16 weeks, 71 miles and a new interim goal for the next 7 days

This week was going well up until this morning. I had covered 48 miles and was quite looking forward to only having to cover 3 laps of the 7.5 mile route to get back above 70 again this week.

I have remained in an auto pilot mode recently of wearing a base layer top, running shirt and waterproof jacket regardless of the weather. This morning was the first time in ages I actually felt warm! Although the first lap was quite settled and it was just getting light on account of the clocks changing, my 2nd and 3rd laps were very sluggish and it was purely a stubborn mindset that I wasn’t going to slow too much that got me through it.

The midweek and Saturday sessions included 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route followed by 5 laps of the 7.5 miler. My 2nd 7.5 mile run on Saturday evening was 100% so that I didn’t have to get up at 4am with the clocks going forward an hour last night.
I was also conscious of having signed up for a 6 hour race next weekend involving a hill with 200m of climb in a 10k loop. I have a goal in mind for what I can manage but there is a limit to how much I’m going to be able to go to ‘the well’, in a race I signed up for at 9 days notice! .

I had read a Guardian article earlier in the week about why people run ultra marathons and it had several interesting theories. The one that stuck with me most was around self discovery and being able to prove something to themselves. This reminded me of a Kristin Armstrong quote that was actually much better than the short parts of it I had memorised. Hopefully the next few weeks will give me plenty of opportunity to do this.