martinlittle.com:thinkThin

The last week hasn't been great for running. After the 10k last week at Penicuik, I tried to run the following day and failed absolutely miserably -- my legs were a mess. Here's the ugly evidence showing me limping home.

Deciding a few days of rest were in order, I busied myself in the gym with some upper body (yeah, I know you can tell) and swimming work, which was nice for a change. On Wednesday I took another attempt and managed 10k, but not in much style.

After some more leg exercises over the last few days, I decided that my run this weekend needed to be a reasonable confirmation that I'm on for marathon running. Today I knocked out a decent 17 miles, although that was mostly along fairly flat-ish cycle track, with a pretty decent 1.5 miles of hill climb thrown in at the halfway point. Time taken was 2.48.52.

When I made it home, I really was broken -- definitely the most tired I've been running and probably the most physically knackered I've ever been in my life. There was one major factor that I didn't quite think through today, though: the weather. Even when it's a nice day here, the temperature only gets to, say, ~17C at this time of year. Today it was 21C, and I was running in the early afternoon, with the sun beating straight down on me for significant parts of the run. Nothing to eat or drink, no hat and no sunscreen certainly was not the wisest plan, and I think that had a big effect on me. My parents gave me money for my birthday, and I'm planning to buy a CamelBak with it -- I really should have done that last week!

So, where from here? By my reckoning, I have another one or two weeks maximum of running left before putting my feet up and resting before the marathon. If I nail a good 20 miles in the next 14 days, I'm going to do it. If not, I'll pull my place, take the half marathon the following weekend and then select a full marathon for later in the year.