Express Yourself - Madonna

'Don't look for second best' - Wright and Bray

Following an eight day rest, I'm now ready to get back in the zone and get running again. It's been a bit of a half-term break from clocking up the miles and one that I believe has done me the world of good...as I feel pretty rested right now, apart from my bad back from laying concrete.

At 52, I'm not as young as I used to be and my tired old bones and muscles definitely need a well earned break every now and again, so hopefully I will be in good shape for my STAGgerthon Marathon tomorrow.

It's more of a ramble than a full on rumble but who cares, as it will be an easy entrée back into 'Coleman-World'.

Are you guilty of not taking a break?

Hooks in You - Marillion

'But now your heartbeat's thumpin' - Hogarth, Helmer, Kelly, Mosley, Rothery & Trewavas. (Saw them in Birmingham in July 1990 and 'Hooks' was the best on the night - Great Gig)...

My Heartbeat was really thumpin' last night on a speedy 10km up to Llanishen, which is north of Cardiff from our home in Canton. The beauty, if you can call it that, is the constant and in places quite severe incline of the route.

The interesting part for me is as one's legs get more fatigued by time and distance, the gradient increases which gives the run an evil and bizarre twist and makes it difficult to maintain a sub 9 min pace (but I did!!!). Looking at my run here you can see that for the last 20 minutes my HR was 161bpm+...Yep, flat out. No wonder I was speechless at the end, I actually lost the ability to swallow?

All very good, but what's the point? Well I'm doing a couple of days a week now of double day running, easy am hard pm to see if a) my old body can cope with the workload and b) to see if I can dramatically improve my speed over 42.2kms, and if this doesn't all kill me then hopefully it will.

I've got the Flete Marathon on Sunday, which I really enjoyed last year and I'm now tapering for that and it will be interesting to see how much 'Gas is in left the Tank'...

I feel fine and not hurty today so maybe I'm getting used to the new stresses on my body...

Hmmm, we'll see! - more tomorrow.

Definitive Gaze - Magazine

'I've got this bird's eye view, and it's in my brain. Clarity has reared it's ugly head again'. - Devoto & McGeoch (not Mick!, although that would be REALLY cool).

Yep, it's plainly clear what I have to do to get myself in peak condition for September. And there's a lot of work for me to do to get me feeling 100% about myself as yesterday's gym session proves. My Pectorals are KILLING ME today!...It does make you wonder where all this fitness you get goes!

I did take lots of encouragement however from my client Alan Treharne this morning who is climbing his own fitness mountain in the same time-span and his fresh outlook on life really hammered it home to me. We can both do it!

Enthusiasm is infectious you know...might be worth you catching some...

Avalon - Roxy Music

'When the samba takes you, out of nowhere and the background's fading, out of focus.' - Ferry

Can't go wrong with a bit of 'Roxy' and it's ages since I heard this 1982 offering from the old Bryan 'Swivel-Lips' Ferrymaster himself. It helped brighten up a three mile out-and-back to Fairwater and an hour on the treadmill later on this afternoon.

Following yesterday's eight ascents of Leckwith Hill, it felt very easy to trot along at an easy 9 minute mile pace. The run highlighted that I tend to speed up as the miles go by and I had intended it to be more of a steady recovery run rather than one where it had the attributes of a rising half's session.

With this in mind, my afternoon session gave me the opportunity of a more scientific run with the hours treadmill pace set at a constant but SLOW 8 kph. The effect on my Heart-Rate was most interesting and never rose above 120 bpm, in fact going down during the last 10 minutes which makes me wonder just how long I can keep it that way. Not the most exciting of sessions BUT a good start on the next few months of training.

More tomorrow...

Incommunicado - Marillion

Sometimes it seems like I've been here before, when I hear opportunity kicking in my door. Call it synchronicity call it deja vu, I just put my faith in destiny - it's the way that I choose.' - Marillion

Oh dear it was a training session back on Leckwith Hill today and I say 'Oh dear' as I died after the fifth rep seeing my heart-rate hit a rather fruity 170 bpm. I thought it was going very nicely for the first couple of ascents but obviously I paid for last weeks exertions, today.

It was a good start though and I'm more than pleased with this 'line in the sand' as it can only get better from here in my 2014 Summer Hill Rep Campaign.

I now feel ready to ask my regular hill-repper Nathan Williams to come and play or anyone else out there who wants to feel the pain of 'Leckwith Hill'.

You know you want to...and more tomorrow.

Love can build a bridge - The Judds

'I'd gladly walk across the desert' - Judd, Jarvis & Overstreet

I gladly RAN across the Old Severn Bridge today, with gusto too averaging 7.51 min/miles for my 4.51 mile out and back effort. There's something quite magic about running high up above the Severn Estuary and at 27 degrees it was ideal running weather too.

Considering I ran 26.2 miles yesterday, today's tempo run was really encouraging and it shows that my endurance is improving. I did throw up at the end of my run which shows just how much effort I'm putting in right now!

You never know...I might get close to my 3.30 goal at this rate :-)

Echo Beach - Martha and the Muffins

'I know it's out of fashion. And a trifle uncool. But I can't help it. I'm a romantic fool' - Gane

Good job Martha wasn't down at our beach today as she would have been disgusted with all of the McDonalds wrappers that MdS hopeful Craig Barnshaw and I picked up along a nine mile stretch of the Wales Coastal Path. The best bit is that we were alerted to the clean up by @keep_wales_tidy who were outside the Dr Who Centre who are sponsored by....yes you guessed it MCDONALDS!!!

I would estimate that half of the litter we saw was from McDonalds and I know it's not their fault that folk just chuck it out of their car windows BUT there must be a better way of serving up the food than a load of brightly coloured logo'ed litter.

Education would be a great way forwards perhaps and folk should take their own container OR Mcdonalds could charge for it.

Any ideas? How self righteous am I?