The club run on Wednesday night was my first significant run (even if it was only 8 miles) since the Lakes which means that I’ve spent two months off running, give or take. Gym visits and a mix of strength and circuit work have kept me ticking over though even if I haven’t been working to a plan and the visits have been merely to assuage any guilt I’m feeling about not running – up until I remind myself that I still feel ITB related pain in my hip, knee and foot.

Like thousands of others, I received a rejection letter yesterday that informed me that I hadn’t got a place in the London Marathon through the public ballot. I have mixed feelings about this but find myself in the position of having to decide whether to go for one of the places that my club invariably has. I think I should – while there are plenty of marathons to do, both on road and off, the London Marathon is a bucket-list race and could be quite an experience. The reasons I’m not sure I want to do it are a) it’s a road race and b) there are 36000+ other competitors.

If I don’t do the VLM, I have to decide what else I do want to do. That’s very much up in the air because, aside from revisiting the Ridgeway Run, I wasn’t planning to do any ultras and stick to shorter distances. Potentially much shorter distances… remember that pie-in-the-sky thinking about doing the British Masters Track and Field champs? Yeah, well… that. But people keep talking about events and I keep thinking “Hey, yeah, that sounds good!” (The latest is the Norman Conquest 100 in May and my wife suggested a 100 mile ultra in Brittany – the Raid Golfe du Morbihan – which would mean relearning my extremely rusty spoken French. That would be a sacrifice I could live with I suppose.

But that’s next year. This year isn’t over yet – I have my PT course that I need to concentrate on and get done and Cross Country season officially starts on the 20th October. Holiday’s over and it’s back to the grindstone. How’s everyone else doing?