a Worthwhile Weekend of Wunning

as Bugs bunny might say.

Being my long easy run weekend (as opposed to long-ish but very hard run weekend), I saw no good reason not to do a race on the Saturday and then train long on Sunday.

Many of Scamps sticks have clouted me on the leg!!

The race was the Mid Lancs Cross Country League meeting at Hyndburn. I just scraped inside the top 50 of 280 odd finishers. Superb course for a XC - lots of mud, lots of switching back and forth between trees, several little banks to climb and descend. Many a complaint was heard afterwards about spikes being ruined on the footpath which had to be crossed several times per lap. Indeed , Millys were not only missing the actual spike but on both shoes the round plastic area holding the spike was completely ripped from the sole of the shoe! I was pleased to have used my fellshoes - they are all I have got anyway and its on only very wet and sloping grass when I feel they might let me down.

My long run was 18 miles. I couldn't get anybody to join me so after putting it off until 11AM  I
left the house advising Janet that I should be back in 2 hours and 6 minutes. I returned to the house at 13:06. It wasnt quite a precise as that though because the first and last mile are not measured. My actual timed run was 16 miles which I completed at 6:50 per mile. At the end I stopped my watch but continued running the same effort to home. So overall it was a one mile warm up, a brief stop to retie my lace then 17miles non stop. I didnt need to put much effort in to get these splits, in fact, I ran faster for the last 5 miles than any previous. But then if I was trying hard this couldnt be classed an easy long run.

Today is 14 weeks to VLM (Virgin London Marathon). Apart from the change I already mentioned in the midweek, I will maintain a very similar training pattern to recent weeks.

In other news - that annoying cough that is troubling my sleep is on the wane. I now only cough in the night for about 10 minutes before falling back to sleep. I'm pretty sure its nothing to worry about as my chest feels absolutely fine and if I was ill then I think this weekends racing and two hour run within 24 hours would have seen me in trouble. Janet got one of those peak flow metre thingies from somewhere - its me new favourite toy. I can almost blow it off the top of the scale, but then some would say I was always full of hot air.