Thursday – Today was a nice easy day to recover from the workout that I had yesterday. I ran with the guys at the bagel run for an hour and then headed home to have breakfast and get started on work that I needed to get finished for tomorrow. I started to do some work but got tired so I went to bed and had a good nap. I got the rest of the work finished once I woke up and was about to head down to the YMCA to meet the guys for a run when Greg arrived at my door with a spare bed he was giving me (everyone who is staying with us before the wedding now has a bed!). This meant that the core workout had finished a little early and the guys would have left for the run already so we unloaded the dismantled bed into the garage and I waited another hour or so to get my run in. I ended up running my usual 6-mile loop from the house to Buffalo Park again and then ran a hot bath so I could put some Epsom salts in a have a nice soak. My legs didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as they did earlier on in the year (in my build up to the London marathon) when I had done the 16*400m workout so I was pleased about that. That hopefully means that I won’t have sore legs for my race on Sunday. Julie came home and made a nice dinner of pork tenderloin with broccoli and cous cous for dinner and then we just sat in front of the TV and vegged out for the rest of the night as I was feeling pretty tired and just wanted to put my feet up.

Friday – I ran with Mike this morning out at E3 again (he had never been there) and it was just what I needed. We just talked and ran as it drizzled down on us and I had a good time catching up with him and all his news. Once I got home and had breakfast, I headed over to Julie’s work with a cake that we made for everyone to say thank you for the party they gave us on Saturday night. I went dressed in the tartan knickerbockers, hat and bowtie that they had given me as a joke. I felt like an idiot walking through the building wearing all that stuff but it got the desired effect when everyone saw it. I caught Julie quickly to say goodbye as I wouldn’t see her again until Tuesday when I got back to the Flagstaff. I headed back and tried to have a nap as usual but was just lying in bed forcing it so I ended up just getting up and packing my bag for my trip. I decided to just get on the road and head down to Phoenix so I could get another run in before I left. The drive was pretty quick except once I hit Phoenix as it was rush hour and there was an accident on the road so that really slowed me down. I still got there in plenty of time and headed straight out the door to run for 5 miles before coming back to a nice dinner with Julie’s parents and then heading off to the airport. It was a direct flight to London and I had managed to book an exit row seat so I knew I would be comfortable and hopefully get some sleep over night. I watched a film and then attempted to start another one but fell right asleep once it started. I got around 4 hours sleep which was pretty good for me.

Saturday – I arrived into Heathrow at 1pm and was picked up by one of the Great Run drivers to take me down to Portsmouth. I stopped at M&S to grab some food and then we were off. I ate in the car and then fell asleep for the rest of the journey. Once we got to the hotel I went straight to my room and got changed for a run. My stomach wasn’t feeling great as I still had a lot of food sitting in it and my legs were stiff from sitting for the last 11 hours. This forced me to go really slowly and take about 40 minutes for my 5 miles run. I felt better once I had finished and got my strides, drills and stretches done. Once I was showered and changed, I headed down to the athlete meeting where we were briefed about what the procedure for the next day would be and then ate dinner. They were showing footage of the previous years race so I tried to get some hints of what the course was like. After this I just headed up to the room and both Stuart Stokes and I got ready for an early night as we were both tired. I fell asleep while we were watching TV so I turned it off to settle in a have a good long sleep. That was the plan anyway. I was now wide-awake and couldn’t get my mind to stop racing. I decided the best thing was to get up and head downstairs with my book and phone. I called Julie and we chatted for a little while before I started to read my book. I started to feel a little tired so I headed back to the room around 1am and settled back into bed. Half an hour later I was still nowhere near sleeping so I grabbed my computer and watched a film to see if that would help. I watched the whole thing and then finally around 4am fell asleep. Our alarm was set for 6.45am so I set another one for 7.45am so I could get a little extra sleep as the race wasn’t until 10.55am.

Sunday – Once I woke up I went straight down to breakfast to have some coffee and toast and wake up a little. I finished that pretty quickly so I went back to the room to pack my bag and get everything ready for the race. At 9am we all walked over to the elite tent which was freezing as it was just a tent at a castle by the sea. They had 2 tiny space heaters which did nothing for the level of heat in the area but I wasn’t too bothered as I would be warming up fairly soon. I actually ended up running the mile back to the hotel as I had forgotten my new nose strip that I wanted to try out (it has a new configuration of strips to open up the nose more) and then running back again for my warm up. I did a lot of drills as I knew that my legs really needed to be woken up before I did any strides. With 15 minutes to go to the start we all headed over to the start line and got our final strides and warm ups finished and then lined up. I took myself to the side to sit down and get my head ready for the race. I told myself not to give have any “outs” during the race (meaning never giving myself the option of slowing down) and to feel strong. I thought about how this was the last time I would think about the lack of sleep and how tired I was so it wouldn’t cross my mind during the race. I then said a little prayer and lined up. I was announced to the crowd which is always nice as you get a little buzz with everyone clapping for you right before you start.

When the gun went off, so did the Kenyans. There was no way of running with them as they went off really hard so a group of 8 of us settled into a good rhythm for the first few miles. I was conscious of doing as little as possible for the first half of the race so I stayed at the back of the pack but just after 4 miles, Scott Overall decided to make a break so I had to work really hard to get up to him and get away from the others. There were a few good runners in the pack including the European marathon champion, European 10km bronze medallist and Gunther Weidlinger, one of the most versatile runners in Europe having run 3.35 for 1500m and 2.10 for the marathon. I wanted to try and run hard over the last 5 miles but Scott was staying really strong and making it very hard for me to even get up on his shoulder. I just kept telling myself to stay strong as I needed a good effort today as part of my marathon training. At about 7.5 miles Scott started to move away from me and I thought that he was going to run away but as we came to the end of a long straight I worked really hard to get up to him again as I didn’t want to run solo for the last couple of miles. As we hit the 8 mile mark he moved to the side to let me pass but he was running too fast and I was already doing everything just to stick with him so I remained behind him on the long straight to the finish. I knew I would get to the finish in a reasonable time if I just stuck with him and it became a lot easier once we hit the 15km mark as there was less than 3 minutes of running left. As we hit the last 300m, Scott took off and beat me by 6 seconds…and he fully deserved it. He had run really strongly for the entire race and I had run behind him for the whole time. I like to help out in races but today he just made it too tough for me so hopefully he has a really great season now as he has a great base to work from. I finished in 47.41which initially I wasn’t pleased with as its not very fast, but once I sat down, caught my breath and thought about everything, I was ok with it. I purposely didn’t start my watch as I didn’t want to get caught up in splits during the race and wanted to race instead of time trialling. I had had 8 hours of sleep over the past 2 nights and run 120 miles for the week so to run 47.41 was fine. I became more and more pleased with that as the day went on. I would use this as a jumping point for my last 6 weeks of training before Fukuoka. I was called in for drug testing so I quickly got changed, signed some papers and warmed down for 20 minutes on a 100m straight of pavement where the tester could watch me (you aren’t allowed out of eye sight once you a collared for testing). Once we got to the testing room I got my rope out and stretched for a while until I could produce a sample. I was actually able to go pretty quickly and was marshalled by a former member of my running club who used to live just 10 minutes from where I grew up. Once I was finished I grabbed some food and then headed back to the hotel where I lay down to watch “The Hangover” and before I knew it I was being woken by the closing credits. The nap really refreshed me and I watched TV for a little while before heading out for a 5 mile jog to ease my legs out a bit. My calves were really tight but the run really helped with loosening them off. I got back and had a hot bath before heading down to dinner and stuffing myself on the buffet. I was pretty quiet during dinner as I was getting really sleepy so headed I off to bed pretty early and had a great nights sleep.

Monday – I got a really good sleep in last night and woke up around 7.30am feeling so much better than I did yesterday morning. I made myself some coffee and had a PowerBar before heading out and going for an easy hour run. It was a crisp morning and the sun was rising in the direction I was running so that made it a very enjoyable run. My whole body felt strange for the first 20 minutes for some reason and then I got a nose bleed so I stopped at some toilets and waited for the blood to stop. Once I got back on the road I felt a lot better but still kept the pace very slow. I was just going to stop at 40 minutes but there were some nice grass fields in front of the hotel so I continued on for another 20 minutes. Once I got back, I headed straight to breakfast and filled up on a full English breakfast. I was quickly reminded why I don’t eat a lot of greasy food as my stomach wasn’t feeling too hot afterwards. I went back up stairs to have a shower and packed my bag as I would be leaving in 20 minutes. The top of my nose was bleeding once I came out of the shower as I had peeled off some skin the day before when removing my nose strip. That’s a good sign that the new strips will stay in place as I had to peel off the last one I used during the Great North Run as one side had come unstuck. I headed downstairs to the lobby and the driver was waiting for me already. I felt pretty sick during the ride to the airport so I grabbed my pillow and tried to sleep instead.

The airport was a pretty simple process and I got through quickly as I didn’t have any luggage to check. I bought the usual bagful of Cadbury’s for Julie and her mum and then headed off to the gate. 10 hours of sitting still and watching films, I arrived in Phoenix and Julie’s mum picked me up from the airport. I had every intention of running but once we arrived at the house, I realized how tired I was so grabbed some food and headed straight to be.