I’ve checked a few important marathon training sessions of my list in the past week.

Picked up my pasta rewards card.  The best pasta in WC2 is at Caffe Amici on Kingsway. The owner will make fun of your order, chastise you for using cards instead of cash, and engage you in deep philisophical questions while your pasta is being freshly prepared. Inspite of all this, he makes the best seafood penne pasta I’ve ever had and it’s the perfect Friday lunch to carb up for my marathon training weekend long runs.

Get inspired. On the weekend I ran my regular long run canal route with four great friends.  They got to explore a new part of London, and I got some company on the route that can get a bit bleak after a few weeks of the same. We obviously ran straight to brunch after and had a great meal at the Blue Legume cafe (even though we were seated in the corner with the crying children. Did we smell that bad?)

Do some strength training. When I went to pick up the new drawers from Argos to house my ever growing lycra pile, I didn’t think twice about picking it up and carrying it to the bus and taking it home.  When the Argos man said to me, “You are going to carry this alone?” and gave me the once over I wanted to punch him in the face, but instead walked over to the shelf and picked up the box he was unwiling to, and carried the 25kg out of the store. It wasn’t easy but seeing as I was now literally carrying the weight of feminist rights and gender stereotypes I had to keep going. Once home I put it all together in a few hours too. My weak runner arm DOMS are real today.

I also did my regular Friday lunchtime yoga class for a bit of strength and a bit of reminding my muscles what it is like to do something other than running forward. I ended up dressed like the studio window.

Fuel up.  Betty Crocker sent me a box of cake mixes and icing for Valentines Day and I hadn’t got around to making any due to a strong week of eating various cakes at work. When I got home from my run on Sunday though Alex had whipped up this amazingly delicious Victoria Sponge which was the perfect post-brunch tea & couch treat.

I’m running the London Marathon as a part of the Virgin Money Giving Team. If you are running too remember to set up your #extramile website to keep track of your training.