Something is always better than nothing…

Unless we’re talking about goat’s cheese on a pizza. Fortunately we’re not so I’ll stand down. No, we’re talking about running of course.

Let me start this one by giving you a glimpse of the kind of small victories that I now celebrate. Some people wake up one morning and, that day, they break a world record. Some people build up such a skill level that they become one of the all time great wartime codebreakers. GOAT, if you will (I only add that, since I’m the last person on the planet to learn what that means!).

Some people have a full day out on a Sunday, have a great time with family and then, along with an equally focussed other half, display quite spectacular ninja skills to get the kids in bed a full twenty minutes early. Step aside Kofi Annan* This is the kind of stuff that makes me proud.

Why was I so buoyed by such daring efficiency? Well, my runplan had an 18-mile long run down to fit in. As I’ve alluded to before, I do really need to start ramping up the miles to be in any kind of state for the 54 miles in April.

For various reasons, this weekend became rather busy. Only good reasons, I must say, primarily spending lots of time with the family. My usual Sunday run slot is early on, as discussed in previous posts. That wasn’t an option this Sunday though thanks to the boy being a little toe-rag during Saturday evening. The upshot meant that we all needed a good sleep and there was to be no risk of any small people being woken.

There was a time when missing a long weekend run would have stressed me right out and I would assume my planned target race was entirely doomed. However I’ve come to realise, as a famous dignatory once said “A single run doth not a runplan make”. Or something like that.

Obviously I can’t fall back on that one every weekend or I’d actually do no proper training. Much digressing today. Anyway, thanks to our parental heroics, I got a short one in during the evening. And do you know, when it looked like I wouldn’t manage any, getting those 8km in, was a really pleasant surprise. Granted it was dark; I mean really dark. I had so little to work with in fact, this was all I could muster as a pic from the run:

I can tell you’re blown away by the imaginative arty-ness.

The point is that it was still 8k, making 37k for the week. On top of bossing bedtime, I’ve got to be happy with that.

Having finally shovelled enough food into me to get back on track (see previous post), I had a couple of great runs last week. All the rain seemed to come overnight leaving soggy but sunny days, like this from Thursday’s 10k:

I’ve learned that it’s fine to miss a long run sometimes, even a little bonus one helps if that’s all you’ve got time for; it’s impossible to take a decent photo in the pitch black without a head torch and, of course, don’t fall back on this advice every week. Oh, and I still don’t like goat’s cheese. Bring on this weekend’s 20-miler.

Have a good week all.

*I appreciate he has literally stepped aside now, RIP, but you get the gist