Tuesday’s training (a painful mix of limping, walking and shame) gave way on Wednesday to a rest day when my legs actually felt much better. The solid, crampy quads had gone and I felt positive that, even though the actual run had been awful, the recovery seemed to be working. And so onwards and upwards and onto Thursday and day two of the plan.

Day two consisted of Strides, or sprints, 5-6 times (I did 6) and so again I decided not to run the 10K home and instead to take the tube, come home, change, stretch and then head out. The plan was to run/walk/jog to the Primrose track, do my sprints, then loop around the outer circle of Regents Park and then home to make up the 10K. This, would prove to be backwards.

I say this because I was of the opinion the two K of run/walk to get there would have sufficed to warm me up but alas no. When I got to the rather busy track I stretched more but a day full of food and liquid and latent tiredness added up. I was supposed to accelerate to 10K pace and hold it for 100M, I did that in spades, in fact I was running 200M at 10K pace and better then walking the remaining, always starting my strides at the start line. I could have gone much faster and I felt sluggish and tired. I did, however, wear my new trusted shoes, the On Cloudsurfers, of which I now have two pairs. These have been my shoe for the training, the last park run and the last 3 races.

I am concerned that I started this week and the training program too soon after the Rock and Rock Liverpool half and I have not had chance for full recovery, but maybe this is the way forwards – to get he legs used to running more often.

I still walked a little, and I still stopped a little at red lights, but after the disastrous 8K run Tuesday I managed the 10K 26 seconds per K faster, with plenty in the tank. I ran further, I ran for longer but next time, I will definitely save the strides/sprints to the end, as I didn’t, as always, even start being properly warmed up until Mile 5!