Training Diary, Day 61: Egging myself on

Retaining the motivation to go running is the toughest part of this training regime. Being 61 days in and with only 26 to go until the big race, now is not the time to lie down and take advantage of the easter egg reductions.

However tempting.

Training Diary, Day 58: Welcome to teletubby land

“Over the hills and far away, an exhausted runner jogs away” – and no, my modest beer belly doesn’t resemble that of the teletubby (before you say it).

Exhausted is a bit of an exaggerration on my part but I felt tired and quite surprised having found that the nature trail around the Leek Road campus of Staffordshire University leads you up and down a large hill several times – wasn’t quite the light morning jog I had in mind.

Training Diary, Day 53: By george! I think we’ve done it.

The Trent and Mersey Canal in Etruria (credit to rob.stoke)

After the success of our previous canal route, I decided to continue our waterside adventure by again following the Trent and Mersey Canal; this time in the opposite direction.

Our route took us from Shelton down to the Britannia Stadium and around part of Trentham Lakes, albeit it inadvertently (we may have got lost and ended up by the train track).

It was extremely tough because the little niggles you occasionally felt on a smaller run became far more prominent and did limit our progress. I completed it in roughly 50 minutes, Slats was a bit quicker in around 47. But he finished up severely “stitched” so we had a gentle warm down walk through Clarice Cliff.

So now to concentrate on speed training or in my case, speeding up!

Training Diary, Day 10: Surprisingly good!

Contrary to popular opinion I’m not as patently unfit as I first thought. I went for my second proper run yesterday and although it was a slog at first – forgot all about the uphill struggle of the route – I made it in my best time so far.

As I am back in London, it meant a bit of quality time was required with Google Maps. I knew where I wanted to go, just wanted to make sure the distance would be correct. Anyway, here it is:

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Training Diary, Day 1: The False Start.

RUNNING, jogging, skipping, sprinting; all words that fill me with dread. It is no exaggerration to say that I haven’t done anything that could be classed as exercise for (hmmm) five months.

But I can take heart from the last time I did go running, which was quite successful and relatively ache and strain free. Plus I can re-acquaint myself with some muscles I haven’t felt for a while. I expect they have missed me more than I’ve missed them.