I didn’t want to run today. Not-at-all. But there is something magically pulling me towards that marathon and making me go. I needed quite a nudge to get me out the door today though and I have to say a big thanks to my friend Liz who sent me a message asking if I’d got my trainers on yet at just the right moment.

Once I got out there I actually felt better than on the last run. Because of limited daylight hours it made sense for me to feed the sheep on my run.  I ran to the field, stopped the watch and fed them and then carried on running. When I got to the point where we normally do a little ‘there and back’ thing I really couldn’t face running the same stretch twice so I turned left across the canal bridge and therefore significantly shortened the loop. I kept plodding to the next bridge and hadn’t even hit 30 minutes yet.

I kept going over the bridge and started heading for home and that way home starts with a bitch of a slope. I don’t think I’ve ever run it before but I got to the top of it  – which is also the bottom of an absolute killer of a hill. I walked up that and then started running again once I got to the top and then kept going until I got home – including running up the slope leading up to our road. I looked at my watch and it said 40 minutes. I wasn’t prepared to run round in circle for 5 minutes for the sake of it so stopped at our front door and nearly scared a woman delivering something for Kath to death as I stepped onto the drive right behind her but didn’t have enough oxygen left to announce myself.

So I didn’t run the required 45 minutes and I had a break after the first 10 minutes to feed the sheep –  but the plan said nothing about hills. So there, I’m minus 5 minutes but plus some serious slopes.