…does not make for happy running. We got back on track and finished the week 7 runs on Thursday of week 8. On Friday we went to the pub and had a couple of pints and a packet of crisps and I’d also had a pretty crappy food day. I’d been at a meeting in London were there were sandwiches for lunch and then on the train journey home there were more sarnies… Bread overload basically and I have no willpower and I like sarnies. Anyway, crap food day.

On Saturday morning we started week 8 with a 30 minute run. Bloody hell. I felt so sluggish and heavy and generally rubbish. We set off from our house towards our sheep field and were going to do our usual 30 minute route that starts at home but then decided to turn back after 15 minutes to save time as we had lots to do. But turning back meant having to drag my butt up the hills that we’d come down on the way there and they are evil. Not particularly steep but just slow steady climbs. Urgh. From about 10 minutes in the whole thing just became a mind over matter thing to finish. Sometimes it felt like I was going backwards. So 30 minutes and 2.11 miserable miles later with an average pace of something over 14 minutes per mile we arrived back home. Lesson learned. Eating right doesn’t just make a difference, it makes a huge difference. It’s the difference between actually feeling like I am running and just desperately trying to drag my butt to the end.

Thinking back over the week, I can’t really remember how bad or otherwise I’ve been with the healthy eating thing. I wasn’t very good at taking my lunch so ended up buying wraps at work and I had a chocolate bar with that. Oh and when Kath was away overnight I couldn’t be bothered to cook just for me so lived on cereal. Unsurprisingly then I didn’t lose any weight this week. I haven’t gained any either though and today has been a much better day. We got up at 6ish this morming because we had to move our sheep at 7am (More on them here if you’re interested). We had breakfast afterwards – a south american brunch recipe that I think might have come from the Jamie Oliver via the Running Bug. It’s quinoa and blacked eyed beans with avocado and a dressing of tomato, spring onion in a vinegarette. We had lunch at a Garden Centre – we both had a road beef dinner and this evening we had a big salad. So while not perfect, much better than most of last week.

We also went for the second of the week 8 runs – 30 minutes. This one was much more like it. I was in danger of falling asleep on the sofa this afternoon but instead we set off from home, went past the sheep and down onto the canal. It looks like we are back on track with an average pace of 12.36 minutes per mile.