Another weeks training

109 miles Monday AM: Slow job into work listening to podcasts. Also stressing a bit because I’ve been waiting for a new Garmin and new trainers. Organising delivery and replacements is not something that I like to do especially when my wife is not at home this week and there’s no-one there to take receipt. I left a note on my door saying leave parcels in porch. Mid morning I went on the UPS online tracking website, it said CUSTOMER UNAVAILABLE WILL CALL AGAIN. I called the customer services and said I left a note but they want a signature. Pulling my hair out! But then they said I could sign the card they left and leave that and they’ll put it in the porch tomorrow. 10:00am trainers delivered at work, in hind sight I should have got the Garmin delivered to work! PM: Ran home and released that I’d locked the porch door so I had to eat humble pie. The delivery guy wrote on the note: Porch Locked! I left him another note as I knew he would be trying again tomorrow “Now open”. Tuesday AM: Cycled in to work PM: Ran home recovery run as had a hard run tomorrow. Wednesday AM: 14 miles progression. I found another route to work! It cut out 2 miles along a road and along a path instead. The last five miles I was dreading as it was to be at 6:10 pace. I think the distraction of the new route took my mind off the pain because I felt OK and picked up the pace to just under 6mm. I was really impressed on this run with a dog walker. As I ran past she controlled both her dogs to sit next to her and they kept still as I passed. I was running an out and back along a trail so after five mins I was running towards the same owner and this is the impressive thing. As I was getting closer the dogs were too far away from her to grab so she pulled out a whistle and blew it. The dogs then sat where they were and stayed sat until I passed. Very impressive. PM: Cycle home. Thursday AM: Jogged in (usual route as it’s the shortest at 10.3miles). Found a place to do my daily core work (I’m doing 6 mins twice a day, planks and bicycle kicks). PM: Very slow, 7.30mm until I met Darren then the pace was 6.30mm. Friday AM: Progressive 12.3 miles into work. 6.19 pace overall with last third at 6mm. It rained most of the way but this just made me cooler. When running hard my head goes a bit strange and I think about the most bizarre things. For example, there is a regular bus service going along my run commute between Wrexham and Chester. I know all of the registration plates! I thought this morning that I’d not seen J100 ABW for a while then it passed me. This, for some reason, really cheered me up.  PM: Nice slow jog home Saturday AM: Didn’t wear a watch but I went to Halfords with my wife and ran home. I think it was about 5.5miles and I did some sprints. Sunday Race day. I went to the North Wales Half Marathon which started near Conwy. I thought I might win it, not because I’d be fast but because it was a low profile race. I was wrong! Andi Jones and some other top notch runners turned out. I came fourth and wondered why I train so hard when there are runners out there so much quicker than me. I don’t know what came over me but somehow I got one of Andi’s races mixed up with Steve Way’s and congratulated him for the wrong race. Whoops. The race was really hard, two miles on sand, up a mountain (370m) and on a windy sea front too. O well, a good training session as we say when we have a slow race