boakes.org

Mum summed it up: Horizontal daffodils.

Today is horrible weather. Very blustery and not at all fun for running. On the route north out of Portsmouth the wind was so strong that it was causing me to ankle-tap myself.

I was hoping to do a little more than 11.25 miles today, but the combination of bad weather (+1 large coat) and the desire not to push my shins & calf muscles too hard forced me to trim the distance.

Good news #1: this is the second week that I’ve totalled over 42 miles.

Good news #2: I tried a different sock with my shoes and didn’t get the same blisters on the arch of my foot this week - this is a relief because I don’t want to have to change shoe so close to the marathon.

Good news #3: Due to the marathon paced run on Wednesday I have been running 50 minutes more in total this week than last (see the graph); so this week’s total running time is 6 hours 45 minutes.

As a result of the increased jogging time I’m running out of songs to hum to myself as I plod along; even Spanish Flea is starting to get repetitive.

I’m now going to avoid running until tuesday night - a break for my legs of approximately 80 hours, which should give them time to fully recover and repair. In the mean time I’ll be stretching, drinkng lots of water, and watching the rugby.

So, two more weeks of training at this level, then we start to taper off in order to ensure maximum energy and minimum injury risk for the big day which is four weeks tomorrow!