Tandem Triathlon 2014 - 20th Marathon and half way through this challenge !!

And so it was that I completed my 20th Marathon today. It was fitting that I completed this at one of my favourite races of all time. The Tandem Triathlon, or to be correct The Bishops Castle Tandem Triathlon. This is a seriously class event and one that I have attended almost every year since 2003. The event is done with a partner and one of you swims, you both bike on a tandem and then the other runs. I have generally done this with a mate or the wife and have usually ended up doing the run section. I therefore feel I know the run route well. Its 10 1/2k of running in Colstey Wood with the turnaround point at the summit in the middle of the Bury Ditches Hill Fort. It was with trepidation that I mentioned to one of the champions of the BCTT, Adrian, last year that I would be keen to do 4 laps at the end of the bike to complete one of my Marathons for this challenge. He listened intently to my request at the prize giving event in 2013, then promptly turned and made an announcement about the challenge to everyone present! Ah, no backing out now. This was never going to be an easy run on its own, let alone having been on the bike for an hour. It sounds distinctly veering towards one of those stupid long distance triathlon type races and even back in the day I was never any good with anything lasting beyond a couple of hours. Hmm. Then with the prospect of missing out on lunch as well, I was seriously out of my comfort zone.

So about 10 days before the event today I realised that I hadn't been on a racer for about 2 years so decided to nip out on a couple of evenings on a short route about Abney to stretch the legs, remember how to change gears and brake and generally get the body used to a cycle position. Bloody hell its hurts your ass. I had forgotten all about that.

Right prep done it was time to nail it off to Petes after work, stay at his and then head down early in the morning for the start of the race. We got there in good time having driven through some heavy rain showers but arriving in sunshine and after registering headed up to the woods to set up camp, drop off running and support gear, and let the marshalls know what was planned. We then headed down to the start to get ready and pack Pete off to start the swim. Now it is pretty standard to turn up to the Tandem Tri with your tandem in all number of pieces, as it may well have not been ridden since last year and you do have the entire swim to get it back into a vaguely rideable condition prior to the off proper.  Amazingly this year, all I had to do was take the wheels off and put on the rotors on, oil both chains, change the seat heights and adjust the gears, having done most of the major tinkering earlier on in the week! Unfortunately whilst I was doing this, Pete, a BCTT novice, was being directed all over the place whilst he was trying to find the swimming pool entrance. The icing on the cake was, at the eventual entrance to the pool, he was met by a lady that told him to go all the way round to a different entrance in the sports hall and walk through it all the way back to about 2 meters away from where he had been only to meet the same lady again who then explained to him that 'those were the rules' and then let him onto pool side. The net effect was that he ended up starting late and didn't get a chance to have a pre race wee. Well, it wasn't really going to be a race for us anyway this year!

 Pete was under explicit instructions to not let me race on the bike so that I could focus on the run later on. So I generally chatted around the bike course whilst intermittently yelling at him to give it beans over the top of each small rise. OK so we weren't racing, but there was no way we were going to be embarrassing ourselves either! Thanks to Pete the Power House, my saddle kept on being twisted by the copious Wattage laid down through his handlebars and finished the cycle ride with a large degree of back pain. Still I saved my legs and had a relatively easy cycle up the last hill as Pete buried himself and did himself proud to deliver me to the start of the run. I learnt a whole load of new words from Pete the Power House during the descent from the top of Colstey Bank down into and through Clun where we had to take some evasive action to a suddenly stationary car and deviated our route through a garage forecourt!

Now as I had discovered recently the art of Marathon running to consistent pacing, acceptance, breathing and mental gymnastics. I had therefore decided that I would look to average just under the hour for each of the 4 laps of the run course. So on the first to laps I would run steady but get a few minutes in hand for the tougher laps later on. My first lap was about a 56 mins followed up by a 55 mins. My legs were starting to feel shot and as this was likely to be the case Pete had stepped up to run lap three with me. Apart from the inane chatter, he pushed me to break up the sections and keep running at all the right bits to allow me to go on to complete the marathon including all the water stops and clothes changes in 3 hours 59 minutes and 20 seconds. Really really pleased to get under 4 hours on this course in a tired state and having biked for a hilly hour or so. All we then had to do was complete the cycle back down Colstey Bank and then the 5k back to the start.

I think Pete was quite concerned that I was going to struggle to control the bike on this high speed descent, with good reason as we hit 83.9 km/h completing the first kilometer in 54 seconds! However I don't think we wobbled too much, well not that I noticed anyway! Pete pretty much pedalled all the way back on his own and helped to spin some life back into my legs by the finish line. Our final finish time bringing us out unsurprisingly in last place. No-one else was quite stupid enough to tackle 4 laps of this course. When I work back the results taking into account my recorded run split for the first lap, knocking off the delayed start and my long change out of my cycling stuff and into my running stuff we finished in a very respectable 15th place! Brilliant. Pete the Power House, I salute you Sir, many many many thanks for helping me complete this marathon. It is always an honour and I completely understand that following 3 assists that you are now bowing out of future daft challenges in this context, although I remain pretty confident I can pencil you into something interesting 'a lot' later in the year!?!

So now 20 Marathons have been completed in 16 weeks. It has taken a good couple of hours to sink in and now I am really pleased to have remained fairly injury free and illness free to complete things thus far. Wow. I look back and it has been a long time since the 8th of March with ups and downs, mostly mental. Some of which have cocked up the day or the weekend for my family and obvious thanks and patients going out my wife for her continued unwavering support. There have also been many many highs as well and great experiences when out on my local hills getting cheered on by my boys. It is now simply a case of counting them down until hopefully completing this challenge on November the 1st.

Stanage Edge. Hot Dry Dusty conditions for Technical Running and Transcendence

The 19th Marathon of this 40 marathon (Hopefully 41) Challenge was completed close to home. In fact in my back yard up on Stanage. Everyone who has ever walked along the edge, let alone run along the Edge knows it's tough. There are twists and turns, up and down, rock steps, peat sections, loose gravel, loose rock. This run has everything.. Well almost I had planned to do this run a few weeks ago when the birth of our daughter put pay to running over the weekend. Instead this rescheduled date took place at the end of a 10 day dry spell where most of the puddles, mud and peat had dried out. It was therefore, with a little jumping, bone dry. If you've never been to Stanage Edge, it is worth visit for a number of reasons. It is one of the most famous natural gritstone edges in the country and has featured in many films. Quite simply breath taking to look at, walk or run along and most importantly to climb on. Prior to living underneath it and looking out upon it everyday, I used to spend many, many weekends driving up to stay and climb here. In love with the eternal width of wall to stretch out and tackle on many fine days. Just the smell of the grit on a sunny day or clink/clank of climbing equipment continues to take me back to those happy long days of cramming in as many routes as possible before the midges come down and forcing us to the pub.

So on a good hot day, setting out at the warmest part of the day, I decided to take on running back and forth along the Edge until I had completed a marathon. With a little route planning and a few recces I was able to come up with an interesting route that brought in all of the interesting quirks of Stanage and would mean completing 3 out and backs along it, or completing it 6 times.

 Check back for more details....

Baslow Boot Bash 2014, not quite what was meant to be.

So it was a funny day today. The long and short of it was that I had naive expectations for this run and actually became entirely broken and deflated by the end and for the rest of the day. What a funny game this marathoning is. As soon as I think I have it worked out and I feel I understand my body I find the complete opposite to be true. If every run was like today then I would give the shoes a wash down and stick them on 'the bay'. But they're not, I've had some amazing runs and experiences along the way that more than balance out the poorer performance. Its hard not to question why this and why that and overanalyze things in pursuit of trying to work things out.

This process can be amazingly constructive and has definitely lead to improvements in performance but can also be detrimental. One such occasion was today when comfortably in the lead at 30k it started to get tough, really tough. Questions start, thoughts start and performance drops and by 35k I had been caught. The nail in the coffin of a long process that had started probably earlier in the week. I walked from there. It was a long walk and actually despite walking I actually took a shortcut to the finish and came up 3k short.

In the 2013 race I had an amazing race, new to long distance running and only 6 weeks into training I rocked up and won by 29 minutes finishing just 8 minutes outside the quickest time on the course. Now I know that might sound impressive but this is not your commonal garden race and the emphasis is on the completion rather than the competition. It also doesn't attract the whippets and that is what is charming about it. It's a low key good value, quality walk/run that uses trails that are straight out of the top drawer of the White Peak. In fact this is typical White Peak country apart from the busyness of some of the more touristy sections. I remain privileged to be able to attend such events as a 'fast walker' and so we 'fast walkers' all need to ensure that we remain relaxed and respectful of these events for the future. There are voices within the LDWA that are calling for runners to not be allowed to take part and I, as a member of the LDWA, think that this would be ashame. I feel that a balance can always be struck. More conversation on this subject is obviously beyond this piece but may feature in another posting. Back to the day.

So last year I had done alright, but this year I was stronger with better endurance. Last year I was rested in the lead up and was hungry, whereas this year I had done 2 marathons in the heat last weekend, had broken sleep with the new edition, got frustrated with a broken washing machine all week and spent the entire day before cleaning and then oiling the decking. None of that was relevant though the race was one. That course record was there for the taking as I knew the route and the ground was fairly dry. It wasn't an entirely serious thought but it was one that lingered. Seems a bit daft writing it down really. What do they say: 'You can take the idiot out of the competition, but you can't take the competition out of the idiot'.

I couldn't decide on shoes for the route either as I knew some bits were going to be hard metalled tracks, some steep loose descents and some grassy field crossing. I opted for the grippy road shoes and used the current favourite the Nike Icarus although I think I would have preferred the NB101's today. So after registration I went over to check the route and met a lovely lady called Wona. We chatted about previous runs and the small route changes shown on the map and then headed of to the start. She was quite keen to show off her Hoka's along the way, they had already been spotted! One word: Marmite. I had forgotten my camera so a start photo was taken, we parted company and I headed off to the start line and arrived just as the starter said 30 seconds to go. Nothing like cutting it fine, so a quick strip of my under T shirt as it was warming up and press find on the GPS and we were off! Oops, I'll just finish packing whilst I'm running. After about 20 yards the watch found the satellites and we were off.

The start was quick, a little too quick and before long there was a string of 5 people in front that were mostly out of sight before we had even left Chatsworth Park. I settled into a nice steady pace and on catching the 5th placed chap I chatted and ran with him to CP1. I then pulled away from him and gained on the 3 ahead that were starting to intermittently run together. Last year on going over a little narrow bridge crossing the River Wye by Haddon Hall I clowted my knee on one of the metal posts so keen not to repeat the process I tiptoed gingerly across this year. Then starts the long climb up to CP2 in Over Haddon and Sheldon beyond. Following the pre-race instructions I avoided Deep Dale and headed North and straight down to White Stones and Monsal Dale, following the river until hopping up onto the Monsal Trail. By this point I had opened up a decent gap on the other 3 which I held through the next 2 CP's. Dropping into Foolow and over the next few k's I started to really struggle and then climbing the big hill out Eyam I found I had no energy. Descending past the big bull to cross the B6001 just hurt and by the CP at Froggatt Bridge I had been caught by the next runner. That was that, my run was over and all I could do was walk back, and on getting back to the A623 I took a sneaky bee line for the finish directly in Baslow and retired myself from the event. I was on for completing it in about 4:10, some 22 minutes slower than last year, when I stopped running.

On sitting round the table at the finish with the first 3 runners to complete the course, I was disheartened about not finishing and whether I should have just kept running. The fact is I tried, maybe not hard enough, but I tried and I have to stand by the decision I made at that time. After all I don't want to end up in the Northern General! Its been a long last 2 weeks and reflecting on it whilst writing this I have concluded that thats good enough for me. Time to move on and focus on the next challenge.

I should be doing one of the Dig Deep Races this weekend, but they're a bit overpriced so will come up with another plan, possible something with the Solstice in mind. Good luck to Wona who is racing the 30 milers and I look forward to catching up with you at many of the same races later on this year. The following weekend we're off to Bishops Castle for the Tandem Triathlon and racing with Pete, should be a good bit of fun although I am daunted by the prospect of running a very hilly offroad marathon after being on a Tandem for a hilly cycle. Time to find my cycling stuff.

This 40 Marathon Challenge will hopefully soon become a 41 Marathon Challenge

Applying for a Good For Age time for the London Marathon appears to be somewhat of an uncertainty and given the fact that I couldn't run this year I won't quite believe it until I am holding the 'accepted' email in my sweaty mit. But the application is done so now all I have to do is sit back and wait 15 days for the good news to come through. I got the qualifying time at the Stratford Shakespeare Marathon earlier this year having run a 3:04 on a course with some whopping bumps in it so I know there is scope to dip under the 3 hours on the right course with the buzz of a big event.

So if I get in to race the 2015 London Marathon then this will be 20 years after my first ever Marathon. This was the NutraSweet London Marathon of 1995 and I remember it like it was yesterday. Scary to think that the last almost 20 years seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye.

I decided to have a quick search online to see if NutraSweet actually still exists. It does and interestingly when you put 'NutraSweet' into the search engine the choices come up with NutraSweet London Marathon 1995! How Random? Anyway '95 was a baking hot year and a glorious day to be out for a run. I had no idea what I was doing from a training point of view and I seem to remember that my longest run was about 25k in the lead up. But in those days I had youth on my side and really you could rock up to anything and bash it out. Despite this I discovered and hit the wall mainly as a consequence of being overtaken by a tomato! I wasn't actually hallucinating. Obviously a fancy dress tomato. There I was wilting in the sweltering heat and struggling to stay walking and past me trotted a bloody tomato man. He must of been slow roasted inside. Impressive! I eventually finished in 3:57 and proudly stated that I would never run another Marathon again!

So now I have the opportunity to run it again, no longer in the flush of youth but with some knowledge of strength and conditioning, of training principles, physiology and even better my physiology. Ok so the body might not be recovering quite as fast as it did, but then I am also not consuming the amount of alcohol that I did back then and the diet is substantially better than it was when I was a student. The most obvious goal is to go for knocking an hour off, a nice comfy solid 2:57 is appealing on so many levels. Yup, that'll do me, I am certainly running out of opportunities to break 3 hours this year in this challenge. Yes I know I have 22 more opportunities but I've seen the schedule and theres some serious hillage. Lets look at the offroaders, Well one of them has got a claimed over 10,000 ft of ascent in it and 10 hours is considered a good time. Even the roadies are going to be tough. Chesterfield is not the flattest place in the world. IOW marathon only had 2 people dip under the 3 hours. No, I have resigned myself to waiting til next year and doing dedicated focused speed training and all that tapering nonsense and hitting a flat marathon with the buzz of a massive day.

Back to 1995, I have no idea if it was a special year, it was the 15th year and running of the event, but that's hardly an anniversary worth celebrating to any great extent, but one of the other results that came up in the search for 'NutraSweet' and therefore 'NutraSweet London Marathon 1995' was an eBay result for what appears to be a standard finishers medal. View it here. What is that all about? You can guess what I'm thinking... April next year I think I will be listing my 1995 medal together with my 2015 medal and sit back and hopefully add a wad to the myDonate page and bring about a fitting ending to this challenge!

Little Eaton to Elvaston Castle then Ran the RAMathon.

  After the heat of Friday and the recovery afterwards to writing the blog I was enjoying and finding the sunshine tough to run in. I was also excited about the prospect of another sunny run today. That is until I saw the weather forecast for Today and experienced the rain of yesterday. Heavy Rain and thundery showers.. Had I spoken too soon?

I woke early this morning to stunning sunshine again and drove down to Little Eaton sure that it was going to be one of those beautifully clear mornings until breakfast and then lash it down for the rest of the day. On arrival in Little Eaton and following a quick review of B & K house I was told that the sunshine was now forecast to stay until 12 o'clock but to pack a 'cagoule' for later. Anyway it was now time to leave so I will let Ben continue from here:

Early start today, well it was meant to be. Damo finally stopped talking and we left the house 15 minutes late to make our way to the start of the Derby RAMathon. By coincidence the distance from my house to the start was almost exactly a half marathon. So we set off with Damo running, and me cycling next to him, as my RAMathon warm up. I was slightly out of breath on my cycle. Damo was able to talk at me the whole way.

Despite the cloudy forecast the sun was shining and it got hot. Very hot. I kept passing Damo his salt tablets (at least that’s what he tells me they are) to keep him fuelled up. (Ben, you have very shapely calves in this pic, is this your pre-race warm up?)

We arrived at the start a couple of km short, so Damo ran off to do a few extra laps of the castle, while I met everyone else and slapped on the sun cream.

Damo had promised to run with me, or at least if not me, then Katie. But he shot off…..I heard him mumble something about “slashtag: losers”. And that was the last I saw of him, until 2 hours later when he was waiting to cheer me into the final straight jumping and cheering looking disgustingly fresh. He then made me walk an extra 1 mile up a hill from the finish to the castle for his free t-shirt.

We sat down for a post race carvery where Damo then liberally added some more “salt” to his meal.

All in all a lovely day. A great challenge and a great cause. Maybe I’ll join him for another one later in the year. Ben

Thank you Ben, as always you did a sterling job on the bike and it was a pleasure having you for company. Shame the river path was so soggy as it would have been great to run in it instead. Mind you the run into Derby wasn't too bad given the lack of traffic early on a Sunday Morning. Here are a few more memories from the day.

I don't think I have ever been to a race where there has been so many tuby grips, neoprene bandages and K-Tape on display. It appears to becoming a form of expression within the running community. I feel a Systematic Review coming on...

Ben today stopped to help a lady who had blacked out and was fitting at the side of the road when all other runners in front of him had carried on running past! WTF!! Ben I salute you and this needs a special mention. This is the second race where he has done so. If only other runners acted in such a way !!

The RAMathon was brilliant fun today, always good to be running with familiar faces but also in a race that is superbly organised from a brilliant location with ample parking, through to enough water and electrolyte drinks all at a sensible price. Oh and one with a massive medal!! I might take it off in the morning...

Official RAMathon 1/2 result was 1:46:36 after a steady start as I had stiffened up slightly at the halfway point. I also bumped into my old, or rather ex, tutor Ros at about 26k and ran and chatted to her for about 4k. This helped to get through the toughest part of a marathon and a particularly hot section of the route. Thank you Ros and well done for your run in that heat.

This brought me out with a total time of 3:23 for the day. Happy with that considering I could barely walk down the stairs this morning!

DT Finally joins the Twit revolution !

Spurred on by my shout out from Linford Christie (Thank you kindly sir) I have realised that the way forward is this thing called twitter. Perhaps you've heard of it. Anyway it turns out its not just something that teenagers do during exams or a celebrity way of dumping your wife, it appears to be the contemporary medium that is propping up civilisation. To think in the old days we used to have those old fashioned face to face conversations with people! Maybe this is something we will all be reminiscing about to our children and grandchildren, via twitting obviously. So what have I learnt in the last 24 hours: Firstly that the I need to stop using the phrase twitting or tw@ing, whilst this makes me feel mildly hilarious it is 'so last decade'. Or should it be 'Slashtag'SoLastDecade. Secondly that it is not 'Slashtag' at all, despite me repeating it in pretty much every sentence since I signed up and maybe the arthritis in my ears is progressing slightly more rapidly than I realised. And if having a Twit account was not exciting enough, via some assistance I even managed to insert a Twit feed on the right hand side. Does it get much better than this?

National Work Out at Work Day - Ashfield Health Village Marathon

Another Marathon another hot dry day! When I look back so far this year I think I have had to wear my waterproof for about 10 minutes so far. Amazing how it seems to come right on a Marathon Day.

So todays challenge was a multiple one. It was part of the National Work Out at Work Day 2014 where physios up and down the land come up with novel ways to include activity into a working day or reinvent old ones. We did the latter and decided that our challenge would be to walk, jog, run or even egg and spoon around our hospital road. A distance of 575 metres. Participants could take part by completing one lap through to more or many many more as they saw fit to do so.

When I mentioned this challenge in a Team Meeting many months ago, it was met with a few raised eyebrows, but the idea lingered on and appeared to grow. Championed on by a few key people. Thanks here definitely go to Maddie.

I had the opportunity of during a few practice runs on the lap, in the early evening after work, when mentally drained and itching to get home. Helped on by Malik. We found each time it was really tough to get into the route, not helped by generally wet weather and my GPS going bananas with reflecting the signal off the proximity of the building. So one night we decided to measure the lap to get a true picture of how far we were going and therefore how many laps we would need to complete. This came out to be 575 meters which equated to approximately 73.5 laps.

I had discussed how amazing it would be if we managed to complete 150 laps between us or over 2 marathons (approx 52 miles or 85 km in new money). This raised eyebrows further and had people shifting awkwardly in their seats. But the challenge appeared to be on.

So a late start for me as I was on paternity leave and an easy warm sunny drive into the hospital. As I drove round to park, I had a massive heart sink moment. Despite numerous posters up warning of the challenge and all-users emails noting the disruption to parking, the top carpark and carpark the run was due to go up into was full of cars! Argh. I hadn't brought the tape measure in so couldnt remeasure and also couldn't rely on the GPS. This is where James stepped in. Well more than stepped in, the boy was legendary with getting cones marking out the route and not only the cars shifted but in consistently keeping the route free, despite one or two somewhat stubborn drivers! A sterling job! This unfortunately delayed the start by 15 minutes.

So with the weather hotting up and the coconut suntan lotion reminding everyone of slightly more tropical places, Becky and I started with her staying out on the course for the first 10k. We had designed a big board with all sorts of info on it to help focus the mind whilst running round and round and round and round etc... This was great and was well manned and kept accurate all the way through. Today was going to be a mental game and so this board and the splits that were read out became my constant companion. Thank you girls for this amazing and probably quite dull job.

Due to the short laps and flat route it was fairly easy to set myself a pace and stick to it consistently, well that is until a spot of chaffage set in. First place to set in was the nipples. In the excitement of car parking prior to the start I had forgotten to tape them. James and his magic zinc oxide tape to the rescue, although I drew the line at his keenness to apply it for me. Second up was the shorts on my legs due to the heat, sweat, previous chaffage, so a detour was taken for some liberally applied Vaseline, no volunteers for this job! Slightly more content it was time to crack on. By now the heat had really been turned up and for some laps there was no wind at all making it tough going and meaning I had to start stopping and dowsing myself in water.

As the laps ticked by I found myself spurred on by the familiar people that had come out to support with a lap or two and also the unfamiliar people who joined us out in the sunshine. Tremendous! And also the pennies that had been raised in the collection buckets by the front entrance and the top carpark. Everyone who works at AHV appreciates the economic challenges that are faced by the surrounding population so I am always humbled by people's generosity here. Amazing. Thank you very much to the wonderful people of Ashfield that on the spur of the moment completed a few laps or chucked in a few quid!!

Back to the run and I had a few wobbles towards the end and found myself stopping and dowsing every 4 laps and each time a little voice reminded me that pain is just in the head, then suddenly it was less than 10 laps to go and within spitting distance. Soon 5 laps to go and looking back on it I was just about to type that it suddenly all became easy! How can memories be contorted so quickly? The last 5 laps were pretty miserable if truth be told, but luckily I had company and going into the last lap I was joined by 3 with a rapidly dropping pace, bordering on a hammie cramping. As we neared the finish line 3 swelled suddenly to a group and job done !!

16 Marathons completed in 13 weeks and number 17 is scheduled for 2 days time. Many, many, many thanks to everyone who helped this event happen, from Maddie for getting the relevant permissions and doing the PR work through to George, Lynn and James for manning carpark 2 not forgetting the crew out front of house doing drinks, splits and counting laps whilst also directing traffic, educating and gently persuading people to take part and of course lastly to Malik and Becky my lap buddies, always there at just the right time. I quite simply could not have done it without you all.

So the final tallies? We aimed for 85km however we smashed it and as a total completed in excess of 170km !! We've done 'step ups' before and indoor cycling and have come up against fierce resistance to 'exercise' but today we hit on something special, something easy and something everybody can relate to and do. It is accessible and it is cheap. We also made sure that all the promotional documents talked of activity rather than exercise which is perceived by some to be exclusive. Sometimes the simple solutions are best and as a consequence we doubled our target. I think this says it all!

Total Time: 3 hrs 27 mins 12 secs. Run Time: 3 hrs 11 mins 25 secs.
Shoe Choice: Nike Icarus - Stealth. Quite simply a stunning shoe!
Stats. Distance: 42.5 km  Elevation: 0.15 km  Total Dist: 687.5 km  Total Elevation: 11.33 km
km/marathon: 43.0 km

Weekend off this weekend.

After last weekends confidence knocker and with the dismal weather over this week, I have been looking for any excuse not to be running one this weekend.

I got up early on Saturday morning and got my breakfast ready, ate it and got changed to go out for a local marathon and luckily an excuse came along. A had started having niggles over night and had been up most of it. Well, I can't go out if things were moving on!  Get in!

Things then went quiet, dammit, maybe I will have to go out.. Ok so I need to man up and go tomorrow. Right I am going to go tomorrow.

Boys to bed and started planning a different route. A says things were starting to happen again... Ok so maybe we should go into Chesterfield just to be assessed...

4:30am Job done and the arrival of a beautiful baby girl means that I have the perfect excuse not to go out running this weekend! My wife did perfectly as usual with impeccable timing.

A nice week with the family to get things into perspective and help the new arrival settle in, then we will be back on it from Friday with 'The Ashfield Health Village Marathon'. Followed up by Little Eaton to Derby(including The Derby Half Marathon) on Sunday...

Hopefully some recovered legs and mojo back in place.

Bring it on.

I'm off to be a dad ! She's already got me wrapped round her little finger !!