So the white stuff has all gone. Hooray. Alas stepping out this morning I realised that it had been replaced by the black stuff. Black ice. Boo …Hiss….

To recap, I made it to the gym on Wednesday despite more of the white stuff and did 5 miles on the treadmill at a variety of paces. Also included some cross training and a few leg weights.

Undeterred, and having publicly said that I would run today, off I went.  Not quite as early as usual either. Daughter turned 18 on Thursday but had an important exam on Friday, so she opened presents and had cake on Thursday. Friday was a family meal out with best friend and Saturday was the party. Wife, son and I left the house at about 8, and in an act of faith, returned at midnight. All went well and they had a great time. No spillages, no breaks.

So this morning headed off at a rather sedate pace (though for me “sedate” is probably not much faster than a brisk walk for you lot…). The sun was coming up and the sky was clear but there was a lot of ice around. I did one or two moves that would probably have been better on “Strictly” or the like rather than running on tarmac, but I kept concentration and plodded on. The ice was very patchy and hard to spot - guaranteed to keep you awake! I actually found that going slightly slower meant that I seemed to have more energy and even my least favourite hill at the start of mile 5 was not too taxing.  I found that the usual wave of fatigue that overtakes me about an hour into the run didn’t happen either and as a consequence the 10 miles  rolled by.

My bench mark for longer runs nowadays is to compare the splits with the Royal Parks Half which I did in October and was my fastest half. I actually reached the 10 mile point this morning 4 minutes faster than I did in October – mind you then I had another 3 miles to run but it wasn’t as hilly as the run I did this morning and also over four minutes faster than the last long run before the snows came! Progress, perhaps.

5 weeks today to the Wokingham half. I realise that this is a serious run. When you enter you have to put in your predicted time. Most seem to be to the nearest 5 minutes – 1 hour 40, 1 hour 45 etc but some have predicted very specifically to the nearest minute. That’s scary. Scanning the list of people entering I think that I will be in the final 50 to finish though hopefully not actually last. I hope it stands me in good stead for the Reading half a few weeks later.

I actually did my target mileage this week!

Take care everyone.

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