This was the week after a bit of racing, and a week off work, so was always going to be a bit of extra easy mileage.

It creeps in easily enough, my Monday easy run was 16k instead of 5-8k, my morning recovery runs were a few k longer. Couple of decent sessions on Tuesday/Thursday (some decent track reps on Tuesday given the weekend’s race, now that I look back at it).

Windy Saturday

I had it in mind to have a good effort at Saturday’s parkrun, but it turned out to be a rather windy morning. A Westerly meant that the ‘outward’ section was plain sailing at a decent enough pace, and I foolishly agreed to take turns against the wind on the way back.

Well as I turned around into the wind, I managed to take one such turn at best before I struggled even to hang on while drafting behind. Again one finds oneself alone against the wind - but again there are others faring worse to pick a way past. Too much effort for a mere 18:23.

Steady 50k

For Sunday the plan was a run from my house to meet up with the group run from Craiglockart (12k), run that 16 mile loop, and back home, for about 50k.

It turned out I arrived at the start with about perfect timing, enough time for a bathroom break and shoelace retying, and ended up finding company at a perfect 4:45km pace around the 14 mile loop. Then a pointless out and back along the canal to add distance (spoke to a random runner I later met at parkrun), and off home.

As has happened before, the distance seems to be too much when I’m looking at 35k-40k, and once I hit the marathon mark it’s easy to push through to the end. Well it may be that it’s just the slight downhill on the cycle path towards Leith but I put in a good fast finish to drag me a little under 4 hours for the 50k effort.

A new high

A new weekly distance high-water mark - my log says 190.9km (118.6 miles).