Thursday, 15th April – 10 days to go

Takes the best part of the day to complete the garden project – although gardening is never complete as you’re always fighting a losing battle with nature. It’s the smallest lawn in the world, but brings back happy memories of putting the lawn in at our last house, where my dad played a blinder.

In the evening we head off for distance training. After a warm up we head down to Peel Park and do a fartlek session. It’s a bit random for me as I’ve never really got the hang of fartlek, but it’s something I wouldn’t do on a solo run so that’s got to be beneficial. Follow up with a sports massage from a student who needs a hundred hours of flying before she gets her pilot’s licence or something. She’s ably supported by Nikos and they agree that my calves are tight. Do get to follow the advice from a recent Tony’s Trials to the question “Do you stretch?” “Not as much as I should do” accompanied by self-deprecating chuckle. Trouble is, I don’t stretch as much as I should do. After managing fifty three and a half years without a massage I’m now getting more massages than I can shake a stick at. Should have taken up marathon training years ago.

Sophie brings in her medal from Paris, but wisely avoids fartlekking. Her actual chip time was 4:35 a full twenty five minutes faster than target. Blimey, that’s setting a standard that the rest of us will struggle to match. Mark seems to have recovered from injury and is looking sharp. I think there are five of us tackling London, but I’m not sure what targets people have set themselves. I’ve been guilty of what Tom calls “target creep” where I’ve set an initial target and then because things have gone ok, I’ve moved the target forwards. I know I’m unlikely to run 3:15 unless everything goes perfectly on the day, but I’d still be delighted with my original target of 3:30.