Tuesday, 2nd March – 54 days to go

What a bummer; it’s snowed overnight again. About half an inch which will soon melt, but is a nuisance and completely unexpected. I must start checking the weather forecast as I suppose it was only unexpected to me.

The long run is scheduled for two hours and forty minutes. I reckon that equates to about nineteen miles if it’s hilly or closer to twenty if it’s flat. I’m aiming to run down the A660 to the roundabout above Otley and then come back up the hill past my house. I’ll then carry on and do two circuits round Eccup rezza and then back home. That way I can drop a couple of bottles in the front garden and keep hydrated without carrying a load of fuel around with me.

Decide on the road shoes rather than trail shoes as 90% of the run will be on the road. It’s a lovely day with hardly a cloud in the sky and the snow melts quickly where the sun can get at it. Downhill to Otley is easy with just a couple of slippery bits where there’s a covering of mud on the path. Uphill is hard work and I have to stop to re-lace my shoes when I get back to our house. I’d scrubbed the road shoes at the weekend and taken the laces out and not put them back in the way they’d been before. It’s funny how a little thing like that is enough to make them feel uncomfortable. I must remember not to mess with my laces just before marathon day.

Up the road and through Golden Acre park which is full of geriatrics enjoying the relatively good weather. When I go off road to go anti-clockwise round the rezza I hit problems in the first field which is just gloopy, claggy mud that sticks to the shoes and soaks the socks. A bit of a waste of time washing the road shoes at the weekend. Back on the made path it’s easier underfoot. It’s Siberian on the far side of the rezza where the sun can’t get through and the wind seems to pick up as it blows uninterrupted across the rezza.

The second lap round the rezza is a real drag and my legs feel really heavy. The massage from yesterday evening is now just a distant memory. I slow considerably until I get back to the A660 when I make a conscious effort to pick up the pace. I know that Mick’s schedule for all future runs has me starting slowly, picking up the pace in the middle section and finishing more quickly. He says this is more a mental test than a physical one, but I’m not so sure.

Finish the run in 2 hours 41 minutes and I reckon it was 18.8 miles. When I get back it’s a mad scramble to do all the post-long run things. Neck the recovery drink, get out of sweat-soaked kit, cold water on legs, warm shower and some snap. Apparently (yes, I know that all sentences that start with the word “apparently” are either urban myths or just plain wrong) any food you can get down within twenty minutes of your long run has no calories. Effectively you’ve got a free hit, so obviously I never want to miss out on that.

For the first time after a long run I don’t need to go for a lie down, which I’m taking as a positive sign. Also I’ve set off for the run at roughly the same time as the VLM starts – a tip picked up from someone on Marathon Talk. This won’t always be possible, but it did feel more civilised than the early morning long runs I have been doing.

Although I’m knackered I join the VARR boys and girls for the evening training session and social. We jog down Kirkstall Road towards town and turn off just after TGI Friday’s. We do short intervals on a side road; twelve one minute sprints with a one minute recovery. I more or less manage to keep up and am still reasonably strong at the end of the session.

Ten of us roll up to Sheesh Mahal for a curry before going home. Polishing off Liz’s leftovers after finishing my own meal was probably not such a good idea in retrospect. I’m up in the night with indigestion.

Still, a good day’s training and for the first time I’ve done two running sessions in a day. It was good to do some speedwork as well and get the legs moving at something quicker than marathon pace.