10 miles done!  After my reality check yesterday I pushed myself to get out there and do something about it.  Its incredible how confidence and belief can drop then rise so soon after.  I wasn't feeling negative yesterday yet managed to convince myself that I wasn't doing enough and this had an adverse affect on me mental as it allowed  negative thoughts to enter my head and question myself.  This I felt actually was a good thing in the end as it made me focus or re-focus on the challenge and what I had actually signed myself up for.  I found this interesting because I had turned a negative moment that made me question myself into a positive that pushed me to do more and get to what I felt was back on track.  So the lesson I learnt from this was to not read too much into day to day feelings and emotions but to keep a log of miles run and a plan for going forward so as have something to follow.  If you veer from the plan briefly you get make up the miles on another day.  So therefore no need to panic and you can use this as the antidote to your doubting as its in black and white in front of you.

I ran an event in 2014 called 'Hell on the Humber' this was a very interesting challenge as the course was literally forward and back over the bridge.  This was 2 miles in both directions running round a traffic cone on the far side for 6 hours non-stop.  Now I was entered into 'the sprint' as I called it whilst there was a 12 hour and a 24 hour event running along side each other.  This was the craziest thing I have seen yet while running in these events as people were just constantly going backwards and forwards and saying hello to each other on each passing.  I found this really hard to run a mile up to the middle of the bridge then down to the cone, turning, then looking up towards the bridge and heading off back up it to get to the other side where I ran through the start gate said hello to all the officials and turned round a ran back across lol!  This was what I did for 6 continuous long torturous hours.  Yet again though, I used this as mental training for other events where the nature of the course is just repeating the route constantly.  This takes its toll and you have to find focus from things other than your environment such as giving yourself small time targets or distance targets or constantly asking questions of yourself.

So how do you train for something like this, well I asked 'Mad Dog' Adam to run with me along the disused railway track from York to Selby.  He agreed, and also brought along his good mate Mike 'The whippet', Mike is a very good runner and unfortunately much quicker than me!  This was going really well, the first half which was approximately 15 miles was great except for when a pesky little bug decided it was going to take a detour and fly into my eye like a red arrow, apart from that I felt great.  Now in theory this run was very straight forward, unfortunately it was exactly that, with it being an old railway line it was dead straight so became the 'Road to Hell!'  After the turn round I was happy to be heading back but this was the point it all started unfolding for poor Mad Dog, his head was losing the battle against his body.  This is when every little thing becomes a very big thing and you just can't see your way past it.  He was all up for stopping and getting a bus, so being the mate I am, I ran on and left him ha ha, yes yes I know not very nice as he is a mate, but guess who kept going and going right to the end barring a few miles of moaning (about 20 to be exact lol) but old Mad Dog himself.  Where was The Whippet whilst all this was going on I hear you say, well true to form about 3 or 4 miles ahead sat with his feet up in a cafe having a quick brew waiting for us!

So todays thoughts or ramblings,  'The mind against the body!'  who shall win, what will give in first, how will you overcome your weaknesses?  For me its easy 'every day's a school day' ha ha.