26 weeks, 32 miles and a new fondness for shorter laps

I found this week slightly easier than I had expected it to be. Usually the week after a race, I really struggle with my first run but the next outing is OK and I persevere through the shortest distance I can get away with the next weekend. In the past with training for marathon distance I could class 10 miles as a short ‘long training run’. Knowing my main goal for this year is a 72 mile race, this was never going to be the case in 2018!

I forced myself out the door for 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route midweek and found the last hour of the Talking Comics podcast just enough of a distraction to get through the first of these.

My new shortest long run had to be a minimum of 20 miles, this was based on my aim to maintain 50-70 miles per week and not being massively keen on using 15 miles as short training runs. With this in mind I headed out this morning for 10 laps of a 2 mile loop around Wythenshawe Park in Manchester, I had joined a Strava group where they aim to travel a calculated distance of 1721.9 miles in 2018. This is equivalent to Bag End to Mordor from Lord Of The Rings. Apparently the group administrator is going to message members when they reach points from the books. My first point is 73 miles so I only have to cover 53 next week to reach it.

The aim of the group is to finish the distance in 2018 but I’d quite like to try and complete it by the start of October.

I enjoyed being out this morning without having to maintain a certain pace or plan what to eat during the run. I took on board about 1.5L of water and tried to separate this out by only having some every 4 miles.

In previous years if I have not got a result I was aiming for in a race I have struggled to manage my frustration but I think the acknowledgement of progress in the last few months is enough for now and I am looking forward to trying to finish the course in 2019. There was a good quote I posted on Instagram in the summer that I think sums up this week well