..I’m keeping my feet above the mulch of the barton with song, a drink and a four-handed reel as I ramble along

Calfs felt a bit tight after Sunday’s Cross Country, defo going to get a sports massage after Beacon Park this weekend! Still trained hard this week, as mentioned earlier I’ve stepped up the regular run pace by 15/20 seconds, still making sure I get a decent warm up.

I ran again at Wavertree on Tuesday night, Neil and Nige were in attendance along with PLS latest signing Lee Steele – an ace scouse striker who’s who done the rounds in the toggering world for 20 years. I used to play in the same team as Lee when he was very young (I’m a few years older than him), can’t believe he didn’t remember my majestic Platini/Mattheus like skills ?

Anyway, the session was 3mins 2mins 1min x 5 – 30 mins of effort in which I averaged 80 second laps. As you can imagine, it was brutal, especially the 3mins efforts. But the great thing about training with better runners is you always have someone to chase! I done my usual 10 miler on Wednesday, but ran the middle 8 miles at 6:40 pace – again tough but I felt comfortable. I done a circuit class in evening at Gartson, they had the sparing pads out and I ended up on the first circuit with the fella who takes the class.

Bad move telling him he punched like a girl because my shoulders are aching today! I made sure I paired with a girl for the remaining workouts on the gloves, and luckily she did punch like a girl.

Thursday’s session was a 4 mile tempo in work which I ran at 5:54 pace, we had a great turn out, 7 runners and with the staggered start we all had something to aim at/cling on to. I felt really good, still a bit stiff in places but it didn’t affect me in the run. I went the club in the evening mainly to drum up support for this Sunday’s cross country. I ended up doing the Woolton hills session, which is my favourite with PLS, but just jogged rather than push up the hills.

I ran an easy cross country on Friday in work, another good turn out with a special guest runner, Trev Morris, fresh(?) from his Chester marathon exploits. Trev was another ex employee of mine who was instrumental in getting me into racing and consequently pushing me in training, usually by mocking me that I’d never beaten him, oh how times haven’t changed!

Anyway, the cross country was a hoot, Adam was like a big girls blouse trying not to get his new shoes dirty, really placing these ultra distance runners reputations on the line.

Beacon Park this Sunday, hills/mud/heartache – ie proper Cross Country. The one time I ran I deliberately abstained for a week, got there early for a proper warm up and promptly finished 41st and 6th counter for PLS – I ‘kin hated it! I remember warming up and giving this lad in a PLS shirt advice, not recognising it was Ian Lawton who was running as 2nd claim.

Felt like a proper t*t when I realised who it was! This Sunday will hopefully be a lot different results wise but I’d be mindful not to treat it as a revenge mission like I did at Parbold a few years ago, I’ve since read Moby Dick and realised that revenge is bad. The important thing is PLS get's 6 or 8 good lads out and challenges for 1st place.