Week 15 - Easy like Sunday morning.

20 miles on the marathon course was the weekend target and the build up was nice enough with a hour or so (8 miles) while the kids swam on Monday. I have become adept a squeezing in runs when it is least disruptive domestically, though my family may not agree.

There is no denying it, the training, even at my lowly level is enormously time consuming. Relentless planning and preparation, you become a slave to the programme, grumpy and irritable when behind and a crashing bore when ahead of schedule. And the washing, don't get me started...

A break on Tuesday and a quick lunchtime 5-miler on Wednesday, missed the session on Thursday (domestic commitments!) meant 5 miles was needed on Friday night, this took a bit of doing, but just about managed it (just round town and along Kersebonny) though, again, this was not popular at home.

So to Musselburgh first thing on Sunday (7:30 departure from home, running by 8:30) to try out the course itself. We did ten miles out to Longniddry and back again, completing 20 miles with a wee circuit of Queen Margaret University's new campus. It is nice and flat (the route, not the campus) with some diversions as you pass through the towns of Prestonpans, Cockenzie and Port Seton. It is still a struggle to get to the 20 mile mark, leaving that element of doubt about doing another 5 miles, but if it was easy it wouldn't be a challenge, right?

Eating and drinking en route is a problem, I can't carry water (just too annoying) so I'll be relying on water stations, but it means I have not been able to replicate this in training. I have experimented with gels such as the Honey Stinger range, but it is not clear to me when the best time to take these is, and they taste so foul that they will have to coincide with a water stop (and maybe some mouth wash). We'll see, large bowl of porridge and syrup remains the breakfast of champions.