Amsterdam - Week 6

Well after last week's return to running everything seems to be going pretty well. Now I know that's not what you want from my blog, you want me being knackered, falling over, eating toilet waffles and bath crisps but don't worry, I'm having a party this week and that will surely lead to some idiotic behaviour.

Anyway, a normal day working with an early finish and then me and Murphy had a snooze on the settee and then I bloody well went to the gym.

Didn't want to but Gail was out and there's only so much time you can spend lying on the settee with Murphy.

So, I did about an hour of cross training and then planned to do 30 minutes of core but instead spoke to Bruce for 20 minutes and went home.

Up this morning and leg feels okay.

Murphy on the other hand is once again a poorly boy, his ear has ballooned up to the size of a melon once again. The third or fourth time in the last couple of years and yet again he'll probably need surgery.

He spends the day walking about looking sad and getting fed treats and cheese. He may be doing this on purpose for attention and food. I wouldn't put it past him.

Off to the gym where I quickly get bored as there's nobody I know there who I can talk to, so instead after 10 minutes I decide to do a few easy miles in the sunshine to see how my leg responds to a few runs in a row.  

Leg holds up but my fitness is non existent, I feel absolutely wrecked and call it a day after 3 miles or so. The weight is coming down but I'm just knackered constantly, my breathing is all over the place and my body just doesn't want to run.

I'm up at 7am.

I upload a superb Beastie Boys video to FB for my party with updated lyrics overlayed on it that I spent about an hour making last night.

It gets taken down for copyright reasons.

Bastards.

I'll skip through the day as it's boring.......

And then it's party time and what a night it was.

I'm writing this on Saturday morning whilst drinking my coffee and laughing at videos and photos from last night. I am very hungover, my throat hurts from singing (and probably from vomiting into a bin but we'll gloss over that) and my whole body hurts from dancing.

I drank way too much and pints of Guinness followed by double Gins isn't a great combination it turns out.

It was a superb night and if you weren't there you missed an absolute treat, you missed Shorting dancing to Ice Ice Baby, you missed me and Bain sharing countless sweaty embraces, you missed terrible singing, the Prodigy blasting out, a full dance floor sing along to Pulp and those are just the bits I can remember. 

Anyway, I'm gonna get all soppy again, get ready.

Most of the people there last night were friends from the Poly that I've made over the past 20 years, a group of people chucked together because they enjoy running and as it turns out they also enjoy drinking and dancing. Some of my best friends are in that group of people and without running and the Poly I would never have met them and my life would be a much shitter place because of it. You lot and running has genuinely changed my life for the better and it was amazing to see so many of you turn up to help me celebrate getting old last night.

Thank you all.

Right, here we go.

Back to it today and getting training back on track.

After a night of dancing on Friday and a day of recovery on Saturday I'm felling pretty good and the plan is to head out for double figures today and hit 10 miles at a nice sensible pace, aiming for 9 min miles.

Plan out a route heading inland, up the coast road a bit and back along the coast.

Wake up and sit outside and have my coffee and the sun is shining and I decide to scrap my planned route and go up to Tynemouth, run a loop through Shields and back home along the coast.

I still feel a little hungover and drinking more red wine last night probably wasn't a great idea.

I'm going to be sensible and stick to nice steady 9 min miles today.

Head out and it's warm, damn warm. I didn't bother with a cap today and I'm already regretting it. Also should have stuck on my Paw Patrol sunglasses.  Up through Cullercoats and into Tynemouth and I'm about 30 secs a mile too fast but I feel okay.

Well okay is a stretch, I feel a bit wrecked to be honest. I'm tired and feel like I'm sweating out neat gin and Guinness.  

Loop through Tynemouth and start heading back, check my Garmin and realise I'll fall short of double digits today and probably closer to 9 miles and I'm also still 30 secs or so too fast.

Get to Tynemouth and got 3 miles left to co-op for a drink.

It's all downhill from here and I feel okay, wrecked, very sweaty but okay.

Last 3 miles as always are the 3 fastest and I finish at the shops after 9 miles at an average pace of 8:17 per mile. It's a long, long way from the 20+ millers I was doing in Feb and March at sub 8 min miles pace but it's good to be back out.

A bottle of coke at co-op and then home for a shower and a coffee.

This week I've done just over 26 miles in 3:58

If I can roll that all into one big run in 10 weeks and run a sub 4 hours in Amsterdam I'll be over the moon.

Rest day tomorrow and then back to the club Tues.

I'm injured, I'm depressed, I'm unfit, I'm overweight.

Will I make the start line or will it all end in tears?

AMSTERDAM - RED LIGHT SPELLS DANGER