20 minutes

Well it's an improvement, but not much of one. I ran for 20 minutes non-stop on Thursday but by the end I was getting very sore. So it's 5 weeks out from the London Marathon now and I can kiss goodbye to a sub 3.10 time which was looking quite comfortable 3 weeks ago. I am still intending to make the start as I do not feel that I have lost enough fitness to not finish, but of course it is whether I can get even a moderately long run in before then. If I can run 13 to 15 miles beforehand without my hip and back getting stupidly sore then that should be fine, but I will now be treating the race as an easy training run and hopefully search around for a marathon in the summer. There's not many of them about at that time but I am sure that I can find something and go for the good for age time that I want.

Despite having barely turned a wheel this year it's the first tt of the season next week, a 25. I'm really looking forward to it. I am expecting very little and again, it's going to be a training session and a catchup with friends more than anything. Whatever happens, it will be a season's best.  :-)  The Kingston Phoenix have a great list of tt events and I intend to use them as my training in preparation for the Dambuster tri in the summer.

You can probably tell, the mojo isn't flowing too well at the moment. There's so much else going on at home and at work that my hobby is taking a backseat. Normally, I'd be a bit stressed about it but I have to remind myself that it is just a hobby. Should I make the start line of London then I am going to go and run a marathon and enjoy the atmosphere of one of the greatest events that occurs in the capital. What's not to like about that?

I have been eating a lot of hot cross buns, which of course means Devizes to Westminster time.It will be the first Easter in three years where I have not been involved. I have had the odd pang, wishing I was doing it again although the weather this year would have made it very difficult to train. I do also wonder if I would have this back injury if I had carried on paddling, which is the best core workout ever.