Easy Monday and new shoes

No stress. Just a pair of running shorts, a couple of long-sleeved tops to keep warm and a buff to keep my throat covered and stop me from catching a cold. The last week of marathon training is not stressful in terms of running expectations as all the hard work is over. It's in the bag, under the belt. No the real worries are elsewhere.

Both Laurence and my main concerns now, and they are shared by all our marathon-running colleagues, is avoiding catching a virus that incapacitates us this weekend. We take extra precautions to stay well away from our virus-coughing eldest son, we avoid contact with any surfaces that he approaches and we make sure we take our vitamin supplements. We have become insufferable. We watched 'Contagion' just over a week ago and if we were bad previously, we became almost paranoid after this film. The manner in which a virus can spread is almost infinitessimal. Scary.

I went out into the cold, anaesthetised pre-dawn air and sucked it into my lungs as I warmed up down towards the river. I daydreamed from the start as I had no objective, if only to make it round the usual 13 km circuit through Maisons Laffitte. I started slowly and gradually built up speed until I was running at around 4'30 pace. I was wearing my new Nike Pegasus 28 bought this weekend in Decathlon for €70.

I have to admit that my feelings about this shoe are mixed. First impression is very comfortable. The insole is well cushioned and hugs the foot well. This feeling of comfort, however, is then overridden when you begin to run by a lack of dynamism in the shoe. I had the same sensation with the Lunarglide which I only wore 3 times before abandoning. Admittedly, this shoe is a vast improvement on them but still not my favourite. The Saucony Kinvara has a far more dynamic feel, whether this is due to the lightweight nature of the shoe I'm not sure. It just feels right.

So, I spent the first half of the run blaming my shoe for my relative lack of speed. Then I relaxed after 6 kilometres, having arrived in the park and I sped up naturally and decided the shoe probably wasn't to blame after all. They were all right and I completed my run in a better mood and happy to have been out.

12.8km all up in 57:25 or an average pace of 4:29 / km. Arrived back in time to the smell of fresh bread from the bread machine and a lovely granary loaf that I prepared last night. No foreign germs guaranteed in this loaf.