Day 431 - Sundaty 26th February 2012

What a glorious summers day today.  The fact that it’s February doesn’t mean it can’t be summer; it’s sunny, warm, dry and simply beautiful out there.  8.00 am, running shoes firmly tied in place and I was soon the streets, so important to get some miles in now that the marathon is nearly here.  It’s a real balance to try to get enough training in to satisfy the channel swim (being the most important of course) and the marathon (not exactly an easy challenge).  I decided today to go for the enjoyment factor rather than watching distance or time, which is how I expect myself to run the marathon itself.  It’s quite tough as instinctively I want to check both time and distance, but I kept my iphone on silent and hidden away and only checked it when I got home.  

I ran all around Brighton, most of it along the seafront of course.  My god it was beautiful.  The sea was absolutely flat and a kind of sky blue and there was a number of seagulls just hovering around whilst others were simply floating on the sea.  Being still quite early meant that whilst there were a few runners and some early risers looking for coffee and toast, the seafront was relatively quiet.  It made it quite a personal run to be honest, which was a lovely start to the day.  Watching the sea all the way down the seafront made almost desperate to strip off (not in public of course) and head straight down the stone and dive in; it was almost compelling.  I don’t know if I only I get this as a sea swimmer or if other runners feel it as well, but I seriously don’t remember ever feeling like that before I started sea swimming.  There really is something about being in the sea everyday that becomes almost needy about it, almost habit forming, a drug of sorts; very odd, but in a good way.  Maybe all addicts think that!!

Back to the run; 15.93 miles in total (although I think it was a bit more than that as the iphone app does drop off sometimes) and a time of 2 hrs 9 minutes and 48 seconds.

As for the rest of the day; well as a wonderful summers Sunday it will be time with Sharon and the kids outdoors, followed by a yummy Sunday lunch and then a crash into bed before the rubbishness of TV takes hold.