Running in circles

On Sunday I decided to run 14 miles around two of my local parks. Five laps in total. I thought it would be a decent experiment mainly because every other weekend up until the marathon I will be running 10 miles on the Saturday and another 10 miles on the Sunday. I thought if I could get used to doing laps then I won't have to keep finding new routes every time I head off.

As it turned out it wasn't as repetitive or dull as I expected it to be. That's mainly because I reversed every other route to make it slightly more interesting but also because of the repetition I could switch off, listen to my podcasts and concentrate on my running.

On Monday I woke up in the middle of the night with an incredibly stiff (and painful) shoulder. It was still stiff first thing in the morning, so much so that I had to cancel that day's run and also work from home since I was unable to cycle. A constant supply of ibuprofen and a hot water bottle helped ease the pain over the day. The pain has reduced over the week but even as I write this on the Wednesday night I can still feel it although it has not stopped me running.

Even though I'm reorganising my training schedule a bit I haven't missed a run so far. It does mean that I will be running 8 days solid to catch up.

My weight loss has completely halted this week even though I have not drunk any alcohol. It must mean that my calories in vs calories out is now a zero sum game. To lose more I either have to run more or eat less or a combination of the two. Time will tell.