Oh dear .... I have just had a week off the trail, diet and gym! Not what I need so close to the 30miler trail next week. Sadly, I guess after a couple of months of hard focus - there had to be a time where life stands in the way. Hey ho, so after a couple of painful 8 mile trots in the very muddy hills over the weekend ..... I am back on it ... Luckily

Double dose needed! started with Peter and the wolf and the snowman followed by The Messiah - all three very different but great in their own right.

I always get so much from taking time out and head to the live concerts/ performances .... feeling the music is great and is always grounding.....

Sun set to sun rise 😄

 Well this is where it started (and ended) ... Moments before the shout to go ... For some (and especially the organisers) there was a very long night ahead. This race was called sun set to sun rise .... and the aim was to see how many miles you could run, in the dark, on a trail.
All I wanted was to run a marathon, taking that it was only a couple of weeks ago that I ran a half marathon and before that a 10km - anymore miles in one go was unrealistic and quite frankly 26.2 miles was a very daunting thought.

So, in great Ems preparation - I literaly skidded to the start line, had a kit explosion just before the start (much to the amusement of one on-looker) looking for the tunes and hat that had to be shown before starting off. There was one of those 'put the hair band in the mouth and then empty the bag looking for it' moments that I am unlikely to declare and don't let me start on my facial expression when we were casually told that 'of course people who wanted to do the marathon distance would of course have to do 28 miles and not the 26.2miles!!' Ahhh well in for a penny in for a pound and all that .... and quite frankly it would have been great just to do more than the half marathon a couple of weeks ago... especially as I was tuneless .... and I need my tunes at the best of times but more so in the dark with no views for 28miles!

Ok, so doom out the way, the last Ray of light disappearing... I was going to take the 28 miles. The first 13 miles were great and the sub 10 pace was there most definitely.... I was in a good place. Post 15 I was feeling it, blisters were forming and the rucksack rubbing was nicely wearing down the skin on the neck and base of back.

But I got there.....with a huge grin on my face ..... Time 5 hours 39 min.... And I coud have gone on...... Not bad for week 8 of training.
No injury, feeling strong and even without my comfort blanket of tunes (and Vaseline) .... I got to the end.

Next 30miler mountain trail in 2 weeks..... I can't wait!

Back to Brothers boot camp - great to be back and good to see the progress being made between camps.

The measure is the timed minute mile at the start .... And I actually got under the 8 min mile (7.55) - so that was good to see. Target is to get 7.40 by December so I need to do a lot more running.