Then it all went a bit hazy. Genuinely, the world took on a strange soft focus. I think my blood sugar went very low. I found myself struggling to keep going, much like the last five or six miles of the marathon last year. Not a good experience. I guess I need to be very careful after a big event and make sure I have something (i.e. money or sugary stuff) to hand in case of such emergencies. This reminds me I frequently run without any ID on me and if I keel over in the street, I’m fairly unlikely to be identifiable there and then! Must do something about it…

I popped into the Marathon Store at Covent Garden today, as I had a bit of time this afternoon after the flight landed. The guy there described my Asics Gel Kayano’s as the Rolls Royce of running shoes, with a great degree of support and high levels of cushioning. He reckons if I want to try anything else, I have a choice of the Saucony Hurricanes or the Adidas Salvations. Maybe I’ll give one of the alternatives a go soon. I had my eye on the Nike Lunar Eclipse as they’re slated to be very good in the cushioning stakes and to be honest, if the Kayano’s are the Rolls Royce, I hate to think what the cheaper options are like. My ankles hurt just thinking about it! One final piece of advice the guy in the shop proffered was that being a daily runner batters the shoe much more heavily and that I should consider alternating pairs, allowing the cushioning to recover. Now, I tend be a bit cynical in most ways and this is no different. Surely, if the cushioning is going to come back, it’ll do it in 12-24 hours won’t it? It’s only a bit of spongy plastic after all! Anyway, he reckoned that may be why I struggle to get 350 miles out of running shoes (which reminds me, I’m using the excellent SportTracks from Zone Five Software to track my shoe mileage, it’s terribly effective!) and worryingly the new ones are up on a hundred miles already.

I’m going to feed myself copious calories and try to recover now. More tomorrow as always!

Andy.

Miles today: 3.60
Target: 399
Miles to date: 473.31

It’s a 24 hour cross country race for teams of up to eight over a 10km course. Basically, you always have to have one of your team  running the course over the 24 hours. So you could do, say 20km (or two laps), let someone else go out for a lap or two, followed by someone else and when you have recovered, you can go again.

It’s all part of this new drive by Adidas for their new running community testadidas.co.uk and invited participants get the following:

-          Free entry to TR24 to be part of the adidas team

-          Free pair of Swoop 2 trail shoes

-          Free running kit (tops and bottoms)

-          Free catering / refreshments on the day

-          Free massages

Unfortunately, I cant take part as it is the weekend of Laura’s sister’s wedding but the team publicising the event are looking for willing participants.

As it’s part of the ‘test adidas’ trial if you fancy a go, you would also have to take part in the community with some online reviews of kit and the like, it’s at www.testadidas.co.uk which goes live this week.

If you want to sign up, drop a line to

Atheer [at] wildfirecompany.com

From a running perspective, I did another five miler today, heading out on what has now become a familiar route to the Virgin Active gym and back.

I’ve my first practical assessment in gym instructing this weekend which will get me the first part of my PT diploma and allow me to start training people in gyms if I wish so it was good to get some practice time in on equipment that will be used in the exam.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 5
Target: 909
Miles to date: 1,219.63

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Adidas are launching a new running community/hub at www.testadidas.co.uk – you need a special access code to get onboard at this stage that I was supplied by one of the PRs for Adidas and I signed up.

I had to answer loads of questions about running habits and the like but they also took all my sizes, so it will be interesting if I get some new kit to try out.

Today’s run was a perfectly pleasant one around the backstreets around Eric, the father-in-law’s house in Kirk Deighton outside of Wetherby. I wish I could have gone out for a bit longer but we had a 9.15 appointment to have suits fitted for Laura’s sister’s wedding in two week’s time.

I’d tried to factor in for this and was up at 6am and ready to go but then couldn’t get out of the house, which was locked and I couldn’t find the front door key. Ordinarily, I would have gone out of the window but my trainers were being held captive in the porch, which also required a key, so I had to hold off until someone was up who could give me a key.

Click here for a link to Garmin Connect for a map and details of the run

Miles today: 6
Target: 903
Miles to date: 1,209.63

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

For 13.2miles or around 2-2.5 hours, I’m going to need some inspiration for my iPod playlist, so please, if you have a great suggestion, leave a comment below or email me by clicking here.

In order to look smart, I’ve gone and got some new kit ready for the race and tried it out today. Aside from the worrying fact that my legs are still tight from Sunday’s 15 miler, I can conclude the following.

1. New Adidas running shirt – absolutely fine, no problems at all – made with Climalite materials to cool you down.

2. New Asics GT 2150 trainers – these have inbuilt support to stop by ankles from turning when I run. My old trainers (GT 2140) did a good 550 miles and its around this point the support tends to go… a return to turning in the old trainers could be the cause of my leg ache this week. The GT2150 are simply the new generation GT2140s so there was not much difference. the

3. Given it’ll probably be cold at the weekend by sea, I decided to invest in a new base layer by Skins. Despite getting a large size, I almost felt like I was being asphyxiated. I’ll probably revert to my old Adidas one to keep warm (which, despite being a medium, is much more comfortable).

4. New New Balance shorts. Again fine, although they bunch a little around the privates which could lead to chafing. Extra vaseline or old shorts could be in order.

Finally I also tried a carb gel for the first time. These are supposed to give you energy as you go but as you have to drink half  a litre of water with them, you still end up running with a bottle. I think I’ll stick to a bottle of Lucazade Sport when I run Sunday. They tasted bloody awful anyway, so I’m not too fussed with not using them.

Click here for a Google Map and full details of the day’s run

Miles today: 3
Target: 459
Miles to date: 587.32

Want to dedicate a run to someone or have one dedicated to you? Click here