I’ve had a really odd couple of weeks, the new job has kicked in and its been so varied I just don’t seem to be able to get back into a proper running routine. In fact I can’t get into any kind of routine.

My first run after the hotel break felt great – the time off seemed to work wonders for me but then the next day it went back to feeling like I was running through mud. I knocked off early on thursday so went out for an evening run, but it felt terrible as well. The forerunner didn’t help with my motivation at all, I was running hard with my heart rate at an incomfortable 174 bpm but I still felt like I was dragging myself. Looking at the garmin just made matters worse, the pace read out was around 8:30 min/km which is an all time low. I nearly quit and went home. When I loaded it up into Sporttracks the route came out as a cray zigzag affair which needed stacks of corrections. I don’t know what was up with the GPS signal that day, it was a little overcast but not so bad. Anyway turned out my pace was the more usual 7:20 min/km.

Today I headed out for an 8km run up around Kew Bridge and Barnes Bridge. I set off mid morning which coincided with the great spectacle of The Great River Race. This was quite an amazing show, a whole stack of ramshakle rowing machines navigating the 22 miles from Ham to Greenwich. They were going considerably faster than me but their efforts really made my run more bearable. I really regret not having my phone with me to take some shots but the last time I ran with it, I came straight home and shoved it and my shorts straight in the washing machine. That cost me £300!