Day 156 Monday 4th June 4 miles : miles to date 1056.2 After a hard nights partying, the early part of today was spent avoiding my trainers at all costs. Instead, we went over to the village fields for a Diamond Jubilee party with some lady warbling away on the speakers singing hits such as the white cliffs of Dover. Elton and Tom didn't make an appearance due no doubt to the palace gig tonight. I eventually ventured forth on a slow few miles around the fields with Daisy our border terrier. She is getting a little better in keeping up with me, but was frequently distracted by rabbits, smells and no.1 stops. We were running albeit not troubling the clock at all. It was nice just to be out there with her in the sun. As I am cutting back for a few weeks, the pace wasn't an issue and actually after just eight days, I'm already starting to get the itch to start training harder. I'm going to stick to my guns however and wont start the training until the 18th June, when for the first time in seven years I am going to follow a sixteen week schedule.

The start of millions...

Day 155 Sunday 23rd June 5 miles : miles to date 1052.2 I'VE INVENTED A NEW RACE!! I'M GONNA MAKE MILLIONS!! Ok, I do have a tendency to exaggerate ever so slightly, but I did have an unusual run this morning. Due to the rather inclement weather, I was pushed out the door by Fi and told to go and help my daughter with her paper round. Out came the Ron Hills, rain jacket and off I went. The race involves finding my daughter, which wasn't hard today as she was in a bright yellow jacket, stopping at the checkpoint (her paper trolley), folding papers dexterously whilst still in the paper trolley to stop them getting wet, taking six or seven at a time and running to the houses furthest away. Once there, shovel the papers in as fast as possible and return to the checkpoint. Then repeat seven times each time trying to find the moving checkpoint. There must be a hundred odd houses where we live and most are spaced quite far apart. I was able to run back and forth and in between the houses quite well. There are also six off site, that I normally drive her to, so by the time I ran there and back I found that I had covered just short of 5 miles, so I looped a few times to round it up. On the basis that there are say 106 houses where I live, next weeks race will start at some point or other after I get out of bed, from the front of my house. Entries are limited to 106 and if full, runners can only take one paper at a time. The entry fee is £74.98 and for that you don't get a goodie bag, you don't get a medal and you don't get any finish time. Or water, food, gels, t-shirt, marshal's, bacon sarnies or any type of incentive to come back next week. If the race is not full, the other entrants have to pay the shortfall in the entry fee. Winner gets a paper. Right then, let's get the ball rolling. Please send a cheque, postal order, cash, green shield stamps, euros, Drachma, a years subscription to Trail Running magazine or unopened bottles of wine to me at my address. I can only apologise to the Parkrun races for taking away future race entrants. I'm off to Coutts Bank to open an account.

Day 154 Saturday 2nd June 3.8 miles : miles to date 1047.2 After the JB last weekend, I have decided to throttle it back for a few weeks and keep the run's short. I think that after a run that you have been preparing for perhaps a few months, once it's done it's important to have a period when you just run for the love of running with no pressure of training for an event. You need to let the body recover and as importantly the mind as well. In order to do well in a race or challenge, it's not only about training the body but also the mind. To stop both getting stale, I am intentionally running low mileage runs and limited speed work both this week and the next. I am keeping the watch on to measure the distance, but trying not to look at the pace or time too much. It doesn't always work but tonight it did. I ran the usual village loop with a bit extra added on and just kept a steady even pace all the way. The legs are still tired and I'm not panicking over the beer belly I seem to have encouraged in the last week despite running every day. The Voldemort training schedule starts on the 18th June for the second half of the years plans, which in short is PB smashing every where. I can see quite an intense 16 week period after that, so until then it's a laid back Pablo enjoying a few leisurely runs and beers after. Talking of which, its that time me thinks.

More food?

Day 153 Friday 1st June 4.1 miles : miles to date 1043.4 Another food related run tonight. If I don't get out early on a Friday, it's always a rush prior to the fish and chip run. Having spent a very tedious day in a court case, it was with some joy that my off chance e-mail to my running pals seeing if anyone was around for a run before food, was answered yes by Annie Page and Rebecca Fleckney who were doing a leg of Greensands. Pulling into doggers delight layby, it was great to see that Shaun Kirtley also turned up. I don't think he has been to that particular meeting point and it was clear that he was quite relieved we had turned up, given that a number of cars had pulled alongside with the occupants wanting to make friends. We ran the first part of leg five, when due to time constraints I had to turn back and cover the last two miles on my own. As I did so, I rang the other arf and due to Jnr Owen being late, we went for a pizza. Now I know Dean Karnaze is famous for eating a pizza on the run, but I partly emulated the mile muncher extraordinaire by ordering one on the run. That was after I convinced the lady on the other end of the phone that I was actually running and I wasn't a heavier breather. She realised when I arrived at the pick up 20 minutes later that I was telling the truth as I was a tad sweaty. Mmmm, boy it was good as well.

Curry sauce anyone?

Day 152 Thursday 31st May 3 miles : miles to date 1039.3

 Tonights three miler had me under some time pressure. As a result of having to go to a late meeting and not being able to run at lunchtime, I was potentially going to be late for my usual Thursday night game of cards if I ran and stopped for food. As I drove home, I devised a cunning plan. I would race the chinese take away chef and see who could get there first, me with a faster 3 miles or him with, er, a bag of chips and curry sauce. Well, ok I figured out that the straight forward food order wouldn't take that long, so I popped in, told them I would be back in 25 minutes or less and shot out the door and up the road. The food collection, run finish time and card starting time all coincided so I could not afford to be late or meander. I went straight up the road in front of the take away and at 1.5 miles turned around and came back, ran into the shop, hot and sweaty, grabbed my food order to the amusement of other partakers of the fine food and was out of there. The card venue was a matter of minutes away, although I am not sure what cheesed off the chaps the most, me smelling and looking somewhat sweaty or the plate of chips and curry sauce they had to smell as the first hand was dealt. And I had covered the chips in curry with only one fork so they weren't able to pinch any. Not planned, but mean none the less!

Day 151 Wednesday 30th May 3 miles : miles to date 1036.3 I have not long finished running through what felt like a squadron of samurai squirrels in the Ashridge Estate. On a low level three mile run, I must have easily encountered at least 25-30 of the blighter's, most of whom didn't move until I got within 10 feet of them. They sort of stood and stared in a kind of come and have a go if you think your hard enough type of way. I thought for a moment that perhaps I was on a big ultra and that I was hallucinating, before recalling that I had been running for minutes and not days. Being a bit of an expert in spending time in the woods, I know a thing or two about squirrels having raced after one or two in my time. I have never encountered so many hard nuts in such a short space of time. At one point, I ran into a group of five and they just would not scatter until I was practically kicking them over. Even then, they just hid behind a tree and didn't rush off. At around the two mile mark, I could swear that I could hear a lot of rustling in the shrubbery and became a tad worried that they were ganging together to take me and cart me off to their secret samurai squirrel village. Extreme I know, but I did actually look behind me to see if I was being chased by some. Not long after, my mind wandered and I started to envisage running around a bend into the outstretched hands of the king giant squirrel, who shove me under his armpit and then into the pot. Whilst I know of course that wasn't going to happen, I really did spend some time imagining what I would do if I were confronted by a 10 foot squirrel closing in for the kill. Barking, but true. I suspect my mind was going into overtime to take me away from the fact that my legs are still tired after the JB ultra at the weekend and the dafter the thought, the easier the run. I can tell you for free, I have some very daft thoughts when I'm off with the fairies at times, which are great!

Day 150 Tuesday 29th May 4 miles : miles to date 1033.3

A club session was always going to make tonight's run a whole lot easier and it did. I didn't even attempt to run the session itself at full pelt, or even half pelt, as a combination of a lot of running and a lot of food/vino/beer over the last few days has taken its toll on the body. Still, the good news is that after the JB run, it only looks as though I will lose one toenail this time although that's not yet guaranteed. After the last big one, I lost four toenails, so anything less is a bonus!