The last battle

On Saturday, I ran with Christine, along the river towards Ferry Meadows, which was lovely - it was hot, though, we left too late really. In the afternoon I went to the Willow Festival and sunned, as well as buying some sensational clothing at TK Maxx. On Sunday... oh yes, I ran in the evening, I went down along the Parkway and by the river, and passed the remnants of the festival on the Embankment. It was a bit slow and I had a major fail on the way back, where once I had done my 5K I didn't really bother to run the rest of the way. In my defense, however, I wasn't really feeling very right, and had been doing lots of garden fighting. Anyway, I did the distance. That's what counts.

Monday... on Monday, you'd have been proud. I set off, I think it was cooler, it had rained as I arrived home, I believe. I was sure it would set in for the evening, but it didn't, after a roll of thunder, and a heavy shower, it stopped. I set off at a fair crack, but feeling good, not struggling or fighting it. I managed to maintain it all the way round, and ran my fastest time, 29:14. When I got back, I found moustachioed Chris had run in 29:04 and said it felt slow, so I abused him on Facebook. He apologised (bless him) and said something about his legs had just felt heavy. Whatever.

Tuesday, I realised I was stuffed. I had a work meeting in London, and then on to Winchester and Reading for 2 days. There was only one thing for it: I was going to have to go in the morning. I successfully achieved this, and while I didn't get super-speedy for the early start (or anything crazy), I was happy that it was done. I then had a train to catch. Rang the taxi, because I started a bit later than I thought, and had the dodge about whether the taxi would arrive as soon as I called it, or in ten minutes. It came in 10 minutes. I missed the train - and had an advance ticket. I got on the next one. The god of Trains was on my side. The ticket inspector was one of those who race through the carriage and barely pause to see if you lift your head or not. The barrier at Kings Cross let me pass. Woo-hoo!

On Tuesday night I was staying at a colleague's house, and announced my intention to go running in the morning, once again, and they were able to point me in the direction of a good route. It was nice, it was all through green lanes which were tree-lined paths and had an ancient feel to them. I imagined I might have been a goose girl with my flock, driving them along. I got spat out onto a road, which I wasn't expecting, and thought I was lost, but I continued in what I hoped was the right direction, and arrived at the right place eventually. When I got there, it turned out I wasn't lost at all, I just hadn't understood that the last part was on roads.

The next night, I was staying at a hotel on the outskirts of Reading. Once more, I found that the best time to run was going to be in the morning, so I made sure I didn't stay at the bar all night, and in the morning, dragged myself up and put on the only slightly disgusting tracksuit from the previous day. I had looked on google maps for a route, and found one on the roads around where I was staying, with only a faint chance of mishap, as I hoped desperately that a footpath would link up a section which appeared to go through a wood. It did, which was great. The other side was a housing estate with roads made up of bird names, which was rather tragic, when one takes into consideration the adage about Suburbia (where they chop the trees down, and name the roads after them) - especially taking into consideration that I'd seen an area where they were trying to restore Partridge the day before, and we were quite close to some wetlands - when the roads were called Starling Way - leading to Goldcrest Avenue, Chaffinch Avenue, Partridge Way and, last but not least, Bittern Way. Sounds idyllic.

And I had just pegged it down a nice long hill, at a good pace which had taken me into the running for a fast time, when I realised that, owing to having Runkeeper open so I could keep an eye on the map, I'd managed to turn it off (or rather, Pause it) and I hadn't logged my whole distance. I was just shy of three miles anyway, so had to put an extra loop in, and then decided I wanted Runkeeper to say the right distance, so I reran part of the route to put an extra half mile on my distance. You can see this on my map, because I otherwise magically leap the distance.

And that was me, DONE. I finished running 5km every single day in May. I felt quite proud, and definitely that I deserved my breakfast of scrambled eggs on brown toast. So much so that I had a slice of bacon too.

I have to say that I have never washed my kit so much, nor felt it was really so necessary to have three different pairs of tracksuit bottoms and more tops.

And now, onward, with the challenge of how I am going to run 22 miles every week in June. Especially when I'm on holiday for most of the first week... follow this page.