Friday, 19th February – 65 days to go

Today’s a rest day. Phew. Have only just warmed up from yesterday evening. Decide to follow advice of Paul S and not try to do too much post London. Tear up my application for Leeds Half. I’d really like to run it, but will get vicarious pleasure from supporting family and friends instead. I’m already booked into the three 5k John Carr series. First one is ten days after London so may not be able to give of my best. The equivalent race last year was my first race where almost all runners were club runners and I was completely intimidated. Set off from the back and didn’t really understand that overtaking someone wasn’t impolite. Nowadays I just barge past people (if I can catch them). Balance the disappointment of dipping out of Leeds by sending off applications for “Race the Train” run in Wales in August. We’re meeting up with family and are camping. Should be interesting.

I’ve dug the “fruit infusion” packets out of the cupboard and checked their sell by dates. Just over. This seems to indicate that it’s been about two years since I last tried them. The aroma is always fantastic, but they just taste like hot water. Nevertheless, I’ve decided to cut down on caffeine and give them another try. Obviously wasn’t too keen last time as there are fifteen of twenty left in one packet and seventeen of twenty in the other. Have decided that you’ve got to leave the bag in the water for a long time and then squeeze it hard to get the flavour. They’re not as bad as I remember. I’ve also found a few Bush Tea teabags at the back of the cupboard. Yippee. Joy unbounded. Think I can stand this regime for seven weeks as long as I get a proper cuppa first thing.

Have an hour with personal trainer in the afternoon. Liz can’t go ‘cos she’s got a telephone conference that can’t be rearranged. Tony, our personal trainer, has encyclopaedic knowledge of football from 1970 to present; ditto pop music (specialist subject heavy metal 1975 to 1990). He also knows much about human anatomy and how to fix it when it’s broken. We agree that his role over the next few weeks will be to concentrate on keeping me healthy with just a little core strengthening. Have a massage on aching calves and hamstrings. I had no knowledge of massage prior to Tony, but regard him as “old school” i.e. he thinks that the more he hurts me the better it’s doing me. Today is a level 2 massage. I rate his massages as follows:

Level 1 Easy. I’ve obviously got nothing wrong at the moment. This is usually on the Friday before a Sunday race when I want to go for it.
Level 2 Not too bad. I’ve got aches and pains but nothing that’s particularly worrying.
Level 3 Hurts. Usually concentrates on some specific area that I’ve been daft enough to announce is causing me discomfort.
Level 4 Unbearable. Always left calf. I have to take off glasses (I don’t know why), stop speaking (difficult anyway as I’ve stuffed towel in mouth), tears leak down my cheeks. It may sound like it, but this is definitely not crying.

Tony then straps my ankle with zinc oxide tape which should see me through to Sunday’s long run providing I don’t fall asleep in the bath too many times over the next couple of days.

Come home to find Liz chuckling at Russell’s blog – he’s run with Liz Yelling you know. Read through Kay’s running blog and Russ is spot on: Kay packs more into one day than an ordinary person can manage in a week. I wonder if it’s too soon to put in my order for a birthday carrot cake? Finish off with a read of Michael’s blog. All steely eyed determination. I’m looking for any anxieties or signs of doubt, but nothing yet. Must be just me then.

I put my PBs into some sort of race predictor program and the result is unexpectedly low. In turn I feed my PBs for 5k, 10k, 10 mile and half marathon into the programme. It predicts my marathon times as 3:07, 3:10, 3:06 and 3:07 respectively. Whilst I’m obviously flattered that the programme thinks so highly of me, I know I can’t run those times. Liz suggests putting in my Brass Monkey time. This comes out at 3:13, which is a bit more like it, but anyone who’s seen me at the end of a half marathon would testify that I would not be capable of picking myself up and doing the whole thing again in only 10 minutes longer.