Day 203 Saturday 21st July 19.7 miles : miles to date 1337.2 I have well and truly learnt my lesson about fuelling in preparation for a decent run after the discomfort of Thursdays run. I shovelled the food in yesterday and it paid off this morning. The schedule had me down for 16 miles in two hours, which was 7.30 pace and a little over 3.15 marathon pace. Having sent out my normal Thursday e-mail to the long distance boys and girls to organise today's run, there was a distinct lack of take up to join me, albeit the crew were still going to meet for the normal x-c run. To keep that steady pace, I decided to steer clear of the trails and stick to the road which is not my favourite surface. I decided against a total billy no mates run and met up with the crew for a few warm up cross country miles, before peeling off and doing my own thing. The slight hiccup was that we covered nearly three miles and my original sixteen at the right pace, didn't start until I peeled. When I did, I found myself running on totally new streets and routes. I know a huge number of trails in the county but because we don't use roads, I had no real idea which one to take in places, as I was in a new area. I eventually came close to the A1, which was the point to turn and head back. Fortunately after a few miles, I found a turn to take me back to somewhere I knew. I totally missed one village and the water tap I was heading for which meant I was a tad thirsty when I got back. I covered the main 16 miles in somewhere just over 01:58 albeit I slowed in the last two miles as I had to go cross country to find my way back to the car, with a bit of an ease down for the last section. Good run, but it was great to finish with a wolfed down bottle of milkshake and bbq salami. Told you I learnt my lesson.

Day 202 Friday 20th July 3.1 miles : miles to date 1317.5

Boy am I glad its a Friday. I decided to just have a simple and slow run around Maulden woods, taking with my a new prezzie given to me by the ladies at work. A camoflaged hands free head umbrella that fits nicely on top of my dome. Now I suspect the item was purchased as a joke, but out it came with me as I ran around the woods in the rain. I cant quite testify to the new head gear being the most streamlined running accessory but it kept my head dry, until I realised I looked like a right plonker. Now that's not a new experience, so I quickly let it pass. As much as I like my new head gear, I suspect that its going to get relegated to BBQ cooking in the rain. Given the summer we are having in the UK, I expect to use it frequently in the months to come.
A second days tiredness on the trot meant it was back to a gentle jog around the woods without any reference to pace and time. The schedule has me down for a rest day anyway on a Friday, which clearly cant happen, so a slow three miler is the next best thing. An early night should hopefully recharge the old bones for Saturdays solitary longer run, as no one from the Saturday morning crew wants to join me. Sniff.

Day 201 Thursday 19th July 3.3 miles : miles to date 1314.4 Timing as they say is everything. After a rain free albeit not sunny day, I decided to go out for tonight's run at 8 pm, having missed the club due to lack of shorts. At exactly the half way point in the middle of a field with thigh high grass, the rain poured and within seconds I was soaked. At almost the exact point I returned to my mates place in my sopping wet clothes, it stopped. Fortunately Mrs.Mate was on hand with a towel, as I stripped off in their porch, flashing at the passing cars. The schedule was a gonna tonight. I was tired, lethargic and my legs felt like stone. Whilst I have had a few faster runs, I don't think that was the problem. After yesterdays eleven odd miler, I was so long getting changed and dry, I didn't eat a thing. I had gone out on an empty tank which was fine, as that's a good way to force your body to use fat stores for energy. You don't want that to happen in a race, but inevitably it does as the body cant take on and store enough carbohydrates in a long race such as a marathon to stop the body using fat. The body produces lactic acid whenever it breaks down carbohydrates for energy. The faster you break down glucose and glycogen the greater the formation of lactic acid. At rest and submaximal exercise, the body relies mainly on fats for fuel. However, when you reach 50% of maximum capacity, the threshold intensity for most recreational exercise programs, the body "crosses over" and use's increasingly more carbohydrates to fuel exercise. The more you use carbohydrates as fuel, the more lactic acid you produce and eventually when that runs out, you use fat which is far less efficient at converting into energy. The problem was that after the run, I had to eat and I didn't for another five hours and that really hit home on tonight's run where I crawled around not enjoying myself. Lesson well and truly learnt.

Day 200 Wednesday 18th July 11.1 miles : miles to date 1311.1 The Gospel according to St. Paul:- 1. Eleven miles on a very muddy and wet canal tow path at lunchtime, will get you very, very dirty, soaked and smelly 2. Wool, pinstripe solicitor suits will hide caked on mud 3. Wool pinstripe etc wont mask pong 4. Twenty seven baby wipes wont get all the mud off your legs 5. Sodden and muddy shorts will leave bum cheek imprints on plush blue office chairs 6. Trimming of chest hair, will mean that your nipples bleed badly in the rain 7. Foo Fighters rock: Leo Sayer doesn't 8. Canal barges aren't that fast, so overtaking one doesn't mean much 9. Putting feet in paper bins and scrapping mud off, stops some of it from hitting the floor 10. The bald, sodden, filthy and streaming nipple blood covered t-shirt look doesn't go down well in new offices with peeps that don't know you well 11. Food and water before and after shouldn't be an optional extra 12. Don't perspire on new work mates

Another nice round number on the board with 200 days in the bag. The schedule had me down for ten miles in 1 hour 15 minutes and as usual I set off to fast. Given I have had a few harder runs recently, I did slow down a tad albeit covered it in 01:13:40. My breathing was fine but my legs were heavy. The path was filthy and I was quite glad to reach the ten, before jogging in for the last mile as a warm down. The problem then being my legs in particular were as dirty as they have ever been after a run. Luckily, I only had to wait six hours for a shower...

Day 199 Tuesday 17th July 7 miles : miles to date 1300 Another hard track session tonight with an exact seven miler, brings me up to a nice round spot on 1300 miles for the year to date. I am in fact 59 miles off the year target, but I should pick that up as the marathon miles begin to increase. After Sundays race, my legs were still tired as I lined up with the club for twelve times two minute efforts, followed by four one minute efforts. I set off with the whippets and made three efforts before they got faster and I slowed down. Every time I looked at my watch, it said sub six minute mile pace save for the last effort when I slowed. Despite that, the whippets just eased away with little apparent effort and I wasn't even in their slip stream. They must have been moving along at sub 5.30 pace and it really hammered home to me how much work I still have to do, to get me where I want to be in terms of race speed. I am starting to question if I have enough time before my target marathon and guess will just have to review the training and the plans over the next eight to ten weeks. I drowned my woes after training in a nice big glass of squash with an athletic burger and banger at the club BBQ. You could tell it was an athletic club BBQ, as there was one bottle of win and umpteen bottles of soft drinks. I did make up for it, with one glass of G&T when I got home. It was actually a triple in a pint glass, but it was still only one glass. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Day 198 Monday 16th July 5 miles : miles to date 1293 The day after the night before. I've had a few of them in my time and they normally involve lots of headache tablets. For once, the lethargy came from running and a complete abstinence of the amber nectar even after yesterdays race. The tiredness of the body was off set by my mind rambling ten to the dozen about how to get faster. I've got the bug bad. I thought I was potty about running before, but I have slipped over the line into serious obsession. It has become so bad, I even purchased a shiny new pair of ultra lightweight racing trainers today which feel like slippers and which will take some getting used to. As for today's run, in the quest to constantly find new routes I decided to try out Willen Park in Milton Keynes for what was meant to be an easy five miles in forty minutes, although I forgot and did them in 7.30's by mistake. As I am running quite a lot of my faster runs on my own, its important to me to try to find new routes and the flat paths of MK suited my plans tonight. Or at least, it would have done had Willen not been like the M25 of exercising bodes tonight. As soon as I got there, there was a big group of boot camp peeps and within a short time I was catching various runners around the lake. Now if you are going to go past someone, you have to keep the pace going and I went past a few. I then ran head first into a group of David Lloyd Redway runners and then a few others at various points. Its not the place to take it easy if you have a developing competitive streak like I seem to have acquired recently. I suspect even if I had known it was eight minute mile pace, I wouldn't have run it at that come what may. And then to home. The in laws arrived unexpectedly on their way back up't norff after a wee break down souff. Needless to say the abstinence went out the window, but mmm, the vino tasted good.

Day 197 Sunday 15th July 6.2 miles : miles to date 1288 The Voldemort plan continues to reap benefits, as I smashed my 10k PB with a 39.59 and 33rd place out of 588 entrants at today's St. Ives race. I just don't run 10k's, mainly due to the fact that they hurt I suspect. My previous best was 43:54 and with the rest varying between 44-52 minutes some years ago. Having never come close to 40 minutes before, I set the garmin for exactly that time hoping I might be able to just dip under. I had hoped to dip by more than a second, but what the heck I'm in the 30's and right now I don't mind admitting that I feel quite chuffed. I had looked at the last two years results, which had the just below forty peeps in 34th and 35th place, so I found myself in the rather unusual surroundings of being near the front at the start. Having never been that far up, I was caught in the flow as the gun went off running around a 6.10 pace, when target pace was 6.24. I finally got my head around my km running pace having only ever run a race in mile terms. This was quite easy to work out ie four minutes per km. I slowed intentionally to 6.25 pace and kept that steady for the first 3k and was around ten seconds up at the km marks due to the faster start. A problem flared between 3-5k as we ran straight into a strong headwind on a wide open airfield. I slowed and by the turn at the 5k mark, I had lost time and was now behind. The wind in our faces did not translate into any wind on our backs although I was able to pick it up slightly to regain the lost time, albeit it I still needed a lung buster in the final 800 metres covering the second half in a negative split which is another rare event. Even two months ago, I would have doubted being able to dip under forty or be close to nineteen for a 5k for that matter. It has to be down to the plan and I am so hungry for more. Bring on the pain. Another great run came from Julie Pritchett who also PB'd, which was even more impressive considering that yesterday she ran an unplanned fifteen mile cross country with the crew, followed by an open water swimming race a few hours later. An amazing achievement by any standard. We were also joined by Shaun Kirtley from the club, who also popped in a new record. Unfortunately it was a personal worst!