November 18th - 155 Days to Marathon - 10min Jog, 20 mins full pace

Well, a few beers last night with Mssrs Bison&Engel needed shaking off
this morning and what a stunning day to go out and do a lap of Hyde Park. Clear,
crisp, blue skies and warm bright sunshine. Mustered up the balls to go out in
shorts, even though its sunny its also still quite crisp - however, glad to get
legs back in the sunshine again! Also proved a good opportunity to show off my tan from Mexico, well, a dot-to-dot joining of freckles but still, not as white as usual!! I tend not to tan but gain a granular mucky look from where little freckles appear - basically a tan on me looks like I need a shower after rolling around in dust. Enough procrastination.

Todays run was a simple 10min warm up jog followed by a fast pace run. Its the first time I've tried to vary pace, normally I do the gentle jog and as I feel better I open the regulator and
up the pace, though throttle back when I'm starting to huff and puff.

Normally I clock the 4.4miles around the park in 34/35mins but even after the gentle jog warm up for the first ten mins and then sticking it hard for 20 mins I could tell around the 25min mark that i was well ahead of where I normally am. It definitely wasn't easy and from my breathing I knew that I was pushing hard but I found that nothing was hurting and at the 30 min mark could have carried on for a few more minutes.

Upon reflection I'm not sure if I'm physically improving or the mental focus of chasing a target is pushing me round but guess that its probably a little of both. After 30 mins I slowed completely to start cooling down and I think that my lap time for the park could have had 2/2.5 mins shaved off it. I look forwards to the next full lap session in 2 days time.

Got to wear my new running top and am fully behind anything that wicks moisture away from the skin. Shoes and soles from Profeet are bedding in nicely, the park was nice and wet, pretty busy and in some places was quite churned up. This isn't a bad thing - new super clean, super white trainers look as bright as full beam headlights so it was quite good to finally get some dirt on them, as well as kick some mud up the back of my calfs - it somehow feels more satisfying in the shower to be washing off mud. Weird, but true.