So apparently sleep running is not a skill I’m likely to be able to perfect, fortunately for me I got a great night’s sleep and have since had more nourishing sleep, so all is good in my world...for the moment anyway.   

We are living the rock and roll lifestyle at the moment aren’t we?  Our entertainment revolves around running programmes such as Eddie – Marathon Man, which I have to say was such an inspirational piece of TV.  I just have to think about Eddie’s running when I’m feeling lack lustre and all becomes ok again. Our spare moments involve inflicting blue foam rollers on ourselves and others (Gunes – I know you are guilty of this). I know many of you have succumbed to this torture instrument and if you haven’t, you’re certaininly thinking about it...you are, aren’t you?  You’re considering it right now!!!   We talk to everyone and anyone about running, even if they’re not listening, and if that’s not enough, we fall asleep involuntarily in front of the TV. What an anti-social bunch we are....haha. Well at least we’re not falling asleep at the dinner table!! Yet!

So talking of running, many of you mentioned my run home the other day as being fast, you know what? I didn’t even notice.  As my G finds it difficult to pick up satellites near my office, I don’t tend to look at the average pace at the end as it’s always messed up.  So I just go by the time it takes to run the route. You’re right, it was pretty fast for me! What an improvement!!  

I ran my Friday run yesterday as I couldn’t be asked to do it on Friday.  I ran 6 miles on the treddie 57 mins, it was meant to be slower but I was being disobedient, anyway, job done.  Today I was going to run 16.  It turned into a bit of a nightmare run as I didn’t realise the Embankment was closed for Sport Relief.  I got 5 miles into my run and the road ahead was not looking promising – CROWDS! A LOT OF PEOPLE!! I asked a runner coming towards me if it was hell running through that and he promptly muttered something about stop starting before he sped off.  I turned round and went back the way I came.  This really was a spanner in the works.

I decided I could run round Docklands instead so headed in that direction, but for some weird reason I couldn’t work out where to go from Westferry,  I ran in the direction I thought was correct and ended up on some weird traffic interchange thing so ran toward the river path only to find I’d done a loop and ended up where I was earlier so I ran back again to Westferry and another runner was looking to do the marathon route but he didn’t know the way either.  I gave up and ran toward West India Quay but the road I took ended in an underpass leading to all the Canary Wharf car parks.  This was turning into a very frustrating nightmare!  I was chasing my own tail, never mind a dog’s. I was getting pretty annoyed.  So I headed back to WestFerry and passed the station man for the 3^rd time.  I think he thought I was mad.  I was going to head back in the direction of home when I saw a sign for Regent’s Canal so I headed down there, at least I would be guaranteed a straight towpath, where I could just run a couple of miles and turn round. Beats running round and round and going no where.

What on earth was with this path though?  It’s just a grit path and I kept getting grit in my shoes so I had to stop a couple of times to empty out my shoes. 

I’ve heard of train spotting and plane spotting, but not runner spotting – but I’m sure the guy sitting on the bench was recording the number or runners that passed him.  He recorded something as I ran past on his many counters he had laid out.  This towpath also had weird cobbled step things which completely did my head in, as I had to watch where my foot landed each time, then I got to my biggest nightmare!  Blooming pontoon hell!  It went on for at least half a mile, so I had to trot tentatively along it!! I finally decided to turn round when I got to a foot bridge.  I thought the cobble step thing was a nightmare – well, this footbridge thing was 5 times worse. I started up it then thought better and turned round. As I ran past Mr Runner spotter, he again recorded my passing.  He had about 6 counters, maybe it was runners, walkers, prams, cyclists, skateboards, scooters?

I decided I’d run back to Canary Wharf and hopefully that would get me to 16 miles; I’d just get the tube home from there. So back I went past the man at WestFerry again.  This time he really did give me the strangest look...haha... I felt like shouting out to him, "it’s ok, it’s the last time I promise".  

I only carried one gel with me today which I took at mile 7.5, I wanted to see how I coped without a second one. I started to feel a bit fatigued around mile 14, but pushed on.  I ran past a shop and I could see the Haribo in the window.  I just kept thinking about how I wanted to eat the sweets.  I really wanted them but the shop was shut.  Anyway, I pushed on and got a bit of a second wind to get me to Canary Wharf Station.  I was short of 16 miles but I was not about to run more circles to make it up.  Enough circles for one day.  So 15:32 miles in 2hr 37mins. Average pace 10:16.  My pacing was a bit all over the place today.  I was aiming for 10:30 but I did some very fast miles unintentionally - one came in at 9:02 and another 9:40, I didn’t realise it at the time.  Oops!

Hope everyone had a great day in Reading and any other races ran today.  Look forward to reading about your PBs as I’m sure there will be some out there!