After the best part of 6 weeks with a cough/cold this afternoon’s run restored my confidence, self belief and hunger for 2016. I’m buzzing with anticipation and considering it was a boring steady tarmac run then “role on” the countryside miles.

After 4 runs that totalled 19 miles last week I must admit I wasn’t “feeling it” so todays run was still a case of exploring what stage I’m at. When running is such a large part of your life, if it isn’t going well, it has a knock on effect. Yes, I have to admit I’ve been Mr Grumpy recently but after today I’m back to being Mr Positive.

The run it’s self was largely uneventful as it was along the main road and apart from Titchfield Hill it was pan flat. The enjoyable part for me was the fact that I was getting descent lung fulls of air and this meant a growing sense of anticipation for 2016.

As darkness fell and only the street lights marked my way forward there was even less to look at but it didn’t matter because I knew I could start to think about planning ahead.

I’ve had a number of improvements lined up but they were all waiting for my germs to go. I’ve changed my watch to the Forerunner 305 so I can start playing with the heart rate option to run more efficiently with aerobic fat burning. I’ve got new Saucony Peregrine trail shoes and the kind people from eGloves have given me two parts of gloves to try (separate Blog to follow after next weeks forecasted cold weather).

On the back of all this positivity I now have to decided what to enter next.  The answer is The Imber Ultra, March 6th 33 miles and 3,100 feet of elevation. So my second weeks mileage started with 10 and finished with 27 #gameon !!