15 weeks to go, 6 consecutive training days and a greater callousness towards effort for longer runs.

This week was a lot better than the last few. Even though the weather was abhorrent for most of the week, I had a certainty about my training that isn’t always there which really helped on both the shorter sessions and the 25 miler that was the lynchpin of the week.

I managed to do the usual 5.4 mile loop every day from Tuesday to Friday and enjoyed the consistency of this. Whether it was the rain thundering against the window outside my flat at 5am or against the glass in the office, knowing I had to run in the dark at some point each day gave my week a sort of structure and I definitely felt the benefit of my rest day on Monday.

I had initially planned to have another rest day on Friday but I found I could plan the rest of my day better around the time it took to do the 5.4 mile loops than the 7.5 mile ones and the fact I didn’t double up on any day meant I lost my 2nd rest day.

The weather wasn’t great on any of the midweek sessions and I got absolutely drenched when I forgot my waterproof top and was only marginally warmer on the day I remembered to take it. I think I will have to start wearing 2 layers for all my runs outdoors from now on, although there is something character-building about powering through 5 miles when you’re soaked to the skin ½ a mile after leaving your front door!

My 25 mile run on Saturday was marred considering the news from Paris the night before. Earlier in the week I had planned to use this time to keep half an eye on the cricket during my time in the treadmill, but similar to when 7/7 happened I felt a moral duty to watch the news for as long as it took to gain a full picture of what had happened.

I felt almost numb for the whole time and apart from the last 5 miles or so, didn’t really experience any of the usual difficulties of my legs cramping up. My white running shirt had chafed against my nipples and bled through quite a lot. This made my effort level look a lot more strenuous to the other members and staff at the gym.

I am quite lucky that I can generally memorise large passages quickly and made full use of this by falling back on one of my favourite war poems. I had researched some on Armistice day and put the last stanza of one of them as my Facebook status. I used the Alfred Tennyson poem “Charge of the Light Brigade” as an anchor when my legs were tightening up. This seemed to work really well as I responded to the defiant nature of it. If anyone is unfamiliar with this it can be found at the end if the blog.

I finished the week with a 6.4 mile run with my friend Paddy this afternoon. This was a good end to the week as we both managed a pace that would’ve definitely been unsustainable had we been on our own. The weather wasn’t as cold as I had anticipated and I found I could speed up a bit more near the end.

Hopefully I can repeat this sort of effort next Sunday after my first attempt at marathon distance next Saturday since the Skiddaw race nearly 3 months ago.