6 weeks left, 3 laps of my 5.4 mile loop then a weekend consisting of a 12.9 mile run and a snow-ridden 15 mile run

I achieved what I wanted out of this week by reaching a respectable total but not emptying the tank before my 75 miles across 7 days attempt next week. In an unwanted recurring theme, I didn’t feel remotely like running until Thursday when I did my first 5.4 mile loop but got back into the swing of things after I had that out of the way.

I managed a 2 a day of the same loop on Friday. This was satisfying as I had anticipated the weather being worse than it was by that point and being able to get some miles in decent conditions was always going to be easier than the snow that was forecast for later in the week.

My Saturday morning outing was cold but I completed my 5.4 mile loop and a 7.5 mile loop without too much difficulty. I have quite grown to like the quiet of heading out in the morning when it is light outside but still early enough for there to be hardly any traffic.

The plan was to try another 5 miles at the gym but I had the same issue from previous weeks of my ankle locking out running on the treadmill so I jumped off after a mile and did a quick 10 miles on the stationary bike instead.

There is a saying about the hardest steps in any run being the first ones out the front door. Looking out of my flat window at settling snowfall last night was pretty ominous but I had decided to do at least 15 miles today regardless of how much had settled.

Luckily I have an ability to use a sort of tunnel vision and only concentrate on a small part of a longer run without thinking of the whole distance. One of the members of an ultra running group I’m part of on Facebook once described a ridiculously long ultra as the sum of lots of little training runs.

This sort of thinking worked well today as if I would have had any thoughts of there being another 7.5 mile loop after the one I was on, I’m sure the outing would have been a lot more challenging. One of the guidelines in the Comrades training plan I’m following is to try and pace yourself so the speed you finish your training runs at is the same as when you started. This has been an area I have begrudgingly improved in. Both my 7.5 mile loops today were at the same pace and I didn’t stray from the speed really throughout.

Hopefully I can maintain this sort of pacing over the course of 75 miles next week. I haven’t decided on how I will split it throughout the week yet but will be surprised if I take more than 1 day off. Little and often seems to be the way forward based on the last few weeks. Either way it will be a load off my mind once I have got the longest training week out of the way!