I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there’s no such thing as an easy run. Yes, I was running slower than usual last night and yes, I was running a shorter distance than usual (2 miles) but it’s still running… and running isn’t easy.

The ‘easy run’ also known as a ‘recovery run’ is supposed to help my body recover from the long run and speed work of last week. Quite how running 2 miles will help me recover better than sitting in bed and eating doughnuts would I don’t know – but I made a decision to trust the training plan and do exactly what it says so, last night that’s what I did.

‘It’s just two miles’, I told myself, ‘that’ll be no problem’. Ow, ow, ow it hurt. My legs ached the whole way round as though I was climbing 50 flights of stairs and there were traffic jams that were moving faster than I was. But I did it and I didn’t stop, which made me proud of myself for a little while.

That was before I realised that the words ‘Easy run, 2 miles’ occur every Monday on my training plan. I had thought those were the ‘less challenging’ bits – but instead I’ll be sufferring the same ordeal taht I went through last night every Monday for the next 14 weeks.