OK, don’t panic. I am running even though I’m not posting here at the moment.

Two reasons why not:

1) I’ve better things to be doing with my holiday time than getting the laptop out.

2) My Forerunner is playing up again, saying that it has no data!

Will update the blog shortly (once I’ve figured out how to fix this watch).

3.1m | 28:20 | 9:09 | 148bpm | VDOT 7.5

It’s been a beautiful weekend - sunshine all the way - but the night’s rain was greatly appreciated by our back garden and two lazy runners (Buffy and I) who didn’t fancy the humidity!

Took it easy and rested again on Saturday and Sunday (apart from dog walking and gardening). Felt much better for it this morning. Touch wood, the injuries seem to have cleared up. I still need to do more stretching, but my legs and hip were pain free.

Kept the pace very slow, particularly as Buffy seemed very tired - she’s not been getting enough exercise with me being out of sorts. Let’s hope that I can now start to return to a proper training schedule and work towards the High Peak 40 on September 20th with a little more consistency.

MotionBased and Google Earth

4m | 32:44 | 8:09 | 170bpm | VDOT 20.8

What a pain! Literally. I hate sciatica. It strikes completely out of the blue and makes walking and running very difficult. The weird thing - at least from my experience - is how much it fluctuates. It’s always far worse in the evening and after any period of rest (particularly lying down), but sometimes I’ll experience searing pain in the middle of a run.

Decided to take a couple of days off to ensure the hip flexor issue had resolved and frankly because it felt too painful to run with the sciatica on Wednesday and Thursday this week. Very tight as we set off today and had a sharp jab just as I turned to cross a road after a short descent. Otherwise, this wasn’t too bad a run (apart from a very high heart rate) on a hot and humid afternoon.

Really looking forward to a return to fitness.

MotionBased and Google Earth

Completely fed up! Really wanted to get out for a midweek long run, but the sciatica has got the better of me. Pretty painful walking back from the office this evening so it looks like a mandatory rest day. Drat!

7.2m | 1:00:41 | 8:28 | 164bpm | VDOT 31.0

I wish I’d run past one tonight so that I could have stopped for refreshment. I couldn’t decide whether to go for seven or eleven miles tonight so I headed out for eleven and came home after seven. I’m not being lazy - I just couldn’t have managed the extra four miles.

And would you look at that heart rate? Two beats per minute faster and I’d have been officially running at tempo pace, yet I’m plodding along at 8:28!! What on earth is happening here? I’ve not felt this out of form for quite some time. I hope it doesn’t last much longer.

MotionBased and Google Earth

4m | 32:39 | 8:05 | 159bpm | VDOT 13.3

Still not found any energy at all. One positive, the hip flexor pain seems to have been replaced with a more generalised “everything hurts” feeling, more synonymous with being out of shape than an injury! Plodded round again today - but if you’d asked me to go any faster, I’d have laughed in your face (or fallen on my own).

MotionBased and Google Earth

7.2m | 1:01:12 | 8:30 | 159bpm | VDOT 25.4

Set off for eleven miles tonight, but cut the run short at seven. Unbelievable! More than one hour and a heart rate of 159bpm for a seven mile easy run! I know I should be focusing on the positive, thinking about the future and trivialising this “bump” in the road, but ouch! Does that performance have to be recorded? Aaagh!

MotionBased and Google Earth

4m | 32:37 | 8:09 | 155bpm | VDOT 12.1

Can’t believe just how much fitness I seem to have lost in just two weeks! Today’s lunch time run was really hard work - even though it should have been a gentle plod. Luckily Lee’s not feeling up to too much in the way of speed, hills etc. I’m just surprised at how hard this feels and how my heart rate is so high. Not sleeping well at the moment though, so that will certainly not be helping. Feel exhausted.

Garmin Forerunner 305 playing up today, so no MotionBased or Google Earth data.

3.1m | 28:03 | 9:15 | 148bpm | VDOT 7.5

Very tight hip flexor muscles - sartorius - on both the left and right legs over the last few days. It seems to have been triggered not by running, but by the absence of running. What I mean is that the muscles started to feel tight around Thursday last week and I didn’t run until Sunday. I’m going to do a few stretches as soon as I finish this post.

Still feeling very guilty about missing the last couple of weeks - particularly when I look at all the blank spaces in my training log. I was making such good progress and now I’ve got to regain quite a lot of fitness. Learning lessons the hard way is something for which I seem to have a real knack. How many times over the years have I reminded myself not to miss training!

MotionBased and Google Earth

6.65m | 54:33 | 8:13 | 165bpm | VDOT 29.7

It’s taken me more than a week to “recover” from the holiday.

Florida was wonderful. I enjoyed the theme parks much more than I thought but, owing to a fairly grotty looking pool, we chose to stay away from the villa and visit Disney, Sea World, Wet ‘n’ Wild, etc every day. Needless to say, I arrived back in the UK feeling in need of a holiday. Cliche, I know. But it’s true.

Haven’t found the energy to get out for a run all week. I seem to have spent the entire time yawning. Today was the first run since 3rd July and that’s the longest break I’ve had for a very long time. Truth be told, I feel very guilty about it and the impact is clear on my form - 165bpm at this pace is too high and my legs feel very tight and tired.

Having hit every week’s target in the first extended block of training - completing more than 800 miles in 13 weeks, the start of Block 2 has been pretty disastrous.

Anyway, I have to put that behind me now and knuckle down to some intensive training. Today was a gentle start to what will be a pretty heavy week. I need to hit eighty miles this week and with a seven miler today, that leaves a fair bit to do over the next six days!

MotionBased and Google Earth