37 weeks, 75 miles and an interesting theory about back-up plans

I found this week morbidly enjoyable because of the extra challenge that running in freezing temperatures presents. I had decided to try for 2 sessions a day for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. These were all runs apart from the evening Pilates class on Wednesday. I found Thursday morning felt the coldest but my evening running was sufficiently hard to keep warm with extra layers on.

The week continued with 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route on Friday evening that was tough but I was able to switch off for large parts of this by listening to podcasts. I then followed this up with 3 laps of 7.5 miles on Saturday and my brother Ben joined me for the last 2 of these. He forced the pace more than I’d have liked on the middle lap and I had to really drag myself up Churwell Hill to not get dropped. From looking at his Strava after the run he had set a new PB for that segment. I was able to settle into a slightly slower pace with him for the rest of the run.

I then finished the week with one lap of 7.5 and one of 5.4 with my friend Tom. I was glad he was up for doing a longer run than last week. It was good fun to introduce him to a slightly smaller but more deceptive hill than Churwell. This resulted in the 2nd lap being less ‘Mary Poppins’ Tom bringing morning cheer to the streets of Morley and him being the slightly struggling, marginally abrasive and more focused runner I expected him to be! I liked that he stopped just short of telling me to shut up when I tried to start a conversation after turning a corner following the 2nd main hill. He seemed pleased to finish the run though!

I was quite pleased to have my own focus back a bit more this week and enjoyed trying to build my mileage back up to 70-80 as this is the minimum I can get away with and hope to finish the 100 in October.

The other races I have signed up for before then are challenging but definitely within my capabilities given the cutoffs. This is the main race where there is a chance of not finishing and I’m quite looking forward to trying to follow the correct pacing so I minimise that risk.

One of the main strengths I took into the Great Glen Race was that I didn’t really have any backup plan for if I had to retire at a checkpoint. I am optimistic that especially with having pacers in October this won’t be an option!