I now consider myself back in training and am now looking to construct a proper plan to get me ready for May. In terms of actual running this week I have only been able to get my Saturday long run in, weekday training has consisted of cycling to and from work Monday to Wednesday.

Looking at Saturday, this was a good run for me. It was the first run where the Achilles didn’t hurt at all and even after the run, pinching the tendon yields no pain whatsoever, leading me to hope that this is the last of it. I headed out wanting to do a stage of the North Downs Way 50 (and 100) so ran from the Gravelly Hill checkpoint location to the Botley Hill checkpoint (plus running back) totalling a distance of 13 miles. The pace wasn’t quick and well under my planned Ultra pace, but it felt good.

Another reason for the slow pace was that I had recently taken delivery of a GoPro camera and this allowed me to do something that I have wanted to do for a while. I have filmed my run, but focusing on the details of the NDW between these checkpoints with a view to putting it on YouTube to hopefully aid anyone who is racing the NDW50 or 100 and can’t get to run the Downs prior to the event. As part of my training I am going to try to get on all of the sections and will upload them as I get them done.

I have an edited version ready to go, but need to work out the best way of getting it onto YouTube as it’s a rather large file size. I have added some quick test films already which can be seen at my channel: UltraPlodderdotcom

Links to the specific clips: Clip 1, Clip 2

Next weeks plan, probably going to run to work at least once plus another long run on Saturday. I will be cycling the other days and have finally put the mountain bike away and got the road bike out.

I am more confident for May now, I have a lot of ground to make up but it is achievable.