The Walker With Heart

It's been an odd week, busy at work... The plan was that I'd be writing up a couple of walks and a gentle run today, but the lovely people at VirginMoneyGiving invited me an a friend (of who more later) to a day of training tips and inspiration - so instead of north I headed south, to London and Windsor... Two recovery runs in the week - I can't share them as Garmin has done one of its periodically amazingly poor upgrades to their system, and I now can't make the watch talk to the computer... Then a night at the theatre with friends watching Japanese belt the living daylights of drums - http://www.kodo.or.jp/index_en.html Then down to London, meeting up with my mate Kieran at Waterloo - Kieran is one of my inspirations, there is no need for someone who has done what's he's done to be doing another marathon - but he say's there's unfinished business and that's good enough for me... Hell, he's scared of heights and has jumped out of a plane... ...

It's a marathon not a sprint... And sometimes in training it feels like a damn slog! After the t-shirts and goody bags of last week, the mates waving back from Southport pier it was the lonely runs, the ones where you have to work to get out of bed early enough, the ones where the last thing you need is to be hundreds of miles away from home. London.  It's odd, I'm training for the London Marathon and I disliked the running in London.  It took me until half way around the second of the runs to work out why. When I run up and down the Loop Line in Liverpool there's a growing number of runners out - the Liverpool Rock n Roll Marathon is 6 weeks after London (and yes I'm in that as well ;-)).  Not every runner chats, but the vast majority nod or wave.  London there was nothing.  I barely existed. I got a "wtf" look when I waved at the first three people and then gradually shrunk back into myself. That didn't stop me almost making very good frien...

Well it had to happen... the first run missed, not run, didn't walk it, just flumped... Yup, I flumped... I woke up the day before with a headache, and as the day progressed felt the mild drippyness of the nose and a drying of my throat... Brilliant, a cold... Fortunately, it wasn't a bad one. Fortunately, I've been here before - lob carbs down my throat take paracetamol for a couple of days, take an extra day to recover... The good news is I missed 10km, a single run out of the 18 I should've done. Not too bad then... The runs themselves have been good & solid, a gentle 5 km on Tuesday... And then my first race of the year... a firm favourite... the Mad Dog in its 4th iteration: The Good, The Bad and the Pugly!  The wind was against us - for 4 of the first 5km... My splits were a 35 min first 5 and a 31 min second.  It was like running into a wall, continually... My fifth fastest 5km, in these conditions... I'm a happy me:-)  The opera singer, ...

This is a partial experiment... This is a blog out of time and space - I'm off out tonight, so enjoy!  If this doesn't work I'll post it a day later... This was a big week... The plan had two "easy run" 10km in during the week and then a 30km as the LSR. The first 10km hurt, hurt like hell.  It was cold, miserable and I could feel the DOMS in every fibre of my leg muscles... But I did it, and grumped all bloody day about my legs... The canal is great, the cyclists however could do with pointing their headlamps down - 100+ lumens in the eyes is not good when there's a wall on one side and water on the other! The second 10km felt a lot better... Which is all good:-)  But Sunday loomed.... 30km... That beginning of the scary distances... After this is the 20 milers, those final LSRs before the 26.2.  It was a lot warmer than the 6ish o'clock runs.  The regulars were out - the blind lady and her guide; the lunatic father pushing his daughter ...