… She’s the main man in the office in the city, and she treats me like I’m just another lackey, but I can put a tennis racket up against my face and pretend that I am Kendo Nagasaki

It was the Northern Relays this weekend at Birchwood and as some wag eloquently stated on the 8lane message board, Sefton Park was the rehearsal, this was the dance! For the mens event we had over 100 teams and 600 runners taking part. Penny Lane managed to get two teams out, I was in the ‘A’ team with James McNally running the first leg, Martin Swensson running 2nd, me on the 3rd leg, Owen Jones on the 4th, Neil Kelly on the 5th and Nige Grant on the 6th.

The legs were 6k that were 2 loops of a 3k course, a few tight turns but very flat. My game plan was to start off slow and try to average 5:40 per mile. I went through the first 3k in 10:36 and felt fine, I stepped it up for the last mile and ended up running 20:58, a decent time and 5:38 average. We ended up finished 48th with the B team finishing 78th – not bad for a small club!

For me the main plus from the day was the team building, we’ve got a few new lads who enjoyed the experience and everyone got along. I really appreciated the support form my fellow PLS homeys and I hope they felt the same.

Training for last week went well, I held back on the double sessions and didn’t do a tempo or any intervals. I felt fresh for the relays and still managed to get over 19 miles in on the Sunday. Only 12 days left until the marathon, think I'll have a blast at the Wirral multi terrain this week then start thinking about my race prep.

Mon – 7m
Tue – 5.25m day – 6.75m night
Wed – 8m day – 4m night with circuit class
Thu – 5.25m
Fri – 6m
Sat – 7m - 6 k relay with warm up / warm down
Sun – 19.26 - Sports Centre/Speke/Hale/Loop Line/Childwall/Calderstones/Allerton Golfy

68.52 total