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...

I started the week with 7.5 miles on Monday morning and then three more 7.5 mile runs on Tuesday. I quite liked that the last 2 were out and back as I couldn’t chicken out of the last leg being 7.5 miles away from home!

I continued with 7.5 miles per day from Wednesday to Friday and finished the week with 15 miles today. While I am happy with adding 7.5 miles to last week’s total, it is quite concerning that I’m not doing the longer Sunday runs yet that I had built up to in preparation for the Great Glen Ultra.

I reached a point where it was routine that these were at least 20 miles and I think the reason behind this falling behind is more psychosomatic than to do with the pulled knee ligaments from nearly 4 months ago.

With the bulk of my longer mileage needing to be in the next 7 weeks for the Paris by Night race in January, I am going to have to find a way to force myself to...

I volunteered at the East Isley checkpoint at the Autumn 100 mile race last Saturday night into Sunday morning. I had asked to be given a night volunteer slot so I could gain a first hand experience of what to expect during that time in October next year. The resilience that runners showed while passing us until 5:15am was incredible and although a few chose to drop out at that point, the overwhelming majority didn’t even consider it. I was seeing them out at 56.3 miles then returning at 68.7 miles, there was a sense of the amount of effort they had put into training for this in how they communicated with us as marshalls. Everything was geared towards getting to the next checkpoint and although it was shivering cold with 5 top layers and 2 bottom layers on for parts of the night for me, I wasn’t about to shy away from helping and spoil someone’s race. It was easy for me to have a...

I had spent most of the last 2 months saying to everyone who would listen that I was finishing this race if it killed me. After having DNF’d both the Paris by Night race in January and the St I'lltyd 100km at tee start of May, I had gone through more than my share of writing a plucky ‘gave my best but just fell short’ blog entries!

The coach journey to the start was nearly 2 hours and I spent quite a bit of this getting an idea of where the Great Glen route was entering or leaving each town. At registration I collected my timing dobber and race number. I then divided up my 6 drop bags into the correct IKEA bags for my race number. It was great to be there in plenty of time and I listened to podcasts for most of this until the race briefing before the 1am start. For the middle of the night it was brighter than I expected.

I enjoyed my steady plod to CP1 and chugged both of my...

I first started training for the Yorkshireman marathon in the summer of 2009. This was to pass the time during my transition between graduating from university and the rather feeble attempt I made at postgraduate study. My longest training run was 15 miles on road which left me woefully under prepared for 26 miles of hilly trail. Despite realising I was way out of my depth about 3 hours into a 4hr 50 marathon, I managed to make friends who were comfortable finishing the route at my pace and eventually got back to the cobbled roads in Haworth where I got a t shirt and a bowl of soup for my efforts.

This run was like a badge of honour I had in the back of my mind at every marathon I did afterwards, at races which I flew off way too fast at the start or were far hillier, I had a hint of arrogance that nothing would be as bad as the last part of that race. I am glad I chose this...

I hate taper weeks with a passion, usually for the start of a new week I will feel horrific from the previous long training run and find I get some energy back during my first recovery run of that week. Because I was planning to half my weekly mileage this week and then again next week, I had a choice between lots of shorter training runs and no long run, or 2 shorter runs and keep the reasonably long run. I chose the latter and managed to procrastinate away until Thursday evening for my next run.

I was quite comfortable throughout the 4 laps of Post Hill Woods and enjoyed being able to switch off while listening to music, my run on Saturday afternoon passed by almost identically. The only difference was that Saturday’s killed off my only pair of trail running shoes. What had started as a slight separation at the front of the toe section on my right shoe had opened up so large tree...

This week I had one main goal that my hopes of finishing the Great Glen Ultra hinged on it going to plan. I knew since the race has a 1am start time I would have to replicate this at some point in my training but had avoided it for weeks on end! This was the last week before my taper so I would have to face it this time.

My earlier running in the week involved 4 laps of Post Hill Woods each day from Tuesday to Friday. The early morning starts of getting up at 4:15am, and in the woods for 4:45am, didn’t seem anywhere near as bad knowing what I had waiting for me in the early hours of Saturday.

I had bought 12 cans of Monster Ultra energy drink in with the weekly household shop on Monday. For supplies to last the 15 laps on Saturday morning, I took 4 of these, one regular Monster drink and my 5 litre water bottle filled with lemon and lime flavoured still water. I also added some dark...

I found this week by far the most difficult out of the 30 weeks I have done in this plan. My recovery run at 4:45am on Tuesday morning was horrible and I barely got round the 8.4 miles in time to be back to take my wife into work. Luckily when I headed back out that evening I had something resembling freshness and my legs were able to maintain a lot faster pace far more effortlessly.

I managed another 2 outings of 8.4 miles on Thursday and Friday mornings at 4:45am. These were not as fluid as Tuesday evening but nowhere near as catastrophic as the start of the week had been.

The plan was to do another 13 laps today. I had a later start than I would have liked but I was far too invested in my plan for this week and next week to accept any other outcome.

I had listened to a Talking Comics review of a comic book called I Kill Giants twice on Monday which has definitely been the...

My week began with 4 laps of Post Hill Woods on Tuesday morning. These were quite difficult and my legs still felt heavy from last week. Luckily Thursday morning’s 4 laps was a lot more comfortable and I gained some confidence from this for the longer distances I’d have to cover later in the week.

Having chickened out of a possible 3rd morning starting at 4:15am on Friday, I forced myself to head out for 4 laps at 4:30pm after work before collecting my wife from work, then another 4 laps starting again at 7:20pm. This was definitely useful for reminding myself how to grit my way through a run where my legs are shot! I had ran the first 4 in just under 1:20 and paid for it when starting again for the second 4.

Yesterday was great because I managed 7 laps in the morning and 7 in the evening without any negativity setting in about my earlier training or capability of finishing either...

I had earmarked this week to get a decent amount of miles in across the weekend due to not having a full day at work looming with tomorrow being a Bank Holiday. My plan was at least 24 mid week and 36 across Saturday and Sunday.

The week started off reasonably well and I managed 4 laps in Post Hill Woods on Tuesday morning and Thursday evening then a rather sluggish 6 laps on Friday morning. I had taken an interest in several friend’s races this weekend and their preparation which they shared on Facebook. Seeing how diligent and meticulous they were about having enough supplies, knowing about the route etc was great to read about. I was able to pick up some ideas I may try beforehand that I could use in July for during the race. There was an aura of confidence about the posts as well which was brilliant to have considering the distances of the races they were doing.

Yesterday I did 4...