Amphibians and bad calculations

So another 10.1 miles this weekend meaning a socially acceptable 15.8 miles for this week. Clocked 1:28:49 for the 10.1 which is still OK but I was a touch disappointed. I think after last week I expected it to go wonderfully well again and break all records known to man obviously forgetting that I'm a slightly overweight foodie who likes a few too many glasses of wine most of the time. Plus, In my experience, a bad run always follows a good one. That will be my excuse of the day! Write it down and use it as your own.

I set off around 8.30am on Saturday morning safe in the knowledge that at least I wouldn't have a trip to Sainsburys to interupt my run this time. (It should be mentioned at this point that if your delightful and wonderful girlfriend asks you to dinner and also knows that you are running home from work, it's bad form to be asked to stop on the way home to buy ingredients for said dinner.) For the record, the dinner was lovely but that's really not the point. Anyway, I digress.

Back to this weekend's run. I was really intending to take it easy for the first 5 miles like last time but I took it a bit too easy me thinks. A 9:23!!! Ooops. Time to play catch up! Then caught up too much and went backwards and forwards over and under the magic 9 m/m time until 6 miles had gone. By this point I was 32 seconds over where I should have been. Something wasn't right and I'm not just talking about my ability to run. Since sitting down this morning and re-checking my route on runningAHEAD, I've worked out 2 things. Firstly, my 10.1 miles is actualy dead on 10 miles as I now use a tow path which cuts a bit off the route and secondly, I was slightly out with all my mile markers and therefore my spilts were all over the place!! The net effect appears to be that I've run a slightly shorter distance in total and therefore slower BUT my first 6 mile splits were quicker than I though they were. This proves one things and one thing only. I'm very confused! It may be time to become a running geek and invest in a Garmin. I don't tend to need encouragement to spend money on gadgets but with a holiday coming up in April, I will wait until my return I think.

Question: Why did the frog cross the road? No honestly, just near Fulham FC's ground, in the road and not far from the path, a bright yellowy/green and black frog/toad type thing. I know I'm trying to be a 'proper' runner now but this really did take up a lot of the next 8 miles of thought process. Where had he come from? Where had he been? Did he turn up at the wrong weekend as Fulham were playing away? Plus, was he (I'm assuming it was a he anyway, I didn't really check) going to get squished by a runner/cyclist/motorist at some point. He didn't even flinch when I went past!

One last wonderful point to leave you with. I'd like to celebrate my first blister of the new trainers. It's taken a while but it's finally here. Right on the tip of the toe that has the ever-non-growing nail! That in itself is weird. It hasn't grown since I started running in these trainers. I'm not sure if it's in mourning for my previous trainers or whether it's just in protest at my decision to run but whatever it's reasons, it appears to be happy to have it's growth stunted! Actually, maybe it has started smoking....