Saturday is the new Sunday

Yep, Saturday is def the new Sunday for the longest run of the week. Problem with Sunday is, you go out for a 3+ hour run, you're pooped all day and on Monday, when you've to get up at 6/6:30am as I do, you're still wrecked! So, Saturday's now my long run day. You can stay in the getting up early routine of Monday - Friday, then you're out the door by 7:30am and the run's all done by 11am!

Yesterday was 19-miles of the usual hilly, muddy cross-country. Met with Chris Wilson, an old mate from my days at Tri London but who now runs 'Team Bodylab, for about 6 or 7 miles of it. Makes the miles go by much easier when you're out with someone. And as Chris is an experienced athlete and isn't one of these guys that needs to be half a stride in front, it makes for a nice even paced and sociable run.

After doing the middle few miles with Chris, I had the 6 miles back over the country field between Hadley Woods and Crewes Hill. Olly had nabbed himself a nice chunky rabbit on our way out, but so he didn't have to carry it the whole way, I got him to stash it and we collected it then again with about 4 miles to run to home. Once we were out of the countryside (where everyone was complimentary of his self-service lunch) and back into Enfield Town, a lot of the townies were looking at him in horror as he ran along, head held high with pride, and with a large rabbit flailing from his jaws. As he's moulting and there are clumps of fur on him, he looked pretty wild, so it did look as though I was running down the street with a wolf with a rabbit in his jaws. Quality moment!!

Although my right hip, which saw me out of action for 8-months in 2008, was stiff after last weekends 5k-country race (where we ran hard and came 5th), it is fine now (Sunday, 24-hrs after the run). I'm going to be very cautious though...I can't afford a problem with the hip/glutes at this stage of preparation for an ultra in 3-months! Got to stay healthy and injury-free in order to have consistent training. Consistent moderate weeks are better than sporadic weeks of mad training, followed by a week off/easy to let an injury heal or to get over a feeling of utter exhaustion. Today, for example, I'll be going for a long walk, a short weights curcuit and core stability training and that's it. Tomorrow; massage, spinning. So two days of no running. Then 5-days in a row with a 21 miler next Sat, then taper for the Devon Coastal marathon on 27th Feb. Looking forward to that, but I know it will be tough - I don't have enough long runs in my legs to do it and feel comfortable!

Right... time to build new dog crate for car.