What to do? Crank the miles back up to five for today before hitting tomorrow’s big run as part of my marathon program for Athens. We’re endurance runners for cripe’s sake, what else did you expect

Despite the niggles and sore bits, as per usual it was fine when I got outside and started running… but then again, it always is!

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 1029
Miles to date: 1,432.68

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

I got it back on yesterday but couldn’t get the Sky TV on as well – for some reason, Sky insist that you have it connected to a phone line… probably to flog you stuff like movies and the QVC channel.

Anyway, I was up at six, trying to fix it, annoying Laura who was trying to sleep and getting more irate at my inability to attach a new phone plug to a cable. I ended up cutting the cable back so  many times, it ended up being too short and so it all had to be re-laid.

The run at least dissipated some of my frustration and anger. It was a muggy day, no sun but low cloud, really heavy as though it wanted to summer thunder but couldn’t.

The result was that body temperature elevated from pissing about relaying the cable, I sweated like a b******* all the way around Tooting Common… and at one point pulled up with a really tight pain in my adductors, the inside of the thigh. Quite weird but I managed to run it o

Only 28 more runs to go now.

The best thing about doing this blog has been meeting other people through cyber space I would never have met. Three immediately spring to mind

Andy Ratcliffe who is taking on the challenge next month from me. We met via the blog, he came on the 1095th mile run and we have stayed in touch ever since. Great lad and I am so glad he’s taking on the challenge so I dont feel compelled to carry on running.

Kelly Taylor.  An American lady who started commenting on my posts just when I was beginning to feel like no one was listening and it was time to give up. She recently completed her first 5k on a C25K program. Well done Kelly (follow her blog here)

Alex Kyprianou. Alex is a Brit who has become an Aussie, living in Melbourne for the last 18 years. We’ve been in touch via email – a top bloke who is going to wear a 1095miles.com tee at his next 10k. His excellent blog is here

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

Miles today: 5.6
Target: 1008
Miles to date: 1,395.50

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Now I’ve had some pretty dodgy things go on over the year… I’ve seen down the cracks of builders, almost crapped myself and had one woman pull her pants down and just start weeing, but today took the real biscuit.

As I rounded a corner, somewhere around Furzedown, the posh bit between Streatham and Tooting, I came up just behind a woman. She was maybe mid-30s, not petite but not huge either and, I’m guessing and trying not to stereotype, possibly of African origin, given the bright coloured and patteterned clothing she was wearing.

Anyway, thanks to the traffic, the poor love obviously never heard me coming, because just as I rounded the corner and came up behind her, she let out the most massive fart I have ever heard in my life.

For the next quarter  mile or so, I could almost chew it, it was that loud and stinky…

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 1005
Miles to date: 1,389.9

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Miles today: 5.76
Target: 999
Miles to date: 1,380.91

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

In fact, the whole thing is turning into GroundHog Day. Like the last time I trained for a marathon back in the winter, I seem to do a long run on Sunday, spend most of the week complaining about the pain and then lose the pain just before the next long run…

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

Miles today: 5.1
Target: 996
Miles to date: 1,375.15

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

Not really that much to say today… thanks to my being ridiculously busy with DIY stuff around the house.

The arrival of the twins means we’re having loads of work done in a rush before they get here and while we’ve had workmen in to fit new windows and stuff, I’ve been doing little tarting up jobs like changing door handles and stuff…

Nonetheless, today saw me rack up mile 1350, somewhere in deepest Norbury

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 987
Miles to date: 1,353.85

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

The solution? Revert to a stats round up to fill in some blog space. So…

I have now been running for 327 days – the same length as the 1948 Soviet blockade of Berlin and the reign of Edward VIII who abdicated the British crown in favour of his lover Wallis Simpson in 1936.

I have covered 1,343.75 miles. According to Google, it is the equivalent of travelling from Auburn in Maine to Sarasota in Florida, almost the length of the US’s Eastern Seaboard.

I prefer using the brilliant www.sizeofwales.co.uk that allows you to input any data and find a comparison that is easier for people to visualise (it’s a great tool if you are a newspaper sub editor).

According to them, I have ran 225,134 times the length of a London Double Decker, gone 11 times round the M25 (who thought it was so long?) or a tenth of the Great Wall of China!

It’s an average of 4.1 miles a day (or the equivalent of running the Humber Bridge three times every day).

I run at an average pace of around nine minutes a mile… I have been running for 12,000 minutes or 200 hours. If it takes 5minutes to medium boil an egg, I could have boiled 2,400 one after the other – eat your heart out Cool hand Luke.

My average training heartbeat is 140bpm so my heart has thumped a whopping 1.6million times on runs.

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 981
Miles to date: 1,343.75

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

This morning, I was working at The Express and had arranged to meet the deputy travel editor and my pal Duncan Craig there to go for a run. I’ve mentioned Duncan before, he’s the kind of bloke who does the Marathon De Sables for fun.

We’d arranged to meet at their offices at round 8am to give us time to get out, have a shower and get back in time to start work. By the time  I arrived I’d already got a text from him saying he was running late as it was truly pissing it down with vertical rain all across London.

Keen to crack on and not wait around to be shown up by him, I texted back saying I would get on with the run and see him back in the office.

Running around The Express office, which is near Monument tube is pretty cool. You can leave their building, round the Tower of London, run through St Katherine’s Dock and into Wappng before heading back and crossing the Thames over Tower Bridge.

From there it’s a straight run along the South Bank before crossing over the river again on London Bridge.

By the time I got back, I was drenched through to the skin but the weather was easing up enough for Dunc to head out in the dry… some guys have all the luck.

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 975
Miles to date: 1,335.75

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

For those of you who have missed any related posts, the First Rule of Running Club was devised by my pal David. The First Rule of Running Club dictates that you must got for a number two before going on a run… the theory is that if you don’t, you’ll want to half way through the run.

Well I followed the first rule and I still wanted to go half way through the run – which made for a particularly uncomfortable second half of the run.

The strange pain in the bottom of my left foot was also playing on my mind. With every step, I get a small stabbing pain coming up in the area just before my toes… it’s not unbearable but not pleasant either.

So this evening, I decided to venture back to my running heroine, Lillian, the sports maseuse at the Virgin Active gym in Streatham. She gave me a good going over, releasing some of the pressure on my aching muscles and in particular the adductors (the ones on the inside of your thigh). But she also found what is wrong with my foot – apparently, I’ve a little bit of tendonitis and I could feel it clicking as she tried to massage it away.

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 972
Miles to date: 1,330.75

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here

It could have had something to do with the fact that I woke up and, instead of going straight out, waited a while until I woke up, had a cup of tea, a banana and, crucially, some ibuprofen…

The result? I went out on my flattest route, just down London Road and back and ended up doing my best non-race time over five miles… just over 40 minutes.

Yesterday evening, I came back from work to find my Registrar of Exercise Professionals card had come through – the first step on the journey to my PT qualification – meaning I can officially practice as a gym instructor now.

Mum’s been over from Greece for a couple of weeks and moaning about not feeling fit enough, so I put together a little program for her and took her out onto Streatham Common after the run to put her through her paces. My first training client, albeit non-paid

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

Miles today: 5
Target: 966
Miles to date: 1,321.25

Please donate to my chosen charities by clicking here