Road to Nowhere

It's now just a month to go until the London Marathon, which will be my first domestic Marathon for six years. It is also my first Spring Marathon since – well – I last did London and I must have got used to training in the Spring and Summer because I've found it tough this time round. It certainly hasn't helped that this Winter has been bitter, I've frequently found myself running the snow and sleight, I remember one particularly harsh run after work when it felt like someone was throwing cold little darts into my face and I seem to have been running in the dark forever. I prefer running out doors. I do use treadmills but I prefer not to use them for anything over an hour.

So I greet the longer evenings with a sense of relief, but even up to a week ago I was battling the elements. I do my 'long' run on a Sunday and they've been steadily increasing to a peak of twenty miles next Sunday. Last Sunday I had to do seventeen and so to chew a few miles I ran across the Cardiff Barrage to Penarth. This was a mistake. On a good day you can lose yourself in the view, but that particular day it was cold and very windy and it felt like someone was constantly pushing me, which as you can understand gets to be a tad wearing and contributed to me being nowhere near the pace I needed to get on my training plan.

The good news for me though is that I seem to have got my running legs back. I went out for a midweek run and felt good was surprised at the speed I could get. This Sunday I had an eighteen mile run to do, so to shake things up a bit I did my usual route but in reverse and avoided the Barrage which all seemed to work, I pretty much got the pace I needed. Still I'm aiming to do London in three hours and fifteen minutes, we'll see…

p.s...The weather turned around and bit me in the ass again as Thursday night I had every intention of going for a run, as per my running schedule. However cycling through Cardiff in the icy rain while dodging pissed up divs dressed up as Smurfs on their way to a Darts match at the CIA knocked all the enthusiasm out of me. I've also found out that Tokyo has been added as a Major Marathon, which is something to aim for in 2015...

Darren Floyd