THE GOOD BUCK

A couple of things have gone wrong. The trainers I ordered in my true size arrived. I put them on and walked up and down the kitchen. That was enough to hurt my foot for the rest of the night. The rocker is still right under my bones. I sent them back for a refund and ordered a different model of Saucony. The Speed 4. I’ve been training in the Speed 3 for 324 miles and they never gave me pain before I triggered this. They have been good since, but my bones still grind a bit when I get tired. They arrive tomorrow. I have to keep trying.

I had a day of fail on my diet, ate a big tea and lost my mojo, so had two choccy bars the next day at work. I managed to muster my mojo and get back on it the last two days. I was 10st 2½lbs again this morning. I did a fairly tough half marathon this morning and haven’t eaten much today so I’m hoping to see 10st 1 and a bit tomorrow.

Another fail is my bike. The exhaust in particular. I had a brand new system bookmarked (for about £300) but the company sold out and isn’t making any more. I’ve emailed all the other companies. Nope. The only options are new American or Japanese systems for about £1,000 or a second hand system from a breaker for £330. And the second hand one didn’t look great. Which is doubly irritating as that was the price of a brand new system.

After my week off after the marathon I’ve been back training. I did 57 miles last week, and a bloody hilly 18 miler today.

The good news is I think it was the trainers being a half a size too big that was causing the pain. I’ve been out for a bunch of runs in snug trainers and the pain has been getting a lot less frequent. I’ve ordered the same trainer as were giving me trouble, but in the true size. I’m hoping without aggravation the pain will stop altogether. It’s already way better. It stopped me on a run last week. Today was a lot of foot pounding down the hills and I only got a few bad pains.

I was planning on just throwing loads of miles at this period, between training cycles, but I need structure. I’m going to run through the plan again after tomorrow’s rest day. My new trainers, which I thought would arrive today, while we are both off, are coming tomorrow, when we are both working, because of the bank holiday. Super. It’s UPS, so it’s pointless trying to get their excuse for a website to work so I can rearrange the delivery. Meh. See how it goes.

After a surprisingly long period with my new bike I had a blip.

On a whim I started looking for an engine to strip down to practice a bit of mechanic-ing. But then I realised I wouldn’t know if I’d been successful if it was just an engine. So I started looking for a cheap, project motorbike. That way I could play on it, there would be visible results (assuming I got it running again) and it would have some resale value afterwards, so I wouldn’t be pointlessly throwing away the price of an engine, oil, gaskets, etc.

Unfortunately on some of the sites that gives you very limited hits. To see all the available bikes I had to put in ‘motorbikes, private seller, under £1000’. That returned all the spares/repairs, project type bikes that I’d be interested in, but unfortunately it brought up lots and lots of really tempting bikes that had nothing wrong with them.

That was a test. Only 2 days ago I was taking a covid test because I felt so lousy. The next day I was fine again, so I don’t know what that was about. Last night I finished work at 22.30, by the time I’d had my tea, a shower and a a brew it was 00.30 getting to bed. Then I woke up at 05.30 with a blocked nose and was thinking I had to get up in an hour, so I couldn’t get back to sleep. Not ideal.

On the plus side the weather was amazing. The first lap there was no wind at all to speak of. The sea breeze had picked up for the second lap, but it was still light.

We set off pretty slow as the pack thinned out. I found a guy to use as a pacer. He was a little bit too fast for the pace I was trying to set but he was metronomic. I knew if I could stay with him I was going to be on target.

I had another bad blip with my training last week, missed 2 days. Then I was back at it with a vengeance. One of the days wanted an 8 -15K race. It was blowing a gale (30+ mph winds) so I did a 10K run with a flat out 5K. Even with the killer wind I was only 2 seconds shy of a sub 20. (20.01), the next day was 18 miles at 7.30- 8.10.

I’ve only got two shifts this week so I am on top of my training. Good job, it’s 3 weeks on Sunday until my marathon. You’d think that means my plan is ramping down, but it’s 11 mile with 6x .6 of a mile sprints tomorrow, 15 mile the day after, 8, 6, 20. The good news is my watch has started revising my predicted marathon time downwards again. It’s been creeping up for weeks. Currently saying 3.07:12, which is 7.10 m/m pace for 26 miles. It all depends on my endurance. And the wind. Blackpool is on the seafront so it’s always windy. My PB is 3.15, so 3.07 would be halfway there.

Another good thing this week. I’ve got 2 pairs of racing shoes. I’ve got 2 pairs of shoes that are supposed to be racing shoes (one is wearing out the other is not so good for racing) and I’ve got 2 pairs of everyday trainers. The trouble is the everyday trainers, the one’s I should be using on all but sprints sessions and actual races, are not that clever. I had Saucony Speed 2 and they were great. Do everything. Fast runs, everyday runs, they were a bit uncomfortable after half marathon distance, but apart from that they were ideal. And they were hard wearing. I got 700 miles out of them. But when I got the Speed 3 they’ve lost their way. They don’t feel fast, they don’t throw you forward into a run like the Speed 2, they just feel ploddy. I got the the Asics Novablast, as they were supposed to be a good everyday trainer, and they are comfortable and durable, but again they are ploddy. They lack the Saucony ‘speedroll’ tech.