Week 10 - Fat Man Running.

It is an affliction. A disease. An obsession, even at my level. 6 miles on the Monday and a realisation that Wednesday was going to be problematic lead to me getting up at 6am to run 9 miles before work. Felt fantastic at around 11, but 3pm was a different story. My long suffering wife is beginning to work about all the training, not least because it wakes her up at that time too. Can she not see the joy in looking at the clock and rolling over knowing you've got another hour's kip to come.

Same again to get 5 miles in on Friday morning, to keep the mileometer ticking over. All of this was building to the longest run to date - 17 miles on the Sunday. Caught the train to Falkirk (having negotiated to purchase a ticket the night before) and ran home via Stenny, Larbert and Plean. An extra loop round town and Kersebonny made up the necessary miles, or so I thought. Alas, I forgot to do the Cambusbarron loop and what I thought was 17 was actually 15 and a half. Amateur. Am a twit, more like.

Running through town means that you inevitably catch yourself reflected in shop windows. Very depressing. Hundreds of miles on the clock, body finely tuned but catch yourself in the plate-glass window of the local New Look and you are nothing but a fat man running.