It was supposed to be a rest day but Wendy wanted to run as she'd missed a run this week because of the weather so I said I'd do a short one with her at lunch.

We set off chatting despite the rain and settled in to 10 minute mile pace which we kept up for 2.6 miles and had a really pleasant run putting the world to rights or at least our little bit of it!

Tomorrow I'm racing in the South East Lancashire Cross Country League at a place called Bogart Hole Clough!!  After the weather this week I bet it will be a bog!

Sunday I won't do my long run (20 miles) but will try to get on the track for a set of Yasso 800s - I've done these before but usually closer to marathon time.  The idea is to take your planned marathon time (3:30 for me) and put this into minutes and do 800m in that time and then do a recovery lap (400m) in the same time.

You build up to doing 10 800s in 3:30 (or under) with 400m in 3:30 to recover.  This was the idea of an American coach called Bert Yasso and is supposed to let you know if you're ready for the marathon ( as well as all the long runs and shorter speed work). 

Don't know if I will manage the full 10 on Sunday but by marathon I'm confident I'll do 12 x 800m.