It’s London Marathon Day and I am back where I belong – on the sofa watching it on television. I’m not sorry I deferred to next year. I’m not ready but somehow watching the scenes from the start – watching the women run consistent 16 minute 5ks and the men just do a ‘pedestrian 4.37 mile’ for the 4th mile is pulling at my heart strings. I definitely have unfinished business on that course. I want to run across tower bridge. I couldn’t do it last time, I felt faint and poorly. So next year I have a date with that bridge and I will run it all even if I walk lots of the rest of the course! I like seeing the marathon on tv, it’s just a reminder that the impossible is possible.

We’ve just been talking about how much stronger we are now than we were before we started Dopey training in summer 2015 and how that puts us in a great position for having another go in 2019. I have no real after effects from yesterday’s 10 mile adventure. I just have tired knees and tired ankles. I meant to write about this yesterday but somehow it didn’t fit into the blog post. It’s an odd sensation. They are not at all painful or even niggly, they are just tired. I have obviously had tired legs before but never so specifically tired knees and ankles. Odd. We wanted to do our second weekend run before the marathon started today so we got up and headed out – after yesterday’s joint adventure, we went separately this morning. Kath set off before me and I got going a few minutes later.

After yesterday I thought I’d go relatively flat and not technical. I went the long way through the estate and then dropped onto the canal. I had turned off my run/walk intervals because I wanted to run by feel and enjoy being out and not have the beeps interrupt the gorgeous morning. I felt a bit sluggish and my legs felt heavy. I had no fixed idea of what I would do and as I set off I thought ‘Oh hell, this might involve more walking than I wanted’. As I kept plodding downhill I started to move better and settle in so I thought I would run the first mile and then see how I was. The first mile came and I still felt pretty good. I decided to keep going to 1.5 and then maybe walk a little. 1.5 came and I was fine so I thought that actually getting to 2 miles would be nice and take me to

my favourite stretch of canal where I could walk a little and see if there were more ducklings. Just before I hit the 2 miles I started to feel it a bit but then I saw Kath coming the other way on the opposite side of the canal and she signalled for me to keep going and she’d catch up and we could run the rest together. She caught me just as I started walking. We looked around, saw some pretty new lambs, more ducklings and lots of different shades of green.

After a few minutes we started jogging again and my aim was to run the rest of mile 3 – did it, just. But was now feeling the warmth of the sun and the 10 miles in my legs. We walked a few minutes, picked up the barrier placed to block the canal towpath for the section they are working on this summer  – it must have fallen over – turned round and jogged back to the golf course bridge and then walked up the golf course, jogged down the track to our old sheep fields and then walked a bit more. So miles 1 and 2 were about consistent running, mile 3 was about seeing who was around on the canal and saying hi to lambs and ducklings, mile 4 was about walking up and enjoying the views and mile 5 and the final stretch, to be honest, was just about nursing tired legs  and niggly hips home. I am however very excited to have recorded over 70 miles for April so far – 3rd highest monthly mileage ever and still 8 days left. I’m enjoying my running and I am looking forward to building on this. My fitness is definitely improving, my endurance is improving, I’m getting physically and mentally stronger. I’m also getting slower it seems but I’m not concerned about pace at the moment. It’ll come, or not. I’m just happy to be enjoying it.

Happy Sunday! Go turn your dreams into reality.