Day 17 - Weds 18th January 2012

Miles 7.75 miles; Time 1 hour 02mins; Conditions - night time mild and groovy; weekly miles - 14 miles

A nightime run after an ultra busy long day is sometimes worse than stapling your nuts to a table. Sometimes it's more painful than a Vernon Kay box set and sometimes it's better than anything else in the world you can think of.

Tonight mine was the later. After a day where i enjoyed a rare lie in until 6.30am, a day in the office poncing around in 3 piece suit and a comedy writing course in the evening that seemed to bring up all my defects of character against an egotistic mouthy comedienne (If you spot it you got it Nick) i arrived back at my pals place I'm house sitting for 3 days (£3million penthouse in Chelsea Harbour overlooking the Thames. Nice!) at 9.30pm hell bent on getting out for a run.

I got out immediately, not allowing myself to procrastinate, and had a superb little 7 mile run. It was really mild, the cold seems to have passed thank god (I really am not a fan of running in the cold) and i set off on a great route. Here it was;

Imperial wharf, Chelsea Embankment, Batersea Bridge, along the river up the embankment, passed the splendid Albert Bridge, now shed of it's scaffolding and sparkling brand new again, past Chelsea Bridge, Vauxhall Bridge, The Tate, 2 Henry Moore Sculptures, MI5 building, Lambeth Bridge, Labour Headquarters at Mill bank, up to Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, and then back again. What a route, particularly at night.

Took 15 minutes to warm up, left hip was sore and painful, but felt great between 15-30mins. Then had a dip in energy as hadn't eaten much today and my right Achilles started killing me. I immediately self diagnosed tendinitis and a 6 week recovery period. Amazing really, seeing as i have never studied medicine, but i picked up after 40 Min's and flew back over the last 20 minutes. Felt like a total beast and powered along the Thames, outrunning 2 Police boats in the process. Definitely hit the zone and it was a great moment when your legs don't feel attached to your body, nothing hurts, your head is clear and running is as easy as Katie Price on heat.

I felt great when i got in at 10.30pm and very pleased with myself for getting out. I now see the attraction of late night running by the Thames. With all those landmarks lit up it really is something of a buzz and a true pleasure.

One downside is that my right Achilles is really painful. Iced and stretched it but I'm limping around like an Italian Cruise ship. I hope to god i haven't injured myself. I really do. I was secretly hoping that in my new found commitment and focus that God would look after me and allow me to beast the training without any hiccups. Lets see how it is in the morning.

Up at 5am to train my client. Then it's a 10 mile run, visiting hospitalized friends and prepare and do my comedy night tomorrow night. Today;s entry is not pulling up any trees or offering anything particularly hilarious or enlightening, Just an average day with an above average run and making me appreciate London as a great city and how lucky i am to live in it and the best way to see it is to run at night. Try it, you may like it!

Nn
xx