18 MILES AND COUNTING

Training has been going well, I've hit all my targets so far in terms of all my training runs, last long run was on Tuesday, 18 miles altogether, I once again ran after teaching, tried not to leave it too long in the day as I knew I would be out for 4 hours plus, crazy ah!I Ran from West London to central London, Westminster in fact, past the houses of parliment, dodging all the tourists and trying to keep focused, mile 5-6 spoke to the other half on the phone, yes it was a bit of an nutty thing to do, but whatever it takes I say to keep me running. The first 5 miles were the hardest then things eased up for a while, hardest thing was to keep focused and motivated and keep moving, I knew my leg's would keep moving if they needed too one step at a time, thats my mantra, one step at a time sweet Jesus.

I can't lie I was nervous before I started, the thought of running 18 miles gave me butterfiles, last year whilst training for the marathon I didn't do an 18 miler, got the flu and had to take that week off training, I jumped straight from an 16 miler to an 18 miler.

The last 3 miles were very hard, my groin was starting to feel strained, knees beginning to ache a bit, left ankle hurting, good news was my achliles was fine though. Strangly the bottom of my feet were also hurting which is not something that happens very often, to be honest I can't remember the last time my feet actually hurt, just less than a mile from home I took my trainers off and ran in my socks for a bit,then I took my socks off and ran home in nothing but bare feet, looking out for glass, dirt and most of all dog mess. People did look at me like I was a complete nutter, but my feet instantly started to ease up and figured it was time for a new pair of trainers!

Been on a 5 mile run today knocked it out in 54 minutes, legs were a bit dead at first but then I got a second wind and was putting on a bit of speed, reminding myself that I have a half marathon on Sunday,which is why I only doing 3 runs this week, in fact that run today was a lot of fun and at times I was grining like a fool, my achiles is not 100 per cent but it's responding well to the streaching and the icing.

6 more Sundays until the marathon, not long at all, training is on track, I need to sort out my food, been okay could be a lot, lot better, the time is going so very quickly, need to keep focused,motivated and injury free.