last week ... next week

Not posted for a while mainly because it's been a bit hectic here recently.  Keir, home from university until September, invited his girlfriend to stay for a fortnight.  She arrived from Belfast at lunchtime on Tuesday but he didn't tell us she was would be staying until two days before that ...

So Monday was spent shopping, cleaning, organising, baking, washing ... and training.  Since then we've spent quite a lot of time out and about as Rachel has never been to Yorkshire ... and there a lot to see (it's a big place).  On Monday they're going to London for a few days to leave us in peace again for a while.

Tuesday morning's run was unusual because amongst all the hot, dry weather we've had this month along came a thunderstorm.  Which began just as I set out to run 15.1 km.  To say I returned rather wet is a bit of an understatement.

My second tempo run of the year was on Thursday morning - 4 k this time.  The kilometre splits were 4:05, 4:09, 4:15 and 4:24 and the target was somewhere between 4:13 and 4:16.  Need to get the get the pacing more even but I know that will come in time and it's all over the place at the moment because it's been too long since I did any tempo running.

Friday was my first session of hill reps.  The length was 709m and the climb 35m.  Much better than expected but I only did two, a good start though.  Eventually that will increase to a dozen or more.

Today is the start of an 'easy week'.  I like to have every fourth week easier than usual to help with recovery and recharge the mental batteries a bit.  During such a week I do about two thirds of my normal workload and have one long run instead of two (50% longer than usual though).  So, tomorrow I'll be running about 25 km.  I know that's not far but it's my longest training run since 12 August last year when I ran more than 48 km.  Reading again the what I wrote about that makes me a bit sad (see here) that I'm not up to that yet ... to be honest I'm not sure about 25 km.  I'm sure it'll be fine though.

Also in the next few days I have a blood test as part of the new National Health Service free health check program for all 40 - 74 year olds.  Apparently, every five years, everyone of that age in England will be screened for diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease.  It will come as no surprise to learn that I'm not worried at all about this except that I don't like needles.  Overall I think screening is good though.  So long as I'm healthy !!!