Moving on up

The house move is over. Hurrah! The new flat is lovely, as is my new flatmate, and I'm very relieved to have the move over and done with. It is quite a novelty not to have to sleep with earplugs in. I have gone from busy A road lined with glass noise-reflecting office blocks, to quiet square with no through traffic. On my first morning I awoke to hear actual birdsong coming from the tree outside my window. Talk about living the dream.

The move itself was all a bit more stressful than anticipated (let's just say the 3 seater sofa currently sitting on the pavement outside my house most definitely doesn't fit through my front door) so I didn't get round to doing my long run until yesterday.

I did 4 miles ish (no internet at home so couldn't map it accurately) in 50 minutes. I ran from home up to Vauxhall tube station then along the river to Battersea Power station, then home via Larkhall Park. I still had to do a fair bit of walking, but it's definitely getting easier. It was lovely and cold. I wore red and pink striped woolly gloves, which had the double effect of looking ridiculous and keeping me too hot. I need to get some proper ones. And some leggings which aren't made of, essentially, plastic, and therefore wick the sweat away from me rather than clingfilming it to my clammy calves.

I went for lunch today with my friend who is a proper runner and is also doing the London marathon next year. I told him about the ankle pain I'm getting a bit on my right hand side, and he said he thinks I'm (a) not stretching enough and (b) doing too much, too soon. This seems a fair comment. I am stretching like an Olympic gymnast after each run, but I think my training plan may be a bit .... ambitious. For this stage in proceedings, anyway.

So I'm going to stick with the long run programme - i.e., going up by 1 mile every Sunday - and will try and maintain two short runs during the week. But I might keep my grand Fartlek interval training plans on hold until a bit further along.