5 miles slow/marathon pace/slow to and around le Cascine, then back home.
Thu 10 Rest
Fri 11 4 miles. Ish? Went out way too soon after lunch. By the time I got to the park I was sweating profusely and my stomach was none too happy about the situation. I ended up walking around the park for 20 minutes before running back home. Wasn't feeling too good when I got back, either. It's all my dad's fault, really. Fancy opening a bottle of Galestro at lunchtime. :)
Sat 12 4 miles. 1 slow, 2 tempo, 1 slow. Today I didn't attempt to vomit any of my food.
Sun 13 12 miles. Long run at slow pace. Felt nice and comfortable as it jolly well should.

I suppose I'm done with coasting. From next week it's proper training again. :)

Week 2.

Mon 31 Rest.
Tue 1 7 miles slow. Didn't feel like doing efforts, so I went out with the usual suspects. From next week I will have to start doing my own efforts, since the usual club ones will be too short. Not particularly looking forward to that.
Wed 2 7 miles slow. Went out with J after work. Felt a bit tired. I think I will have to start doing my wed runs at lunchtime again.
Thu 3 6.5 miles. 2 miles slow, 2.5 tempo, 2 slow. Tired today. Really felt the fast bit.
Fri 4 Rest.
Sat 5 13 miles. Long one at 8'30" today. Felt good. Off to Italy tonight.
Sun 6 Rest

Week 1

Mon 24 40 min bike ride.
Tue 25 5.5 miles. Club night efforts, 8 laps of Allerton Priory with 1.5 miles either side.
Wed 26 6.5 miles at long run pace. From the house to Sefton Park, round twice and back.
Thu 27 9 miles. The last of this summer's Devil's Gallops, no less. This is the run behind the airport and alongside the shore of the river Mersey. Along the beach, as I was told the first time I did this. A beach it ain't, but you get a good workout nonetheless, running at least a couple of miles out of the nine in sand, shingles and mud. Once again I made it through without falling into any raw sewage, which I always count as a bonus. The whole thing took just over an hour and ten minutes of actual running time, or so I'm told since I never started my watch. We did hang about for a few minutes at the end of the shore run to wait for a few stragglers though, so really we got a rest with a couple of miles to go.
Fri 28 Rest.
Sat 29 4 miles slow. Felt a bit groggy this morning, didn't feel like any sort of exercise. Perhaps Thursday's exercise took it out of me more than I expected. Went out with J and had a chat while we jogged around the park.
Sun 30 13 miles. Ran very easy with a few from the club.

OK, so this week could have started better. I survived my dad and his dalliances with mad women. I swear the man gets his leg over more often than I do. Yeah, I know, TMI. Anyway, started off the week with 6 miles on my day off and my right calf is stiff. I'm once again at one with the bag of frozen peas, at least until C gets her hands on me on Friday - at which point she'll probably tell me to take it easy and ice my leg.

Mon 17 6 miles. On my day off. Upon returning home from Italy I got out of the plane and the airport in less than 10 minutes - which has to be a new record - only to find I still had my dad's house keys and not my own. I had to spend over 1.5 hours on a bus that went to Kendal and Timbuktu on route to Peter's place of work, where I could collect his. By the time I got there I'd decided I couldn't face another couple of hours on the bus so I got changed into my running stuff and ran home. I was so agitated that I went off like a woman possessed. After about 2 miles my calf started hurting. Tried to do the reasonable thing and rang the in-laws on the way through to see if I could stop by and get a lift home, but they were in the city centre. I didn't want to alarm them, so I made up some story about wanting to say hello on my way past their house and carried on. What a way to start the week.

Tue 18 Rest. Pete was working late so club night was out of the question. Took the opportunity to swap my day off and took my faithful bag of peas to work. I think I need a new one, it's beginning to look a bit worse for wear.

Wed 19 6.5 miles. Went out with J, nice and easy. Calf is ok if a little tight. Iced it again, will take it easy again tomorrow night and then it's off to C's on friday for a good old rubdown.

Thu 20 7 miles. Went to club night and ran as slowly as humanly possible so as not to upset my leg any further. Today it didn't really hurt to tell the truth, and I want to keep it that way. Depending on what C says tomorrow I may well go and run with the lads on sunday again. In the meantime I'm going to bed. :: yawn ::

Fri 21 Rest. Went to see C and have my massage. Turns out that my calf is fine. The muscles are just getting a little tight, and it's nothing that a bit of stretching and a bit more icing won't cure.

Sat 22 5 miles. Ran easy with J up and down a couple of hills, but we didn't force it.

Sun 23 10 miles. Went out with the lads again, only this time I wasn't really planning to stay with them the whole way round. Yesterday afternoon and evening I was feeling decidedly ropey, for some reason. I had a headache all day and what I hoped was not the beginnings of a cold. I still wanted to run today, but decided to stick to just 10 miles. Better safe than sorry and all that. We took a different route and I split off to miss out the last 3 miles. As it happens this morning I felt like I could have stayed with them, but I didn't want to push it.

I was hoping these exercises would answer my questions on my current fitness, and I think they have. I can hack long runs at 8', but it feels reasonably hard. I'm not sure I'd want to keep this sort of thing up beyond 15 or 16 miles on a regular basis on top of a full training week. At this speed I can talk but I'd rather listen, which tells me I'm not doing tempo but I'm definitely going faster than easy. 8'30" always feels easy now, so I think I'll stick with that for my long run speed. This means I can keep to the same schedule I used last time, only I will try to incorporate some of the sessions I couldn't do last time round because I was getting too tired. I hope they will be manageable this time. I'm really looking forward to start with the marathon programme.

After my recent racing adventures I decided to combine the visit to Florence with a sort of holiday week. I can never do anything sensible in the heat, so I may as well try and take a rest generally. The plan for this week is to get back up to over 35 miles but not to attempt any speed or tempo exercises. TB helped me along right from the start by swapping his Thu late night for Mon, which meant no circuits. I didn't cry. *g*

Mon 10 30 min bike ride at lunchtime.
Tue 11 6.5 miles. Went for an easy run today and quite frankly, needed it.
Wed 12 8 miles. A bit of a strange day. I needed Euros and a book, so I ran to the nearest supermarket (that handily has a bureau de change on site) at lunchtime. I reckon that must have been at least 3 miles, because I took it easy but it still took me 15 min each way. When I got back to the gym to get changed they were just starting a new circuits class. I joined in for 20 minutes to see what it was like, before getting changed and going back to work. It was very good actually, and I plan to attend in future.
Thu 13 Rest. Travelled to Florence today, and between one thing an another - ok, mostly the fact that by the time I actually got to Florence it was already 34C - I decided to give it a rest today instead of tomorrow.
Fri 14 7.5 miles. I went out as early as I managed to get myself out of bed, which admittedly was not very early. Temp was 28C and I very nearly talked myself out of going. In the end I kicked myself out of the house and went out with a bottle of water. It didn't turn out as horrendously as I had feared. I managed to stay mostly in the shade until I got to the park and mostly ran in there. Le Cascine are lovely and, like any good park, full of trees. I like trees. Especially the shade they generate. I went about some sort of loop of the park (it's filled with little trails and asphalted roads, some used by the local clubs and clearly marked for efforts) and refilled my bottle at the fountain all'Indiano. It's weird to see how much water I need to consume in this weather (1 litre on today's run) when at home I wouldn't need to drink at all. Ate lots of fruit when I got home and then went into the city centre for a good look at the shops and a couple of ice creams.
Sat 15 4.5 miles. Went a little earlier and tried going a little faster to see how something of fartlek session would make me feel here. The answer is - perhaps unsurprisingly - thirsty. I managed to consume two bottles of water again, but in the main it was ok.

The issue with the heat in Florence is that it is very humid. I never really understood when I lived here because to large extent one must get used to it, and because I never really ran very long distances in summer. Because the humidity doesn't allow you to sweat properly one tends to overheat, and unless you are racing and or feel particularly committed to your training, the only thing to do is slow down. It's because of this that I was surprised to find that this year I'm not actually that much slower than I am at home over shortish distances like today's.

That said, I am on holiday. I can spend most of my day slouching around. I'm not at all certain I can compare days like these with a normal working day plus training.

Sun 17 14.5 miles. Definitely felt it today. Today was a 3 bottle route, LOL. And in retrospect one should probably have had some salts in it.

I went up to Piazzale Michelangiolo via Baccio/Pollaiolo/Porta Romana and then back down to San Niccolò. Then along the Lungarni until I hit le Cascine again for a few miles under the trees before heading off home. The road to Michelangiolo is not particularly steep, but it does climb a little. About 100m or so over a couple of miles. This is the marathon route in reverse, and I like doing it this way in training. I stopped at the Piazzale for a quick glance at the lovely view and to buy a bottle of water, since there was no fountain for a refill until le Cascine. It was good to leg it down the other side, LOL! The stretch along the river was hot despite a bit of a breeze, and by the time I got to the park I was down to the dregs of my second bottle. I wanted to run for 2 hours today, and I did, although it must have been nearly 2h20' door to door. I stopped my watch every time I stopped to drink - which was often - and I walked around in circles in a couple of places when it really got too hot. However I hadn't expected this loop to be over 13 miles, so all in all I'm quite pleased at how it went, even though towards the end (especially the last bit home from the park) I did find it quite hard. I'd have been happy to stop at the park if truth be told. But hey, it worked. I must be getting used to this, ha ha.

After my adventures in Manchester involving belly dancers and suspicious-looking nuns I decided it would be wise to rest up a little before attempting another hideous invigorating fast run this week.

On Sunday I could only manage 7'10"ish per mile. I feel I really should be able to do 7' miles at this sort of distance. Truth is that when it comes to running fast my spine deserts me faster than my breath. I can run all day every day when it's nice and comfy. I have real issues with making myself keep going through oxygen deprivation though, so I guess that's what I need to work at.

Mon 3 40 min bike ride at lunchtime. I should have gone to circuits after work but I got home too late.

Tue 4 3 miles. I was going to do nothing at all today, but some of the girls were going out at lunchtime and I had to reschedule my hairdressing appointment, so I went out with them and persuaded them to go on one of my local (to work) routes, curiously enough the one that goes past the hairdresser's shop. They didn't seem to mind. We got our jog done and I now have a different appointment. Went to club night after work, but only to collect my new black hoodie with the club logo. Showed off my new wheels to a small (it was early) and largely unresponsive audience and went home. Nice evening for a ride, actually. Shame I feel I needed to rest.

Wed 5 7 miles. A while ago I asked someone in the runners community who looks like she knows what she's doing to explain what she does to warm up before a 5k. Turns out that she nearly warms up for a longer distance than she races. I found this fascinating, since up to that point my warm up for any race consisted in either having a cup of coffee or sitting near a radiator (in winter). I tried it last Sunday and it did seem to make some difference. ( Tonight I was going to have another go. )Maybe I should do this sort of thing more often.

Thu 6 Rest. ( I wanted to run, but events conspired against me. )

Fri 7 Rest. Played guitar at lunchtime and went out for a beer after work with shiny new red hair. I even put make up on. My friend nearly had a fit. Today I mostly exercised my fingers and arms.

Sat 8 4 miles? Ish. Showed J from the club my hill sprints. These are approx 200m hills that I do as close to 6' miles as I can, or my calculations allow. Each hill normally takes me 51"-53" to get up and 2 minutes to get back down. I like doing these because they are such a shock to the system, but short enough not to put me off. Today we only did 6 because she'd never done them before and I'm feeling a bit run down, so I didn't feel like overburdening either of us. We warmed up for 1.5 miles, did our sprints and then cooled down for 1.5 miles. Lovely day for it, too.

Sun 9 14.5 miles. Today I tried a different exercise. I thought I'd go and do my long run with some of the lads who are training for a marathon. I think one of them is doing NY in November. Their easy pace is 8'-8'30", which is somewhere in between marathon race pace and slow long run pace for me. They promised that range, so I thought I'd give it a whirl to see how I'm feeling at the moment. Plan was simple. Jog down to meet them and go off. If I could stay with them the whole way around all well and good, otherwise I'd just let them go. It's unlikely that I would get lost!

Today I had two pleasant surprises. One was that Wednesday's course was indeed noticeably harder than Sunday's. One of the lads, a 17+' 5k man, said that on that course he's never managed to get under 18', despite averaging 17'30" on many other local courses, including Alexandra Park. If I follow that reasoning it means that in terms of effort I pretty much went the same way as I'd done in Manchester, if not quicker. Fascinating, because on the day I thought I felt really tired.

The second was that the long run went way better than I had hoped. Not only I managed to stay with them the whole way around, but it wasn't even all that hard! And we never really strayed much above 8' miles. I'm really happy about that, because it means I'm in much better shape than I was at the beginning of the last period of marathon training. We did 13 miles together, 13.07 according to google maps. That took just over 1h44, which has got to be very close to my half marathon PB. Despite that it never felt like real effort, it just got a bit more difficult towards the end. Still in a long run sort of way though, when we were going up the only two uphill sections. In the main it felt much easier than I expected. My foot appears to be fully recovered. No pain, no swelling. Happy days.

There was a fun run in the park this morning. I took a picture of a group of charity runners on their way to the start, two dressed like a fox and a rabbit (I think) and then jogged my way home full of the joys of summer. It feels good to be all in one piece again.

I think next week I will try a few more miles but a nice, leisurely pace throughout. After all, I will be on holiday!

I've cut down the mileage for two weeks on the run now. My foot is nearly back to normal, which means I will be able to slowly start increasing mileage again, and my next marathon training plan kicks in towards the end of the month.

After last week's 5 miler, I have decided to take the advice of a couple of clubmates and try my hand at a few short races - 10k and under - until it's time to start on the endurance block of the marathon plan. This week's race is the Alexandra Park 5k, a localish race in a municipal park in Manchester. I only discovered it last month and I like the sound of it. Part of the proceeds go towards the upkeep of the park, the rest towards promoting sports within the LGBT community. And the £3 entry fee gets you a drink, a banana and a chocolate biscuit after the race. These people understand me better than most.

Mon 27 40 min bike ride at lunchtime. Circuits class in the evening.
Tue 28 Club night efforts. Call it 7 miles? Fartlek type session in a square section of a local field. Sprinted up the hill, rested 10 seconds, sprinted slightly downhill for the next section then jogged the third section down the hill and ran the last leg steady with a 10 sec rest at the end. Did that 8 times. Warmed up and cooled down with a 1.5 mile run each way.
Wed 29 6.5 miles easy with J. Nice sunny evening.
Thu 30 9 miles steady, with two on a reasonably dry sand trail. They call it the Devil's Gallop. If I were the devil I'd be quite offended. Took 1h20' and it never felt difficult, which was quite reassuring. Last time I did this it still took 1h20' but it felt like running.
Fri 31 Rest
Sat 01 Rest
Sun 02 9 miles. Warmed up for approx 3 miles (jogged one, ran the next one steady and did a sort of fartlek exercise during the third), raced the next 3 and jogged the last 3 after a bit of a rest. I would have done the last 3 straight away, but we were new to the area and didn't want to get under the feet of the organisers and/or the people still out on the course. Got the surprise of my life when I discovered that a time of 21'36" was good enough for 3rd place in the women's race. I got a medal and everything. There may be a picture on the website in the next few days. I couldn't stop laughing. I think it's because all the good runners were on holiday. Anyway, my speed exercises are coming along, and I hope to get to 7' miles when I go back next month.

Mon 20 40 min bike ride, dead easy though.
Tue 21 Rest
Wed 22 6.5 miles. Took part in my very first 5 mile race today. Got a PB of course, ha ha.

Time: 36'36"
Pos: 109/226 overall, 15th of 50 odd women. I was 3rd of my age group.

Overall I'm quite pleased with it. I have a feeling I didn't warm up properly, though. Or started off too fast. I can't quite decide. It could have been a bit of both. Did the first two miles in just under 7'15" (which, in truth, I feel should be my 10k pace by now) but felt terrible during the 3rd. I very nearly stopped. I told myself off and picked myself up, and by time I hit mile 4 I was feeling much better. Well, it hurt like a very hurty thing, but I found that place in my head where going faster only hurt marginally more than it did when I was going slower. It almost feels easier when I decide that's the case, and I end up feeling so strong that it hardly matters that I'm breathing like a pair of bellows. I think I need to work on getting myself there a bit earlier in the race than I normally do. In the end I absolutely legged it for the last 3/4 mile, which clearly means I didn't work hard enough between mile 2 and 3. Unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to take more splits after mile 2; all I know is that the last 3 miles took 22'11". I reckon I must have been close to 8' miling during mile 3.

Thu 23 7 miles. Went to club night. Interesting run through the parks and up a couple of hills. I didn't really feel like exerting myself too much after yesterday but I needn't have worried. We ended up taking just over an hour including the various bits of jogging round in circles while the group waited for the slower ones to catch up.

Fri 24 Rest.
Sat 25 4 miles. First easy, middle two at 7', last easy. Hard but doable. Then I went to collect my new bike. Went out for lunch and then dozed off in front of the telly while the TdF was on. I was getting ready for my first bike ride in years, LOL. Went out to the park to try out my new shoes, on the grounds that it would be better to fall over on the grass than in front of a truck at a set of traffic lights, but did all right. Never actually fell over. Then I realised there was something wrong with the gears, so I legged it over the shop but the mechanic had gone. My ten minute bike ride had turned into legging it for over an hour. Mmmm. Took another nap before teatime and later on slept like a baby.

Sun 26 11.5 miles. Alarm went off at 06:30 hours. Gave it a poke, thinking I'd get another half an hour before getting up. Two hours later I was still in the land of nod. Got up with 20 minutes to go before I had to meet J to go for our run. Ate a banana and went out. We took it nice and easy, but even so I didn't really wake up until we'd been going for nearly an hour, LOL! I didn't feel right at any point to tell the truth. I'd taken a gel with me and I took some of that, but I felt a bit queasy and didn't really want to eat anything. I felt really tired. Not exactly leg tired, more like sleepy.

I think I need to accept that these days it takes me longer than five minutes to recover from a race.

Mon 13 40 min bike ride at lunchtime, 3 miles in the evening to and from circuits class. I think these circuit classes are knackering me. I hope to adjust soon, because I'm feeling pretty beat right now.
Tue 14 6 miles or just over. Went for easy but ended up going a bit too fast for that. Not a good idea, need to remember for next time.
Wed 15 6 miles slow. Mostly off road. Very hot. Very tired.
Thu 16 7 miles. In the rain. I am a new woman. Actually, we didn't go very fast, it was nice and steady just over 8'30" miles but it felt nice not to feel so tired the whole time.
Fri 17 Rest.
Sat 18 13 miles. Nice and easy, took about 2 hours.
Sun 19 9 miles? Walking, that is. Up a mountain, no less. OK, where I'm from it'd be something a little bigger than a hill, but here this sort of thing qualifies as a mountain. The sort of mountain to the top of which you can climb in a pair of trainers. I rest my case.

Anyway, had a good day of it, despite the weather. We walked into a cloud about 3/4 of the way up the path and couldn't see a tap after that. Could just about see the person in front to be honest. Of course it cleared up by the time we got back down to the bottom of the path. I'd like to go back on a clear day, mind.

Mon 6 3 miles. Sort of a recovery run, albeit not all in one go. I jogged to a new (to me) circuits class and then back home. Circuits was fun, perhaps I should have taken it a tad more seriously. Will probably go back.
Tue 7 6 miles? Club night efforts. Interesting session, 5 laps uphill followed by 5 laps slightly downhill, mostly offroad.
Wed 8 6 miles. Went out at lunchtime because a) was getting a leg massage after work b) discovered I had to go to a conference in Blackpool Thu & Fri. Went too fast, 8' miles. It was fine, but probably not entirely useful as a session.
Thu 9 5 miles? Out on the prom in Blackpool before dinner. Went north into the breeze for 20 and then came back. Wind was strong but it was good because otherwise it would have been quite warm. Nice to run by the sea, and the road was clear and clean. Had a little swim in the hotel pool when I got back. All very civilised.
Fri 10 Rest
Sat 11 5 miles fartlek. Managed the exercise but I felt very tired throughout. Not sure if it was because I didn't do it properly or because I'm knackered. Probably the latter.
Sun 12 12 miles. Went out with S from the club. Her slow is a bit slower than mine, which was just as well. Enjoyed it despite the heat, and just about got to 12 miles, although I think we weren't quite there.

Mon 29 30 min bike ride.
Tue 30 Club night efforts. 5 miles. 6 laps of Allerton Priory and about 1.5 miles there and back. Very hot. A bit of a shock to the system, but not an unwelcome one.
Wed 1 11 miles. A bit of a strange day. Did 4 at lunchtime and 7 in the evening. Had promised to run with A from work in the daytime and promptly forgotten, agreeing to run with J after work. Hey ho. 10min miles at lunchtime because it was scorchio, and 9min miles at teatime because it was still effing hot. I've never drunk so much in one day before.
Thu 2 5 miles. We were meant to do 6 or 7 but by the time I got to where we were meeting I was nearly 15 minutes late. On the plus side I've successfully ordered my bike. 9min miles and I nearly died. When's that rain coming?
Fri 3 Rest
Sat 4 4 miles. 1 slow, 2 tempo, 1 slow. Tempo worked out at 7'. I thought I was doing 7'30". Not sure if this means I find 7' easier than I used to or if I have no idea what either feels like.
Sun 5 11.5 miles slow. Convinced my running chums to try out 8'30" for our long run. Worked out better than I thought. We stayed consistently under 8'30" apart from up the two main hills and it felt easy and relaxed. The breathing in over three steps and out over three steps trick worked everywhere. Foot twinged a couple of times but that was all.

Total for Week: 36.5