It was satisfying this week to be back closer to covering 100km over the course of the week. I started off with a steady 4 miles on Tuesday and then managed to complete one of the 7.5 mile loops on Wednesday. I was reasonably comfortable for both of these outings.

On Thursday I did 2 laps of the 5.4 mile route, one before and one after work. The main noticeable difference for these as opposed to previous weeks was how virtually all of both were in daylight. As much as I enjoy using a head torch and having to navigate in darkness, it’s far easier when there is natural light to use instead.

Because I was planning to cover 24 on Sunday, I brought my 4 miles on Saturday forward to Friday evening. For some reason I seem to be more energetic recently in the evenings and this felt like it was finished before I really got into the run.

As for the 24 miles today, I had no such issues! I had...

Similar to how my training started last week, I had my 2 rest days consecutively again on Monday and Tuesday. The Relentless Forward Progress plan called for 35 miles this week so my focus switched from the exact distance for each day to purely covering that over the course of the week. I managed 4 miles on Wednesday morning and was pleased to be able to block out how resistant all of my lower body was to moving to finish the route. There is a main hill in the 5.4 mile and. 7.5 mile routes I usually do that I seem to miss when running routes locally and they aren’t in them.

On Thursday evening I scraped under an hour again for 7.5 miles on the treadmill. It was quite pleasant watching it get dark from the floor to ceiling windows in the gym. This served well as a distraction and overalls this was less exerting than the same run last week.

I headed out on the 4 mile route again on...

This week 100% went the way it had to go! I had followed the plan in terms of gradually increasing mileage for 3 consecutive weeks and then taking a rest week for the previous 10 weeks. Since this was my 3rd week of ascension, anything the under the 56 miles from last week was unacceptable.

I started my training on Wednesday as the 22.5 mile long run last Sunday had taken more out of me than I thought it would. I managed to do 7.5 miles on the treadmill in a little over an hour. I was quite happy with the amount of focus I could sustain on finishing in a reasonable time. I had been reading up over the last fortnight about deliberate or purposeful practice. This is essentially gaining feedback and using this to improve performance. I can relate this to running in terms of aiming to run for a certain distance or get a distance I’m already comfortable doing under a set time. One of my...

Part of the appeal of running week after week towards a long term goal is knowing there will be some sessions where the efforts you put in beforehand make part of some training runs feel effortless. I had taken the suggested 2 week break from using the Decibel Nutrition Pre-Workout and 7-8 miles out of my 10 mile run on Tuesday morning fell into this category.

My 5.4 miles on Wednesday were a bit harder and I didn’t have the adrenaline there I’d managed to sustain the day before. I continued with 7.5 miles on Thursday morning. I took some of the Decibel Nutrition Pre-Workout before and felt my sustained effort was good for the distance. I headed out for another 5.4 miles in the evening which was beyond sluggish but I was pleased to get through it for the reasoning below.

I have been very keen this week to edge closer to a 60+ miles total for 7 days. Pschologically getting up to this...

From my knowledge of what is classed as short, middle and long distance running, 3km is the shortest of the long distances. I found this from reading about a Cooper test which is how far you can run in 12 minutes (most cross country type runners tend to get above 3km on this test). The idea is that anything over that amount is “long” and shorter is “mid”. Knowing this did not make my midweek 10 mile run on Tuesday any easier!

I had the memory of my 10 mile run to collect my car from work 9 weeks ago etched in my mind for most of the 10.8 miles, There was large portions of that effort where I was deeply uncomfortable and knowing I had forced my way through the same distance recently certainly helped when I was savagely cold and my legs were refusing to do as I asked.

My 5 miles at the gym the next night were more to the speed what I expect of my mid-week running. I managed to finish...

This week was pretty fluent as far as my recovery weeks tend to go. I managed to cover 36 miles in 6 outings and never really felt I was stretching myself on any of them. I have learnt from several marathon training build ups that I can put too much into the sessions before and feel run down by the day of the race. Having every 4th week as a recovery week in this plan should reduce the risk of that happening at the end of May.

I found out midweek that my uncle in law Tim had signed up fo running the London marathon this year. He had ran the Yorkshire Warrior obstacle race with me the last 2 years and we volunteered together at the Yorkshire marathon last October. I think that experience probably contributed to him deciding to enter because it showed the people who finish marathons aren’t all elite athletes. I advised him to try to build up his long training run to about 20 mile and not...

By the time I have written the blog entry for after the London to Brighton race, it will have been just over 2 years since I first started writing on this platform about training towards the 44 mile Grand Tour of Skiddaw. I have found the time I spend writing this quite enjoyable and definitely suffered through some tough training runs far better knowing I can write up about it afterwards.

I started this week with the same 4 miles on Tuesday morning and then 7.5 miles on Wednesday night and Thursday morning as last week. I took some of the Decibel Pre-workout drink before the last of these which made me slightly more of a morning person! It was -3 degrees C and I had to keep clenching and unclenching my fists as I was running to get some feeling in my fingers! The caffiene certainly helped me on this outing.

I did 5.4 miles on Saturday morning which was substantially easier. Daylight...

I signed up for this race what feels like an eternity ago, Donald Trump wasn’t President of the United States, Great Britain hadn’t voted for Brexit and a much larger contingent of my favourite celebrities were still alive!

One of the things I like about running is it gives you a sense of control for an area of your life when you might feel events around you are out of your control. As an incentive for those of us who signed up so early, the event organisers agreed they would provide us with a technical running shirt each providing we did so by the end of June.

I started the week with a very laborious 4 miles on Tuesday morning. It felt like every step of the run from Sunday was still in my legs. On the plus side, this was in daylight which was a nice change from last week. My 7.5 mile runs on Wednesday night and Thursday morning were slightly more comfortable and I managed to get...

I tend to go through phases with how I manage with adverse weather, I can have some weeks where I feel it hardly impacts on my running and others where it’s very apparent that I’m going slower and moving my arms more without it benefitting my forward momentum in any way. I think I do this to kid myself I’m trying harder.

My 7.5 miles on Tuesday morning was borderline pleasant. I set my alarm for 4:45am and was out the door at 5:20am once the Decibel Nutrition pre-workout had kicked in. It’s a fantastic feeling being alert and energetic on routes I’d previously stumble through at that time on a morning.

The plan for the following night was to do 4 miles near my house. I love running in the rain and find it far more character building than when it’s dry, unfortunately my enthusiasm for when it’s windy is nowhere near the same. My 4 miles were ridiculously difficult and the wind was...

I don’t really self identify as a religious person, but have long believed it is part of God’s plan to make sure whenever I get into some sort of rhythm with anything, he will throw something into the works to test me! After 3 weeks so far of following this plan, I was looking forward to the first rest week. This is normally where the mileage drops a bit from the previous weeks and some recovery is supposed to take place.

This lasted until Wednesday! I had taken some of the Decibel Pre-workout supplement before my run on Tuesday which made a massive difference. I felt I had really benefited from my rest day on Monday and was energetic throughout. There is one of the active ingredients in this called Cinnulin PF that is meant to support glucose levels and blood pressure, for some reason on all 3 of my sessions this week taking it, I felt energy was getting to my muscles faster when I...