So far, I have managed not to succumb to the space-plague that’s afflicted the rest of the household although it was a difficult to tell on Friday, what with training induced muscular aches, sore throat from being a touch dehydrated and the old over-excited metabolic burn that could be mistaken for a fever.

Yeah, I know – MTFU.

As it’s a (long) bank holiday weekend, I’ve elected to do my long run tomorrow which means two pseudo-rest days with dog (and children) walks making up my exercise and fulfilling my Juneathon commitment. I aten’t going to feel guilty about that. Admittedly, I spiced up this evenings rain-soaked walk with a couple of 200m hill runs (in hiking boots). That was interesting.

Juneathon summary:
Friday 1st – Treadmill (1.1 mile, 10m), Weights
Saturday 2nd – Walk (2 miles), Walk (2.5 miles)
Sunday 3rd – Walk (3.6 miles incl 4x200m hill runs)

Only 8 weeks until the Lakeland 100 and training is, well, happening. In honesty, I’m in a better – read, fitter – position than this time last year and my mileage is up. Of course I’m still working hard to make sure that my training regime is not the sort that anyone in their right mind would ever want to follow, especially in preparing for a 100 mile trail race around the Lake District but, you know, one step at a time.

Out of morbid curiosity, I compared my training mileage between last year and this year.
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I took to the hills this morning for a crack at a route I love in my old stomping ground. It’s a stunningly scenic boundary trail around a local National Trust conservation area that takes in a small section of the Ridgeway and the last time I ran it was in the middle of August last year (a couple of weeks after the UTLD attempt).

The first 9 miles felt great and I kept up an average of about 9 – 9:30 per mile (with sub 9 min splits for miles 1,2,3,5 & 7 and a sub 8 min split for mile 6). Even the hills felt okay, for the most part (aside from a set of steps 3 miles in that I dread and have to walk up – hence the 12 minute split at mile 4.) At one point, I found myself mixing with the tail-enders of a 5k race that was going on. One of the marshalls flagged me down to tell me I was going the wrong way until I pointed out I had no number and was just training. Oh how we laughed!

Everything was going swimmingly – and then my legs fell off.
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I went to running club tonight for about the first time in 3 months (last visit, February 8th, just before the Hardwick X-Stream). After pulling out of the Thames Path 100, I caught the bugs that had been going around and got hit with a triple whammy of ‘flu (proper, 102 degreee, in bed for a week, want-to-die ‘flu), tonsilitis and a mild chest infection. I was hacking stuff up for about 3 or 4 weeks – it wasn’t pretty. I spent a week at the end of March, beginning of April doing nothing other than some short (2-3 mile runs) and walking 4-5 miles (one advantage to owning a dog, I guess.)

I’d like to say I built back up slowly to doing long runs but that would be a lie. I gave it a week, then started on my long runs and interval sessions again. Although I’ve had some busy weekends where I haven’t been able to get out (yeah, yeah – I probably could if I really tried) and it’s all coming back.

Tonights run was fairly flat around some of the local reservoirs (except for a 200ft climb over 0.75 miles at the end). I struggled with the pace but I think that’s mostly because we ran about 8 min miles for the first couple and there was chatting done. That’s never wise. I should be able to manage the pace but not while talking as well. Still, struggling to keep is pushing hard and is better than dawdling along. Or something.

So all in all, 8 miles done in 1h13m, averaging 9m14s per mile (with regroup stops) is a nice way to get back into running with the club – even if I did get asked “are you new?” Just need to make it a regular appointment again – especially with a little under 12 weeks before the UTLD.