NOT GOING TO PLAN

Still getting the odd “twinge” from my foot – but nothing too bad as long as I stick to the road.

So. With that in mind I am more than happy (for a few reasons) that as far as I am concerned the XC season is over! A few from the club are of to Falkirk this weekend for the Nationals. I wish them well but won’t be joining them. I’ve decided that I would get more out of a bit of LSD than standing around watching others.

Even on Saturday past; when me and Anne were out doing a recce of the XC route at Dunbar I got a bit of a pain when my foot went down into a bit of a rabbit hole.

I did just under 13 on Friday last week as I knew that the weekend was pretty much going to be busy and hence a bit of a write off as far as my own running was concerned. As it was Sunday wasn’t too bad…. By the time we got the results done, the prizes handed out and Hallhill cleaned up it was getting on a bit and, if I’m honest, I could easily have gone home and just forgotten about a run. However, I had arranged to meet Ian about “three miles in” to my usual 11 mile loop. Once a commitment is made to meet someone it does give you the required incentive to get the shoes on and get your arse out the door.

Meeting up with Ian and running part of the loop with him was good for another reason. I have a tendency to be “lazy” when I’m out training and will often “bimble” round (generally this isn’t too bad a strategy as Tuesday’s and Thursdays club sessions are my “tough runs”), but meeting up with Ian pushed the pace up a bit for that route. So although I “only” did 11 at least it was a quality run.

Yesterday and today I have managed between 12 and 13 miles a day.

 

Going into this marathon in April feeling very badly prepared. I don’t feel as though I’ve managed to get enough long runs in, and with “only” six weeks to go it would be easy to try and over compensate and do too many in a short time. I can't remember the last time I followed a "plan" before a marathon. I've certainly never followed one "to the letter", as I know some runners do - I prefer to try and just follow the "spirit" or the "essence" of a training plan - but so far this year I don't even feel like I've even done that

 

So I won't even say "plan" but my "hope" is for at least a 20mile run this weekend.