How was your weekend running?

The last couple of weeks have seen the start of the main block of marathon training, for Berlin at the end of September. So it was a bit of a switch to go out yesterday and race a mile. The Amba City of London mile, though, has become one of my favourite events of the year. It’s brilliantly organised, a fabulous course on closed roads around St Paul’s Cathedral, you get a medal, water and there’s a goody bag for little racers. You can enter multiple waves. How much, you ask? Oh, it’s free. I don’t know how they do it, but if you were judging races on value for money, I think we have an annual winner …

I ran in the women’s wave and the family wave. I was pleasantly surprised – once my lungs stopped screaming at me – with my time, 5min 44sec, which is quicker than last year despite coming at the end of a very high mileage week (for me). But more importantly, my two little mini-racers both scored PBs. This is undoubtedly one of the best things about this race – inspiring little runners to get out and try their best and, hopefully, plant the seeds of a lifetime’s habit. Or at least a love of race bling …

Unfortunately for me, a mile is clearly not enough for marathon training, so post-races I ran 17 miles home, via quite a few laps of Battersea Park. If racing a mile is a lung-bursting, short but oh-so-sharp torture, then a long run afterwards is a protracted scream of legs v head. I had to give myself at least three stern talkings-to and promise myself a very large pizza to get through it. But I did it, so one Franco Manca number three was my reward (cake sponsorship for this blog has inexplicably failed to materialise, so I’m moving to Plan B).

So, tell me about your weekend, fellow runners. I saw quite a few familiar faces at the City Mile – did you race it too? Or were other start lines beckoning? As always, I want to hear about your races, your training, your injury woes, your questions and your miles.

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