50 weeks, 78 miles and a renewed appreciation for running little and often.

This week I tried to have a narrow focus on the day to day running without taking into account the planned total as a whole. I did the same 3 a day on Tuesday and enjoyed having 2 beers on the last out and back 7.5 mile legs. There is something far more refreshing about cold beer in cold weather than when it is hot.

I did another 7.5 miles on Wednesday and twice more on Thursday. I had real difficulty sleeping on Wednesday night and was wide awake from about 3am so waited until 5am for the streetlights to come on and headed out for the first run. Ironically the second in the early evening was at a far better pace and I found I used less energy to keep warm.

I then did 10.4 miles on trails with my brother Ben on Friday and one of his friends Malcolm. Malcolm is a far faster runner than both of us but luckily he was happy going along at Ben’s pace. I joked at the end that we didn’t have a choice since it was his route!

I finished the week with 7.5 miles yesterday morning and 15 miles this morning. It was great having it get light on my 2nd lap of 7.5 miles. I’m going to try to have at least one run each week that starts in the dark and lasts until Sunrise so I expect this on the Paris by Night race in January.

I had remembered the ‘Courage does not always roar’ quote this week and found this helped with forcing myself out the door each day. Hopefully I can maintain the same weekly base with a few longer runs over the next month.