No news is good news, right?

So, one week and bit into the P+D 12 week schedule and things are all tickety-boo. Shin splints are gone (for now at least) and I've managed to run all the allotted training runs.

I had forgotten that with P+D it requires a fairly long mid-week run. Last week was 9 miles, this morning 11 miles! This meant getting up at 5am and being out of the house by 5:30. But it helps beat the heat of the summer morning as well as give me enough time to cool down afterwards.

Sunday saw me running 13 miles with the last 8 at marathon pace. It was tough but achievable, with the promise of a rest day the next morning to help spur me along. I also found a new park to run around. Northala fields in Greenford. There are three artificial hills created out of the rubble of the old Wembley Stadium. It's quite the tourist spot for this who like to stare at the beauty of a road that is the A40.

My mid-week run pace appears a little slower than I would like but maybe I will make speed improvements as the weeks go by.  On Thursday I will be doing 4 miles of threshold pace which is one of my least favourite types of runs but then I'll have a 15 miler to look forward to on Sunday. One of my favourite 15 mile routes is down the Grand Union Canal towards Paddington and I haven't run it for about a year so it will great to reacquaint myself with it.

If everything holds up over the next few weeks I'll enter the Chester marathon once I get back from holiday. This time I'm determined to beat 3:30!