Just a quickie....

...the update that is, not the run. This morning was a belter - almost 15 miles on the way to work, gloriously sunny, varied terrain and, although pretty hard work, was stunning.

The picture is about 6 miles into the run, about 7.30am on Stanage Edge in the Peak District and it's all on my doorstep.

Marvellous!

The date is set

Confirmation came through today of the race dates - fly out on 5 April 2012 and return on 16 April 2012 with the actual race taking place from 8-14 April. That's 324 days away. That's not very long.

Luckily I have at least a vague plan of action as outlined in my races for 2011 shown on the right. Next up is the Lakeland Trails Marathon around Coniston less than 7 weeks away. I have some shoulder surgery to contend with in the meantime (it was postponed from this week to 1 June) so I'll have to see how that works out and fits in with my training.

Tomorrow morning brings with it a delightful 14 mile trip out into the Peak District on my way to work, and it's forecast to be sunny. Should be good. Having said that, based on how I looked at the end of the Sheffield Half Marathon, I may be struggling at work later on.......

Sheffield Half Marathon ticked off.

Sunday saw the first of the final year's preparation races ticked off - the Sheffield Half Marathon. 13.1miles through the scenic, and not so scenic streets of the Steel City. It wasn't the ideal preparation, going out until 2am on Saturday morning, followed by an alcohol induced chunder in the wee small hours, but by Sunday morning I was at the start line almost raring to go.

The race was quite warm and humid, but reasonably comfortable for most of it. I struggled a little from 11 miles and had to concede defeat to Rich (fellow MdS 2012 competitor and main training partner) in the last mile as my dehydrated state slowed my pace. Clocked a 1 hour 51 mins and 37 secs and was aiming at 1hour 50 so not too shabby all things considered.

Training since the last blog post has been steady - not all going to plan, but got some decent longish runs in - a brutal 66 minute return trip from Horton-in-Ribblesdale up to the top of Pen-y-Ghent and back in the Yorkshire Dales; a 2hours sweat-a-thon through the Peaks and a 10 miler round Fairholmes/Derwent Reservoir which I enjoyed a lot less than the night time run of the previous month.

Next step is to focus on the Lakeland Marathon round Coniston in July in 8 weeks' time. Only problem is I have to have an operation on my shoulder next week and I'm not sure how long it will prevent me from running. The bike is set up on the turbo trainer in the garage in case I can't run for a few weeks but it's not ideal. On the plus side, it should mean I can carry my pack in Morocco a little more comfortably than I can now. The downside to that is that distances don't really get any easier now until April 2012.

I've now booked in all the prep races I think I can handle between now and getting to the MdS so I have a good looking set of target training events to work towards.