Manchester-Week 10

The week in numbers ...

Miles ran: 54
Mushrooms eaten :  a few
Chocolate eaten: 2 large bars
Crisps eaten : 1 large bag frazzles
Wine drank: 1 bottle

Weight: Monday 11st7lb
                    Sunday 11st3lb

Another busy work day and I'm feeling knackered being on my feet all day.

Finish work at 5:45 and out the door at 6:00 to do my usual 4 mile warm up to Cullercoats and back, warm up is fine but I feel tired and not looking forward to the session.

We split into two B teams, I go into the B 'B' team thinking it'll be more sedate but I forget Wendy's in this group. 4 reps of broken miles and Wendy absolutely nails it and drags us round with a superbly paced session. We got the final 400 and I'm side by side with her, we got 200 to go and I fancy my chances, we hit 150 to go and I reckon I can take her, we got 100 to go and she's already 20m ahead of me and accelerating away, Simon E follows her and I'm dying but holding the pace and getting in a couple of seconds too quick.

Home for a glass of wine and to eat a pie and some Ziggy fries. Ziggy fries are like normal fries but they are Ziggy shaped and this makes them taste better than normal shapes fries.

They taste Ziggy.

My toenails are still red.

It's threshold Thursday and today I'm doing 3 x 3 miles at threshold pace with static recoveries, should be around 10-12 miles in total with warm up and cool down.

Remember all my reasons from yesterday for not wanting to run? They all stand true again today.

Oh fuck , I have to do it.

Head out for warm up and the wind is surprisingly fine. I head past Spanish City and see the day group and then turn to head back to the prom, I suddenly realised the wins is not fine. It's awful and it's going past my ears and it's hard to just run easy, let alone at pace. The plan today is 5o do 3 times round the parkrun course and then at the last minute I change my mind and decide to do along the prom to the end, up the hill obto the main road and back along the main road to the dome, drop down watts slope to the prom and iny was that's nearly 3 miles.

It isn't.

I have to go all the way along the prom again.

Heading North I'm struggling to hit 8:30 mile pace and having to work really hard, I turn South and I'm running 6:40 mile pace and it feels easy. Rep 1 done and I feel wrecked. Shall I sack this off and go home or stick with it? The day group are here and they'll see me go home so I need to carry on.

Rep 2 I decide to avoid going onto the main road and convince myself staying on the prom is better. It's 3 miles so I figure that's basically 5 times up and down the prom. That sounds okay, I think.

It isn't okay, it's horrible.

I see young Mark, he looks utterly sick and scowls at me. I decide this is a sign for me to stick this out as I fear if I go home he may come round and set fire to my house. I mean he entered a marathon so strictly speaking it's not my fault he is out running 22 miles in a hurricane but he looks unpredictable so I stick with my session.

Eventually I am done, I feel absolutely destroyed and head home for a full day of work. I do this via co-op so I can buy some chocolate.

That's lunch sorted.

And my toenails are still red, they actually seem to be brighter red by the day.

This weekend I need to run 22 miles.

I'm knackered and can't decide when to do it.

On Friday night I get all my gear out and lay it out ready and my plan is basically if I wake up early and feel like running today, then I'll go. If I sleep in and then wake up and feel like running, then I'll go then.

If I don't feel like going out today, then I won't do it and will put it off til Sunday but therein lies the risk of me not doing it.

It's 5:45am and I'm awake, I can hear Lily downstairs as she's off to Edinburgh today early, fuck it, I'm getting up.

I go down and stick the coffee machine on and put a bagel in the toaster. I hurriedly plan a route which means I'll be back at parkrun start and hit 20 miles, that gives me a 23 mile run. I start running at 6:20am and need to be averaging 8 min mile pace to be at parkrun start for 9am. I do a small loop in Whitley and then head to Cullercoats, for the first time in this mara block I'm heading to the Coast Road.

The first 6 miles are awful, pace is too slow and I feel sluggish and it's cold and I'm not warming up and I'm thinking of calling this off already. My pace is around 8:15 per mile and I'm guessing I'll get slower which means I'll be 10 mins or so late for parkrun.

And then I hit the Coast Road and the old familiar route makes me have a weird sense of relief and the next miles a 7:49 and I knock out the next 4 at a decent pace and before I know it I'm in Jesmond and it's time to turn back. I've got 9 miles to get back to Whitley and it's looking good.

As I turn I realise I've made a bit of an error, the sun is now directly ahead and very bright and due to the cold and the fact it was still dark when I left the house, I didn't take my sunglasses. My eyes are ridiculously sensitive to light and I can't see a thing, I'm staring at the floor and nearly get wiped out by a bike and then a lamppost. I pull a gel from my pocket and stare at the floor as I open it and then salvation! Holy shit, there's a pair of sunglasses on the floor, they look a bit scratched but fuck it, I stop and grab them and stick them on and take my gel.

Now I appreciate this could be seen as theft but I tell myself it's fair enough as my need is greater than the person who lost them.

I cruise through the next few miles and feel great, I smile at everyone I run past and get some odd looks and a couple of smiles. As I get to the Formica factory there's a crossing and I decide this is a good place to take my sunglasses off and leave them on the top of the crossing button for the universe to get them back to their rightful owner or in fact the lady on the other side of the road waiting to cross might grab them.

Not for her obviously.

For her little boy in the pushchair.

I've just ran 7 miles wearing a pair of Paw Patrol sunglasses.

Very small child's Paw Patrol sunglasses.

They didn't fit very well but they had a small dog in a policeman's hat in the corner, I've googled it, he's called Chase.

Turns out this was a good place to dispose of my sunglasses as 300m later I bump into Georgina running the opposite way, imagine how embarrassing it would be if people knew I ran 7 miles wearing child's sunglasses.

I might run back up there on Sunday to get them back.

Anyway, back to the run. I'm heading to Whitley, I'm feeling good and the pace is picking up. I get to Cullercoats Watch House and this is just over a mile to parkrun start, it's 8:52 and I've got 8 minutes, this is perfect. I approach parkrun and they haven't started, I'm not doing up and down the prom again so I head along the main road to Panama gardens and drop down the hill and look across and they've started, I loop round and up the hill and they've all gone and I pass the leaders at the skatepark as I'm heading to the start. I'm the last person to start by a good couple of hundred metres and get heckled by Mark B.

Here we go.

Round the memorial and catch the tail walkers, weave through the back runners and onto the prom and then start going through the pack, it's like the GNR, up the hill and round and back onto the prom and up the hill. It's rammed at this point and it's a thin path, but now it's two paths as we have the new cycle lane, so I go right and follow the cycle lane and cruise along past the masses and rejoin the runners on the rendezvous roof and lap one done.

I'm 22 miles in, pace is good and I feel good. At this point I settle down a bit and get through lap two and then spot Matt up ahead and decide to try and catch him, miss it by a few places but cross the line.

23.21 miles done in 3 hours and 3 minutes.

Walk home having a chat with Quynh, she goes to her home and I go to mine, we don't live together.

Although I'm pretty certain I could hide somewhere in her house and she'd never find me.

Or maybe I already have...

You worried yet Quynh ? 

Spend the afternoon drinking booze in the pub with Mrs J and then home and drink wine. Gets to bedtime and I realise I've only eaten a family sized bag of Frazzles, drank 3 pints of Guinness and a bottle of red.

Really need to sort my shitty diet.

Want to read all about my London adventure in 2023.

It's mostly about Ben, my sausage dog nemesis and wine.

LONDON CALLING