I took Thursday as my recovery day as I knew I would need it after the pounding my legs took the day before. I headed down to the bagel run at 8am and we ran 10 miles nice and easy along the urban trails. It was good to just chat and relax and run slowly. We did get a little amusement when about 30 seconds into the run, a cyclist, who was carrying a tray of brownies, braked too hard with her front brake and she went flying over the handle bars. Miraculously the brownies were safe even though she had done an attempt at a superman onto the road. She was fine but a little embarrassed to say the least.

I had a nice big breakfast when I got home and tucked up in bed for a few hours before heading out the door again to do some core with the training group down at the YMCA (a 10 minute walk down the hill from my house). Its a lot more fun doing it in a group than on my own and its very laid back. Once we were finished we went for another easy run along some flat trails (the guys stopped at 30 minutes and I continued on for another half an hour). Julie got back not long after I did so she decided to make dinner for the night. We had some crock pot chicken (that she had put on in the morning) with some pearl cous cous with some beets and carrots. It turned out really well.

On the racing front, I got an email in the morning from my agent, Jurrie, saying that the guys at Nova had contacted him about me racing the Great South Run next weekend. He wanted to see what I thought about it so I talked to Greg and we decided I should run the race. It fits in well with the training as I would have a 25km tempo run that day anyway and it was a good opportunity to get in a competitive race. It will be a very short trip for me though...arrive on Saturday afternoon, race Sunday, and then fly back on Monday afternoon. It works out well with my training also as I can get a run in on the Monday morning and not miss marathon training. I also don't have to change any of the training leading up to it and will just take a couple of easy days before the race.

Friday morning we met out at Cheshire for the run and headed out the very steep hill that leads to a mesa with lots of trails on it. I was doing 85 mins and Brett was running 90 mins so it was good to have someone for the entire run. I felt pretty good and totally recovered from Wednesday so hopefully thats a good sign that my strength levels are improving with the marathon training. A couple of weeks ago my psoas was a little tender on my runs and would occasionally give out on me and I could feel it again today. I iced it once I got home and stretched it to try and ease it off a little.

Once I had taken a short nap, I headed downtown to meet my friend Martin for a coffee and get some work done. I managed to crank out a few training programs and answered some emails before Martin came and then we just relaxed and talked about running for a while. I headed back up the road around 4pm and started to clean the house while I was waiting to go for my second run. I wanted to run at 5.30 as we were going for dinner at 7pm and that would mean that I could keep the wait between running and eating to a minimum. I was going to do a trail loop that usually takes an hour but I could feel my psoas again so decided to stay near to the house so that if it did get any worse and I had to stop, I could just walk back and not be stuck out in the woods. I stopped at 46 minutes as I didn't want to make it any worse.

I quickly showered and changed and then did something that no guy ever likes to do. I put and ice pack down my boxer shorts to try and help the psoas. Its ok once its down there but its that initial placing of ice anywhere near the groin area that is frightening and very unpleasant. luckily we had to leave pretty soon afterwards and we headed downtown to grab dinner with Julie's family. We had a nice night telling some good stories and we all had a lot of fun. We headed home around 9.30pm and watched the most recent episode of 'It's always sunny in Philadelphia' before heading to bed.