I'M in pain today. Last week's training was a bit curtailed by work and feeling more than a little under the weather (experience has taught me that trying to stick to the schedule when you feel unwell is a VERY BAD IDEA).

So to make up for (and because it was on the training schedule) I thought I'd do Sunday's run at racing pace.

I may have mentioned that it's quite undulating round my way (here's a graph so you can see what I mean...)

Bournemouth Echo: altitude graph

That's the loop I've been running round - each extra standard loop gives me an extra 4.5 miles.

Anyway. The schedule called for a race of anything from a 10k to a half marathon. I settled on 10 miles, which is quite light for this stage in the game but I wanted to see how fast I could manage it. (I did the Great South Run in 1.25 in October so I was aiming for better.) To my amazement, I managed a pretty consistent 8.3min mile despite the terrain.

All of which meant I felt pretty happy last night. (Until I did some quick calculations and realised that if I want to do less than 3.45 for the marathon itself I'll have to run at roughly that speed for most of the way.)

And blimey am I paying for it today. My legs HURT. I know I said that I enjoyed the aches and pain, but to be honest when I wrote that I wasn't suffering.

So it's homeward for some stretching and some deep heat and fingers crossed I'll be refreshed enough for tomorrow's 'sprints'.

We shall see.

I'm running for Help the Hospices and Anthony Nolan. You can donate by clicking the logo here.