Week 1: Getting back into it.

Well, that's the first week of New Year training almost over and it wasn't too bad. I came back from Manchester on the 3rd of Jan and training started on the 4th with my standard Cambridge to Ely run. This time I used my new Suunto T6c and GPS pod to measure the distance and was pleased to find it came out to be just over 18 miles. I thought it was 20 miles when I first ran it this time lat year but I looked like 17 when I measured it with mapmyrun.com and that was what a few other people from the Running club thought it was. However, good as mapmyrun is it's hard to follow footpaths on it. If you use the overhead shots the trees hide the path and the paths are often not marked on the maps.

The run itself went well It too just over 2.5 hours to get to Ely Station and I had no reoccurrence of the calf problem I picked up in the Doyen of the Downs race which had been bugging me over the Christmas holiday, so it seems like the rest over Christmas was good in one way and didn't cause too much loss of fitness.

The route is great and reminds me why I love running, the views in early morning and late evening in the summer are simply mindblowing. You run along the river for most of it as well as proper cross country sections, up hill and down dale (well as far as you can in Cambridgeshire) and out into the wilds of the fens and often get covered in mud. There are so many different types of scenery. It's fairly flat near the end so you can see for miles In fact you can see Ely Cathedral from about four miles away once you get up to the dykes but most of the time you don't see any other people. It's just me and elements (and my iPod). The wind can be really cutting but it usually doesn't bother me too much. I managed to get straight on a train back to Cambridge as well so it was all good. Of course the only problem there is that having run for 2.5 hours the train gets you home in 20 minutes.

The rest of the week went well as well; on Monday I did a 1.5 hour workout in the morning, hours run at lunch and an hours swim in the evening. Tuesday was workout, run, Wednesday, workout, run and swim, Thursday I had a meeting at lunch and the pool is closed in the evening so it was just a workout that day but Friday was workout, run swim again. Today is Saturday which I usually have off so as to be rested for the long run on Sunday. I think it will be another Ely run this week, then another week like the last one. I only hope the pool is a bit warmer next week.