Today was pretty tough – Im shifting at a private jet company, working on their customer and staff mags and so had to be up early… My legs, particularly the left, were stiff, my blisters hurt and it was chucking it down with really nasty rain.

I dragged myself out of bed though, had a banana, some water and a couple of Ibuprofen and went out in in. The first steps were agony but, by the end of the road, I started to feel a little looser.

As the rain drove down, I trundled no… ages slower than yesterday. By the middle mile though, I was feeling pretty good. The cold was numbing my legs against the pain and I was back in my old worn in trainers to combat the blisters. Even the rain didn’t seem to matter… in fact, I actually like running in rain, there’s something about it that makes you feel like you are really pushing yourself.

Hopefully the rest of the week, if I take it slow, will be easier

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

Miles today: 3.01
Target: 468
Miles to date: 606.19

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I’m not absolutely sure of what the benefits are but it hill training is in every training programme and, I think it is meant to strengthen certain muscles that are perhaps not put under the same stress when running on a straight.

Anyway, the program involved running for a mile as a warm up, finding a hill and running up it for two minutes fast before jogging back down in three minutes to the start. And then repeating this nine times.

So I headed out into Norbury as far as Norbury Hill – which is pretty steep – and went up and down it, veering off to side hills a couple of times to break up the monotony. Some builders in one of the houses there were just looking at me as though I was mad.

Toward the end of the run it started to rain, heavily and I began to curse my stupidness at going out in just shorts and a tee. By the last hill, my arms were red and sore with cold and to compound things, it started hailing as I was running home. Hard, fast hail that stung as it hit my head – but quite enjoyable in a masochistic way.

I’m off to do my first official half marathon on Sunday in Portsmouth and was chuffed to hear the doorbell ring this morning with the postman announcing the arrival of my new pair of trainers. There are the ones I’ll hopefully be running Brighton in but I’ve had to upgrade from Asics GT2140s, which you can’t find any more to Asics GT2150s… I’m hoping they’ll be as good and faithful as the last pair.

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

Miles today: 5.27
Target: 456
Miles to date: 584.32

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