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York - Week 1

Yorkshire, home of the puddings...
Week One

This week in numbers ...

Miles ran : 43.9
Wine drunk : 4 large glasses of Merlot
Beer drunk : 1 pint
Currys eaten : 3
Chocolate eaten : 1 Yorkie
Mentions of Ben : 1 (just this one)

Monday 1st July

In the words of Mark Morrison, it's the return of the blog (there it is), return of the blog (come on), return of the blog (oh my god), you knew that I'd be back (here I am), return of the blog (once again), return of the blog (top of the world), return of the blog (watch my flow), you knew that I'd be back (here I go).

So as before, Monday is rest day so will always be a bit of a boring entry so instead an intro to the blog.

I was supposed to do Manchester back in April but an injury caused by being lazy back in October meant I was out for nearly 4 months and sadly Manchester had to be shelved, so plan B was York in October and this is where we are now. I'm fit(ish) and starting mara training with a mix of looking forward to being super fit again and a slight concern of training through the summer as I'm a big, sweaty old f**ker and long runs in heat are concerning me just a little.

I'm also on a diet. I was on an all inclusive holiday back in October when I got injured and then had Christmas and I piled on the weight whilst eating my bodyweight in chocolate and cheese every day and drinking wine for breakfast. So for the past 3 weeks I've been counting the calories, cutting back on the booze and basically living on a diet of mushrooms, salad and raspberries. I've lost about 10lb and moved from the Large poly vest back to the medium poly vest.

The small poly vest is still in hiding.

Tuesday 2nd July

Run number 1 of week 1 of the mara plan and the session was track and a load of 500's with reducing recoveries.

So obviously I ignored that and did a race instead.

It was the Bridges 5 miler today, a race that in the past I've loved and the scene of a couple of my finest running moments, both involving Ricky and our long standing rivalry. Anyway I'll skip over that as Ricky kicks my arse in every race and has done for about 5 years so the rivalry is pretty much dead these days until I lose another stone and fall back in love with racing.

Arrive at the pub to collect my number, the sun is shining, people are drinking, I want a beer, young Mark doesn't help by trying to encourage me to have a beer, I really want a beer, can I have a beer before the race, would it really matter, what's the worst that could happen.

I don't have a beer, I regret this quite a lot for most of the race.

Find myself up at the front with the Poly lot and the gun goes and we're off. Settle in to the first mile and sitting at around 6:40 mile pace which feels fine, Bain is next to me and Emily on the other side, mile 2 and pace slows a little bit but still fine, start to pull away from Bain and Emily still there. Mile 3 and the usual happens, I can't be arsed, I decide I don't want to hurt and back off massively, I drop 30 secs a mile and settle into an easier pace, Bain comes past me and gets to encourage me to go with him, I can't be bothered so stay on the pace I'm at, I shout some encouragement at my runners going the other way and then mile 3 and mile 4 tick past.

Then I remember I'm supposed to be racing, marshall shouts at me to close the gap on the two runners ahead and so that's exactly what I do and speed up by 30 secs a mile and finish well. Yet another very pointless and mediocre race performance and I really, really need to sort my shit out. Back to the pub, buy a beer and have a laugh with my friends, mostly at Wallis' expense.

Fucking Bilbo.

Wednesday 3rd July

Easy miles on a Wednesday, always the same route along the coast, loop round the fountain in Cullercoats and head home, keep it steady and today I was in a pop mood and listened to a Sugababes playlist. Not my usual musical choice but it was superb and who doesn't love listening to a bit of Mutya? I recently bought some pink trainers and now I'm listening to Sugababes, my wife tells me I'm a bit camp. She might be onto something here.

Wednesday night and I'm not working , the kids are out, the sun is shining (sort of) and me and Mrs J are off for a walk.

Now when me and Mrs J say we're going for a walk, we obviously mean we're going to the pub to drink wine. So off to The Split Chimp for a couple of large glasses of Merlot and watch the Morris Dancers out the front, that's all a bit weird isn't it?

Morris Dancing I mean, not drinking wine. Wine is brilliant. What's with the knee bells and the sticks and the weird brace things they wear, every time one of them came in the pub to go to the toilet you could hear the knee bells jingling away.

I haven't eaten much today, basically yoghurt, mushrooms and raspberries. I ate the same on Monday and Tuesday and pretty much every other day for a couple of weeks. The diet of champions.

Thursday 4th July

Thursday and a return to threshold Thursday.

Session today is 10 x 4 mins at threshold pace with 2 min static recoveries. I like to get this done early but my arse of a boss has booked in loads of appointments today so I can't get out until early afternoon, by that point I'm a bit knackered and the wind has really picked up. Turns out I'm my own boss so apparently it's my own fault.

Easy 20 mins warm up and then decide I want to hide from the wind so head onto the prom for some shelter. So it's basically one 4 min rep into the wind and then one with the wind behind me. I spend half the reps digging deep to try and hit the pace and the other half trying to slow down as the wind pushes me 20-30 secs a mile too fast.

Happy enough with the session and I resist the temptation to go to co-op for tasty food and head home for some mushrooms, this time I also have noodles.

Few hours later and I'm off to the club, few extra miles here with a steady run out with Graham and then Bain tells me that I can't survive on a diet of Raspberries and Mushrooms, he listens to podcasts so that makes him an expert of these things, so I buy a pizza that's over 1000 calories and eat that for tea.

It was a mushroom pizza.

Weigh myself the next morning and for the first time in a very long time I'm back under 12 stone. I message Bain and tell him he might be onto something here but decide to spend the day eating mushrooms and raspberries again.

Don't like to let Bain get ideas above his station so have to keep him grounded, I mean I let him beat me on Tuesday at the Bridges race because I knew he'd cry if I didnt.

Friday 5th July

Friday is easy run and hills day.

I'm tired, I don't want to go out but the sun is shining and the Tories get their asses whooped yesterday and it's too good a day not to go out and run, so I'm off out.

4 easy miles and some hill strides and back home to work, can't remember what I had for lunch but tea was salad, avocado, halloumi and a mushroom or two.

Just remembered what I had for lunch, it was a punnet of raspberries with some honey and a Yorkie.

I haven't fully changed.

Saturday 6th July

I'm down for parkrun pacing today, 23 mins which is a threshold run but I'm tired and regretting putting my name down for 23.

At the front of the pack chatting and we're off, start running and listening to Running by Fat Dog which sends me off at a silly pace and I realise I'm running about a minute a mile too fast so I slow right down at the skatepark and settle into a perfectly paced 23 minute parkrun. Cross the line in 22:54 and then start getting grief from the usual subjects on Strava for starting too fast (fair point here but it was only 150m), being too fast overall (6 seconds is fine, shut up Wallis).

Pop to co-op for a coffee and home, spend the day doing boring weekend jobs and Sat night were off out for a curry for Sam's birthday.

Oh dear.... I've survived on a diet of mushrooms, raspberries and black coffee for weeks now and a curry's gonna kill me. Me, Lily and Poppy get 3 to share and yes one is a mushroom curry, a couple of rices but i resist the urge to order mushroom rice and a few naans. I eat so much food, pretty certain im gonna explode, you dont get this from raspberries and mushrooms.

I need to run 14 miles tomorrow, I haven't run 14 miles for a very long time and it's gonna destroy me.

Sunday 7th July

Today's plan is 14 miles at slow end aerobic pace, so that's around 8:30-8:45 per mile.

Leave the house and head to the dome for a pre run loop to add some mileage, then back up through Monkseaton and onto the usual route which should be roughly 13-14 miles (I hope). Glance at the pace and it seems okay so just run and try and forget I'm doing 14 miles.

It's hot, I'm sweating a lot, I have nothing to drink and now really questioning my plan to train for a marathon over the summer. Not sure this is going to work for me, winter long runs are so much easier for a big lad.

Coming along from Tynemouth, watch beeps and check it and I'm bang on distance but running a little too fast overall. Finish at the Sandcastles and off to co-op for a drink, no croissant today as if you didn't know, I'm on a diet.

I want a cold drink, one thing I've noticed since calorie counting is that I don't get enough protein, I'm vegetarian so I need to tweak my diet a bit and I'm guessing living on mushrooms maybe isn't the best idea. Yeah, yeah Bain and you're fucking podcasts, whatever.

So I see a cold iced coffee protein drink and grab that, start walking home open the coffee and planning to neck it down in one.

Turns out it wasn't a nice easy to drink coffee, it a ridiculously thick salted caramel milkshake. I'm mid gulp when I realise this and do a choke cough type thing and spit thick brown liquid down my t shirt.

I'm hot, I'm sweaty and I'm covered in suspect brown liquid, this is much more Saturday night behaviour than Sunday morning.

Anyway, week one of mara training is done.