John O'Groats to Lands End - Five Weeks To Go

Only five weeks to go before the start of the Big Run. Last minute nerves.

I'm working full time Monday to Friday up until then so that makes it harder to fit in the miles. It will make things more sorted financially, so that's good.

After a big mileage week (130) the week before last, last week I only managed 50 miles. This weeks total will be 90.

So I'm getting the fear that I'm not doing enough miles to be fit enough for the run.

But I don't want to push the mileage too hard because I'm afraid of overtraining at this point. I'm also afraid of developing some kind of overuse injury. My achilles tendons feel absolutely fine now after some problems earlier on.

Now my worry is a tenderness that I feel along the front of my shins after a run. It reminds me of the shin splints I developed a few years ago. That put me out of the game for months.

So, on balance, I'd rather start the run somewhat undertrained but injury free and with my enthusiasm intact.

I do feel fantastically fit, though.

Months ago on weekends I was running 18 milers and the occasional 25 or 30 mile run. Then I thought, wait a minute I want to be running 35 maybe 40 miles a day but I'm not going to be running that all in one hit. I'm going to be running it in chunks. So I stopped doing the big long runs and started running 10 milers, but often doing two or three a day. I thought that made more sense.

But I did the 10 milers relatively fast, without a break and running all the hills. Usually eight and a half to nine minute miles. That's quite hard running if you're doing three in a day. I was thinking, train hard, run easy.

In June, when I'll be doing the run, each day will have about 16 and a half hours of daylight. That's a lot of running time. So I can afford to run more slowly than I have been in training. It takes less energy to run the same miles if you run more slowly. And I don't have to run the really tough hills. I can take a walk break whenever I want. I can take it easy. It's not a race. As long as a I do the miles.

My goal is a pretty loose kind of goal. I'm going to travel from John O'Groats to Lands End on my own two feet, running most of the time, off road most of the time, carrying my own gear, refueling with food and water as I go. The distance should be something like 1,150 miles and I'd like to do it in not too much more than a month.

35 days at 35 miles a day ought to about do it.

Put like that it doesn't sound too hard. And I honestly believe it isn't. It's what I was born to do. OK I've been running fairly seriously for a few years now and training specifically to do this for several months but my physiology has been in preparation for this kind of thing for a couple of million years.

You know something, I'm going to stop worrying about it. Right this minute I'm going to get up and go out for another run. Richmond Park will be beautiful in the sunshine. And I'll have some porridge and banana when I get back.

Then I'll finish off the press release for the The Road to Endorphia and get it off to some people. The Edinburgh Festival is only about 13 weeks away.

Hey Ho! Lets Go.