I finished Janathon with three miles. It brings me to a total of 81 miles of running in the month. I was delighted to see abradypus and iliketocount crash through the 200 mile barrier, and  am still awestruck by silvermetalfox’s achievement of 502 miles in the month. We’ve had all sorts of weather, warm, cold,…

I took today as leave, not least so I could enjoy a speed session in daylight. It consisted of three one mile legs, with a mile warm-up and cool-down at either end, and quarter of a mile recoveries. I rather like speed training, but the weather has conspired against me so far; last week the…

Up early and out into wind and rain for four and a bit miles. It wasn’t cold, but hard work in the wind and I see from my average speed that though I was on road, I was slow. The evening has just been enlivened by one of those messages that plague anyone who blogs…

Did I mention I won a medal? Here's more proof. I swam this evening, 600 metres, and pushed myself to go faster. It's very easy to slip into a leisurely pace, forgivable in a river on a hot summer's day but not in a pool in January when there's hard Janathoning to be done. By…

Seven miles today, and whenever I have to do seven miles, the fact that it is more or less exactly seven miles from home to the end of the east pier at Newhaven harbour and back impels me to choose that route. It was worth it: high seas, a stiff wind going, but behind me…

Today was going to be difficult. I planned to go to London and it was going to be hard to find time for a run. In fact, the railways were so disrupted both by planned engineering and by an unplanned track-side fire, that I stayed put, which meant I could go swimming. As part of…

Out in the evening for a quick run, two miles by the seaside. I had to be back quickly to meet a fellow Strider to talk about the Juniors page on the website.  During the day at work, I came upon a NICE briefing for local authorities on how to encourage people to walk and…

I shall say nothing more about yesterday and would appreciate it if you would do the same. Today, by contrast, I had a decent four mile run in the evening. It was cold but the ground underfoot seemed safe. The worst thing that happened to me was a wet foot from stepping in a puddle.…

I didn’t run today, or anything else. I could plead the excuse of being stuck on the A27 last night.  Instead I offer you last night’s Night Waves in which Alan Rusbridger and Matthew Taylor discuss running, playing the piano and amateurism. It starts about twenty minutes in. 

I ran four miles this morning and spent five hours this evening in snow on the A27. I have nothing else to say

And I celebrated with a swim, twenty lengths of Seaford Head pool. 

Back to the pool, for another Saturday morning session, with my ever-patient coach. Today’s consisted of, if I can reconstruct it accurately: 150m front crawl 150m back crawl 100m front crawl arm drill (this requires me to put a pull-buoy between my legs, hold a float with one arm and with the other do a…

Up early, pills, inhaler, a drink and off out into the cold. There’s a wind, south-easterly, colder than the north. Going one way along the front I’m into it, in the other direction it’s behind me, I Ignore it. Ice on the rough road to the sea. I avoid the puddles, a car drives through,…

As I pulled on my running tights to go out for a pre-lunch run, being on a day’s leave, one of the cats looked at me suspiciously. Cats can have very conventional ideas about a gender-appropriate wardrobe. ‘What are you looking at?’ I asked. ‘Nobody laughed at Nijinsky’. I was referring to the dancer, of…

I ran three miles, as dictated by the programme, over Seaford Head. The sun had just risen and the light was as clear and bright as Switzerland, exactly the sort of light that must have lit Sweder and El Gordo’s way as they bagged a couple of alps before breakfast during Sweder’s recent sojourn there.…

Now that I’ve started marathon training, I’m keen to preserve the sanctity of rest days, so I shall be doing some non-running activity twice a week. I came home from work this evening and, though every cell in my body longed to sit on the sofa with cat and crossword, out into the cold I…

At 6:17 this morning, with a short run to the sea and back in very slight snow, sixteen weeks of marathon training began. 

No running today, fortunately, instead swimming coaching started again. It’s exactly two years since I started these sessions, and they’d done no end of good. My front crawl has come on, my breaststroke is more efficient. I still have problems with stiff ankles, and butterfly, which requires me to undulate in ways that, frankly, I…