Balancing training and a social life is something I’ve never got quite right. I’ve either cut myself off and become a social recluse while I clock up the last months of marathon training, over indulged on a Friday night and barely recovered by the time the long run beckoned on Sunday morning or multi-tasked by running around drinking beer with some hashers.

Other than the time when I danced until 3am in ridiculously high heels that crippled my feet at my best friend’s wedding, fueled by Jaggermeister just a weeks before the Edinburgh Marathon then went sub-4 for the first time – this generally doesn’t work out.

Last week was my birthday and I was being taken for a weekend away to a mystery location. Nice as this sounds it meant planning a 17 mile run for the Saturday was proving tricky. It’s difficult to map out a route when you don’t know where it might start from. So instead I thought it would be a good idea to get all marathon training done and dusted before the weekend commenced at 2pm on Friday.

What happens when you try and cram a week’s worth of training into five days? Well, very little else. Domestic chores, foraging at the local supermarket, talking in full sentences – all things that were off limits last week.

The week culminated in waking up on my actual birthday with a 17 mile run to do in the snow before catching the 2pm train to the weekend. It was freezing outside, snowing and 17 miles was not top of my agenda. But a whole weekend of feeling smug about myself and not having to run was more enticing than any medal – so I headed out there.

My reward was a run full of spectacles to entertain me. Despite the freezing conditions I saw a camel and a tiger as I ran past the fence of London Zoo; in Hyde Park the Household Cavalry were out training their horses to do some dancing; and just yards from my front door I saw a kid walk into a tree.

With very tired legs after five days of back-to-back training I was done. The short sprint through Paddington station to make the train was something I could have done without – but the bottle of Champagne and the run-free weekend in Bath (including leg-revitalising trip to the spa) were very much worth it.