17 weeks, 74 miles and a reminder about the power of just showing up

I wrote last week about being able to let my mind wander for most of that weeks running, like a balloon on a string. For the past 7 days I have had to run mostly with no metaphorical balloon or string!

I did 8 laps of the 5.4 mile route between Tuesday and Saturday morning. These included a cement legged effort where someone sped past me in the opposite direction in a suit using both crutches and several where I was persevering in horrific driving rain and snow. The highlight was definitely managing a coffee fuelled 7:30 min-mile outing. About half an hour before I’d made a large coffee in which I’d used 2 nespresso pods in one cup and more Black Forest syrup than someone my age should admit to! My first 2 miles were around 6:40 pace then I hung on for dear life for the last 3 miles!

My long run today was very difficult to not chicken out of or shorten. Weather reports were characteristically catastrophic and several sporting events over the weekend were either postponed or abandoned during the event. I had aimed to reach at least 70 so could have got away with doing ‘just’ 27. There was quite a bit of settled snow in Wythenshawe Park and it was one of those terminal mornings where although it was daylight, the sun was never going to appear. I was following a loop of just over 2 miles armed with a backpack containing 2L of Vimto cordial and managed to get through 8 laps before stopping at a garage to get some chocolate and cola.

There was a quote by Amy Cuddy that had stuck with me a lot this week

I have been very conscious of needing to manage several 30 mile training runs and not have them wear me down too much. My approach to ensuring this is the case has been to include lots of them at the end of training weeks and increasing the midweek mileage to add to the total for that week.

I managed to complete another 7 laps assisted by the 4 chocolate bars and 2 bottles of cola in my water bladder. It appears my efforts to convince myself I am someone who can roll out of bed and run 30 miles regardless of what has preceded that week has worked today. Hopefully I can continue to build up the total weekly mileage so I am in a position to finish the 72 miles in a day when July rolls around.