Pre-holiday cramming

I am five days into eight days of running with no rest days. That's what I need to do to be able to go on holiday without losing any training.

Sunday saw me running down the Grand Union Canal towards Paddington as I said in my last post. It has been very hot here in London over the past few weeks but fortunately on Sunday morning it was overcast for much of the run with a nice breeze. That together with the canal itself made for a very pleasant run indeed, if it's possible for 15 miles to be very pleasant.

I ran an interval session yesterday of 8 miles with 10x100m strides, today was 4 miles recovery and tomorrow is an 11 miles medium long run. It's tiring but I feel like I'm making progress. My legs feel stronger and I am definitely fitter but I'm looking forward to a two day break on the weekend when we go on holiday.

On Friday morning I have to run 16 miles with the last 10 at marathon pace. I'm working on Friday so this means I've got to get up around 4am in order to get the run in before I set off to work. This will be the earliest I've ever got up to go running. Hopefully I won't fall asleep in work!

We are going on holiday to Italy for two weeks, driving around the country from the south to the north. I've been looking for routes to run at each location we stop at although I may have to end up running short laps near each hotel since it can be quite tricky finding decent routes in places that I am unfamiliar with. That said, I'm looking forward to running around the Amalfi coast, Rome, Lake Como and Venice. When we drove around the west coast of the U.S. I ran some of my most memorable runs ever, although I'm not sure anything will be able to match running over the Golden Gate Bridge.

I'll try and update whilst on holiday but that depends on internet access and whether I'm not too lazy!