Well February has been a busy one.

At work we are gearing up for our relocation to the new office. This is a project I’ve been running for 4 years and it is both exciting and exhausting in equal measure. We move in on 19th March and so I hope by the end on that month things will start to tail off a bit, not too much mind, I’d hate to be bored.

On the home front we put my Mum’s house on the market, got an offer within 6 days which we accepted and had an offer accepted on a 2 bed retirement flat for Mum to move into. It’s in a complex with on site manager 24/7, restaurant and social lounge area and 100m from Waitrose so she is delighted. Better still it is 5 miles from where I live (rather than the current 80). Therefore lots more peace of mind and better social engagement for Mum. I’m acting with Power of Attorney, Mum’s making the decisions which is great, but there’s been loads of forms to complete (mainly about money laundering) and then we crack into the Great Clearout.

So then to matters of a running nature. The Achilles seems to have taken a back seat which is good. I’ve been doing 3 runs a week and building up the distance again. Two weeks ago was the Dursley Dozen trail race, lots of mud, ups and downs. I ran to the start so clocked up 25 miles in total on the day, with beautiful views to boot. This was a critical marker as on Saturday the Green Man beckons, 46 miles around Bristol.

I’m under trained for it, I’ll be relying on muscle memory to get me round, but with 25 miles banked I know I will be able to toe the start line with some confidence. What I won’t do is jeopardise London, so if I start getting real grief (as opposed to the run of the mill aches) I will step off the course.

The change in the weather makes a big difference. I was planning shoe choices around wading through calf deep mud (it follows 2 rivers and is notoriously boggy). Having run some trails this morning, it is solid and ankle turning on some of the rutted stuff. It will hopefully help make it a faster (relatively) run and less energy sapping. However snow may be coming which could change the game completely.

As we enter March it feels like the “phoney” war of winter training turns towards races.

Keep on trucking folks