Summer is here: Happy Easter!

I’m sitting in my garden on an April evening, wearing shorts and still feeling too hot. Yesterday I actually had to go and buy an ice lolly to cool down. It’s lovely to be outside on this long weekend but it does feel wrong to be worried about your Easter eggs melting in the sun, in April, in England.

This morning, this weekend really, was all about the 12 mile “race-sim”: 6 miles easy, 6 miles fast. I took it seriously enough to forego the booze and eat a decent pasta meal last night. I even bought an energy gel last week to have on the way (I usually just stick to jelly babies). None of this helped. Or if it did, then I dread to think what the run would have been like without them. I felt exhausted from about 2 miles in, the energy gel was like sucking down half a tube of warm orange toothpaste and the last 2 miles were as tough as the end of any real race I’ve done. I guess that is the point of a “race-sim”, but compared to my lovely Dorset run two weeks ago it was grim.

Forcing myself to be positive, we managed the 6 fast miles at a pace of 7min 20 secs per mile, which was good given the temperature and fact that some of them were along the Seven Sisters Road. That road should not be part of any fast run- It was like Ski Sunday today: churchgoers with Easter baskets walking three abreast, bins, lampposts, winos and scampering pitbulls. I should be thankful we made it back in one piece.