Gloucester 20 mile race

Thursday 5th March
Complete rest.

Friday 6th March
Full body massage with Ali. Interestingly it didn't hurt anywhere near as much as usual, apart from my upper back being a bit tense. Keep doing whatever you're doing, he told me, as it seems to be working. I would say my body's just getting tougher.

Saturday 7th March
Complete rest. Unless you count housework as exercise - instead of going to the gym on Saturday morning I used the time to give the house a bit of a spring clean.

Sunday 8th March
Competed today in the Gloucester 20-mile road race (which starts and finishes in Framton-on-Severn). I did this in 2007 as a warm-up for the London marathon and was using it today for the same reasons. On that occasion it turned out to be an enjoyable run and a confidence booster. Today was much the same.

It took me less than an hour to get to the race which was less than I remember it being. Plus the parking was better organised - in a field where the start line was also, plus we could drop our baggage off and pick it up at the race HQ. The negatives were a poor pre-race briefing with most of us unable to hear what was being said and people being warned for running more than two abreast - if two people are already running two abreast, how else do you get past them?

I started the race well, probably too well. I was doing sub 8-minute miles for the first four, slowed slightly in the fifth, and then the weather came into play. It rained hard, hailed even, and there was a strong wind for large parts of the race.

That notwithstanding, I was still feeling good at 10 miles and passed the 13-mile marker in under 1:50 (not a bad half marathon time for me). There was an incentive to speed up just before that point, as someone just behind me obviously had an awful running style and his trainers were making an awful, grating noise (you know the kind). It was honestly like chinese water torture and in the end I decided to sprint for a while just to get away from it.

It wasn't until after about mile 16 that I really started to suffer, but fortunately I made some friends who kept me going. I'm not sure what was wrong, it felt like a bad stitch but it could have been my body starting to dig into it's fat stores, but without me slowing down to ease the process. I chatted to a bloke who was also training for the London marathon and there was also a bit of competitiveness between myself and a girl who had been neck and neck with me most of the way round. I know it's sexist and typical me, but she was very attractive and I decided early on I wasn't going to let her out of my sight! So I decided to use her as kind of a pace maker.

I had expected to finish in around 3 hours (9-minute miles) so bearing in mind the weather and some discomfort in the last miles I was pretty delighted to finish in 2:48 (2:47:52 if you go by my chip time). A nice touch was chatting to the young lady in question (Siana, I found out) on the walk back to the race HQ to collect my bag and t-shirt. She told me she is training for the Edinburgh marathon and will be doing a lot of the local races in the coming months, so let's hope our paths cross again one day soon.

Monday 9th March
Quite sore today and definitely not up to running with the group, but surprised myself by managing 8.8k (5.5 miles) on the treadmill, albeit at a very steady pace. It was only meant to be 5 miles by the way...

Tuesday 10th March
Not ready for a speed session but managed 10k, a little quicker than yesterday. Gutted to watch England come close to winning the last test and drawing the series v West Indies but to be fair the latter deserved the series victory.

One of my toes is quite swollen and painful and I'm not sure I'll be able to do much running the rest of the week.

Wednesday 11th March
Just RPM tonight. Missed body pump tonight as I was showing someone (potential lodger) round the house. What a pain in the arse this business is at times. I didn't mind picking her up from her hotel (which was on my way anyway) as she didn't know how to get to my house using the bus routes, but I was astounded when she asked me if I could give her a lift into the town centre so she could view another place!!! So I gave her walking directions and made my way to the gym for RPM, which was good as it always is with James.

Thursday 12th March
RPM again. Toe is a little better today, and I managed to cut some of the dead toenail away, but I don't want to aggravate it as I'm hoping I'll have a race number for the Bath half marathon on Sunday. I know I won't get a great time as my body won't have fully recovered from Sunday, but I would like to enjoy it.