Saturdays usually begin quite late in the morning, I must confess. Sometimes I don’t get to see the morning at all, aside from the very start of it, which is more like the day before, if you catch my drift. Anyway, seeing as I didn’t go out last night (Cambridge tonight, instead) I was quite fresh, hours earlier than normal, so made the most of the day.

My main objective was to run four miles. I’m starting a proper schedule on Monday that is planned to take me through 540 miles in the 18 weeks remaining. 540!! To be honest, I think it’s a bit too ambitious, particularly with the long weekend run. In two weeks’ time, it has me down for 11 miles, which may be a bit too far, too soon for me. Therefore, I may cull a few miles of each of the long targets to start with. The main thing is a plan of running, and so I’ve got four running days, one cycling and two rest days. (If I find a good way of displaying this schedule here, I will.) If I could run four miles today, then at least I know I had a good chance of handling Week 1 at least!

As it turned out, the run on my treadmill was fantastic. I upped the speed a little with no realisaton of any extra work, and I felt strong the whole way through. Sweat poured off me as I pounded the belt for just over 45 minutes. Not fast, but it was all about the distance and time running that mattered. I did have cramp in my left foot again for most of the run which I just lived with, and my groin reminded me it wasn’t 100%, but apart from that I felt very good. Afterwards, I didn’t even feel like I’d run in the morning, so I reckon I must be improving.

So what do I think about when I’m jogging on my treadmill, going nowhere? Well, I had the TV on but the damn running machine makes so much noise when it gets going I didn’t hear much, so I mainly had just my thoughts for company. I think about running, what I’m going to do later, work, next week, football; anything to stop myself saying “are we there yet?” every few seconds. I also thought about this blog. Then I thought about blogging the fact that I thought about blogging whilst running. Then I thought about blogging the fact that I thought about blogging the fact that I thought about blogging whilst running! Then it went a little crazy, and I had to stop myself before my mind went into a full-on recursive loop.

To sum up, it’s clear that if that happens after just four miles, I’m going to go a little crazy on some of the longer runs!

Update after the Cambridge night out:

I’ve decided that drinking vodka shots and getting back when it is light is maybe not the best part of a marathon schedule! Bad Andy. I promise to be much more disciplined from now on!

Ran for about 15 minutes, just over a mile, on the treadmill.

Condition Before: Calves a bit tight, but felt I could run for maybe 20-30 mins.

Condition After: Got cramp in left foot, which affected left leg, so didn’t push it and stopped. Felt fine cardio-vascular-wise, but didn’t want to damage leg.

Ran whilst watching Germany scrape out a 1-0 v Austria. Don’t think Germany can go much further as they are having problems up front, but you never know with the Germans!