Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Ready For Another Run – Almost

by Russell Turner - 19:21 on 26 March 2018

One day after my 15-mile epic and the legs have just about recovered. The biggest ache comes from a slight groin strain collected when getting out of the post run shower. Typical. With luck I’ll be fully recovered by tomorrow’s short run, although another weather-related postponement is on the cards. The Met Office can’t make up its mind what the morning will be like.

Recovered or not, I didn’t have the energy to drag myself into Inverness today to examine the nutritional choices offered by Run4It. Wednesday may now be the day.

Gels or lack of them might not be a running problem; Matchgirl believes lack of water may be what’s sapping my strength. I’ll give her Camelbak a go tomorrow (it’s like a water-filled backback with a tube to suck at) but the next long run plan involves a change of route to three five-mile loops incorporating the road outside The Rural Retreat where I can site a water station – handy for a quick swig and to refill the wrist bottle.

Another change of plan involves my final long run, at the end of next week, which the marathon plan would have me running for 3.5hrs and up to 20 miles. This has now been reduced to three hours and maybe 17 miles.

Yesterday’s half marathon. Don’t forget the two miles walked as well.

Cowardice on my part isn’t involved. The running experts say anything over three hours is wasted on a beginner, Matchgirl tells me, and several of the Cats Protection Marathon Facebook Group (it’s a closed one, so don’t bother looking for it) have successfully run marathons after a maximum 16-17-mile long run in training.

“Under-trained is better than over-trained,” I keep being told. I’ll go along with that, although I’d like to know how different things would feel if I’d not had my injury break.

Add your comment

Your Name


Your Email (only if you are happy to have it on the site)


Your Comment - no HTML or weblinks


Enter this number in the box below and click Send - why?Unfortunately we have to do this to prevent the system being swamped by automated spam