Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Lumbering Towards Lincoln
by Russell Turner - 18:51 on 19 September 2025
Because we have one of the increasingly rare City Limits Saturday gigs this weekend, I staged my final pre-Lincoln HM taper long run today. Despite the wind. My target distance was 19k, which was close enough to the 12 miles demanded by the training plan. I’d intended to get out between 9 and 10am, when the wind was merely moderate, but Willow currently finds my lap irresistible, and I’m such a softy, so it was 12.30pm before I left The Rural Retreat.
The strategy was to be 5k r/w, 4k run, repeat, plus 1k to finish at whatever pace I could manage. Easy. But just to challenge myself a bit more, kilometres 2-5 were not only uphill but also into the wind. Maybe I should have activated Plan B which would have been a flat run along the canal at Inverness, finishing with the all day breakfast at the Jammy Piece. To make things even more interesting, because last week I’d managed 17k carrying only one hand-held 500ml water bottle, I did the same again (although this time it was filled with Tailwind) rather than take twice as much (Tailwind) in a backpack bladder, as I’ve done in the past. One has to experiment, although whether it made a difference is hard to say.
How can you say no to this?
I passed 16k (just under 10 miles) in 1:43 – 3.5mins faster than last week with less climb but more wind. Maybe they cancelled each other out. The struggle began in the 18th k; the 19th was mostly walked. With luck, Lincoln will be less of a challenge: the first 4k rises only 18m, compared with 65m today. The rest is either flat or downhill apart from the 1.5k 55m climb just after half way. That will be a test.
So that’s the hard bit done: the remaining runs are mainly short and easy. The longest would be a “relaxed” (whatever that means) 8 miles next weekend; instead, I’ll run the River Ness 10k with my usual sub-60min target. I might even hit it.
It’s been a busy week for athletic communication. The final Lincoln admin email landed yesterday; earlier, my Ness 10k race bib arrived in the post; today the Yorkshire Marathon/10 Mile pdf brochure was unveiled. Alongside this, Manchester Marathon HQ posted on Facebook to inform us that it’s seven months until the big day. Whether I bother is still in the balance. I recently rejigged (again) my 16-week training schedule by making a week 10 days with the result that there’s a run every other day for 23 weeks. It’s supposed to benefit older runners. We’ll see. I also failed in the first Great North Run ballot. I’ll try again in January.
Non-running Update: Matchgirl and I ventured to Vue in Inverness yesterday to see the final Downton Abbey film. I can confirm that it was worth the effort, and if you don’t have a tear in your eye at the end then you’ve got no soul.
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