Another day with the big guns and another day of consistent running was had today. Mark Fleming and I set off in the rain and, for once, at a decent temperature. The rain didn’t last long but the cloud cover stayed and was most welcome. As with previous days, the “rennal car” was used for support. This strategy continued to work really well and will be replaced by the RV doing the same at 3 – 6 mile intervals after Mark and Dave leave on Saturday.
I didn’t look at my GPS watch very much during the morning session. This approach really helps make the miles go quicker. I stopped for lunch having ran with all 3 of the Big Guns at some point after 14.75 miles. There was only need for a 45 minute tactical snooze and I was soon on my way again.
The banter on the road from all 3 lads was top class today and I couldn’t run for laughing at some of the stories they had to tell. The miles continued to fly by and when the sun started to shine during the afternoon it was a very pleasant day all round.
Today wasn’t without issues as I had a few pains here and there in my legs and a very strange one in my left foot. After some ice during a brief water stop the pain in my foot subsided.
The now traditional sprint finish saw me complete 35.2 miles and 142 miles over the last 4 days. If I keep this up for the next 3 days then I will have a weekly record haul of miles for this tour. I’ve now ran through the 1900 mile mark too and I’m only 3 days away from hitting 2000 miles if all goes to plan.
It’s Dave and Mark’s final day on the tour tomorrow. We have agreed that they dictate the day. That involves the start time, pace, distance, break times. It should be interesting.
One thing I realised today was that having the 3 lads here this week has given my brain a really good rest. The daily mental battle has now been overcome with banter, jokes and positivity. It’s something that I really needed at this stage of the run and it’s been on of the highlights so far. Having my 2 mentors for 5 days and Steve Harrison on the team for the next 10 days has given me a huge morale boost. I’m so pleased the lads have managed to get out here and run with me and the mental battle will resume on Saturday when I will run the majority of the time by myself once again. My brain will be well rested by then and I’m sure I will be in the best mental shape possible to tackle the final month of running.
