Run, gym, run, gym, run – steady as she goes

Badbury Clump at its spring-time best. I guess I’ll be seeing quite a bit of this in 2020

A horrible wet and windy Saturday gave way to a chilly but otherwise pleasant Sunday morning so we ran early – 6.1km (3.8 miles). Not a run for pushing hard, but for enjoying being outside.

I want to do more cycling but now the biggest problem with that is the cold – the extra speed increases the windchill significantly (for this particular wimp) so, unless there are particularly good days, it looks like it’s mostly the turbo from here on.

Later on Sunday our younger son (who ran the Rotterdam Marathon with me in April) came home for a few days, using up holiday that needed to be taken before Christmas. Great to have him back, despite my demotion to second fastest runner in the house, and the fact that this means more eating this week as my wife will go into cooking overdrive. my willpower fails completely when food is actually on the table, asking to be eaten.

Gym on Monday morning – a bit rushed as we had guests for lunch.

My wife decided to do some hill reps on Tuesday morning – I’m avoiding those to protect the ATs but ran with her out of the village and did some laps of Badbury Clump – the site of an iron age hill fort (probably before 500BC) – while she did her hills.

Not exactly radical trail running for me but it was largely off road and my trail shoes did get an outing. About 3.5 miles (5.6km). I also learnt the valuable lesson that nettles can sting through the thicker, more padded, knee area of my running tights.

That was followed by a few more hours of wood cutting and bonfire-tending with my son. That’s all the smaller cuttings from the beech trees dispatched, now just a great pile of bigger branches to be logged.

I ducked out of the planned turbo session on Wednesday, having agreed to both a visit to the gym with my usual gym companion, and a run with my son on Thursday.

As it was, 50 minutes in the gym and a 4.2 mile gentle run 90 minutes later were both really enjoyable on Thursday. It was pretty chilly again but the weather was clear and bright – a great day for a run, and the legs felt good, despite the weights session.

Three runs in the week for a total of just over 18km (about 11 miles) together with two gym visits. That feels broadly about right to keep it ticking over for now – I’m not training for anything imminent, but need to keep fit through the winter in order to be able to pick up the training early next year for the April sportive and the July ultra marathon.