The road to 10 marathons in 10 days...

I was pleased this week to clock a personal best at Congleton parkrun. The official time was 20:28 for the 5 kilometre route beating my previous best of 20:44 set a couple of years back. I went to parkrun with my youngest son, Louis, and I said to him before that I didn't feel particularly up for it. My legs felt tired and Friday night wine and take-away curry aren't really the best preparation!  The time was even more of a surprise given that I haven't been focusing on speed over recent weeks but made me think there is more in the tank and that an overall 5 kilometre personal best (currently 19:43) might not be too far away... I've also been practising fuelling my longer runs and carrying water. In years gone by I've often just headed out without too much thought about nutrition and hydration. I'm now not convinced this was the smartest strategy and so have been eating jelly babies, one per mile, on my longer runs. I've never got on with the running gels bu

This last week didn't start well. I had planned a long run of 19 miles but by mile 10 my thighs started to tighten up and my right one became progressively worse. Everyone who runs knows that aches and pains are par for the course and most of the time it's possible to run through, but this was different. I felt like my right thigh might 'pop' if I carry on. So, I took a detour and limped home having completed only 14 miles. As is so often the case, I have no idea why that happened. However, as many of us do, I immediately and irrationally blamed my running trainers and duly wasted much of the rest of the day watching YouTube reviews of trainers. I have to say that I don't find most of these reviews very helpful at all because choosing a pair of trusted running trainers is such a personal choice. Nevertheless, after a wasted few hours perusing multiple reviews of various brands...I purchased the latest version of the trainers that I've used for years!! Buoyed by