The key for me is front-loading my day. When I’m training twice a day (which is most of the year apart from when I’m either tapering for, or recovering from, a marathon) my alarm is always set for 5.15am. I’ll have laid out my training clothes the previous night so that as soon as I step out of bed I can put my kit on and sneak out of the house without waking the wife or kids. Our dog always notices me creeping about but even she can`t be bothered to move from her bed at that time! By 5.30am I’ll be a few hundred yards down the road on my first run of the day. I always run slow and easy on a morning for 5 - 6 miles (about 40 minutes) as this helps me to recover from the previous day’s sessions. I have two loops on the country lanes around Hunwick in County Durham that I use for my morning runs and I tend to run these once in each direction on a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. More often than not I don`t bother wearing a watch on these runs and just run to how I’m feeling at the time.
While I work hard and often work longer hours than I’m contracted to do, I’m very fortunate in that my employer operates a flexible working scheme. Provided that I work at least 37 hours a week I can structure my working days however I see fit, and this is a huge benefit when it comes to fitting in my second run of the day. I’ll often do this at lunchtime because it breaks the day up nicely and seems to clear the head after a morning’s work. My lunchtime sessions are often much harder than my easy morning runs and regularly involve running 10+ miles at marathon tempo pace in the hills around Hexham, or a long track session such as 10 - 12 x 1000m on the Wentworth track. If for whatever reason I can`t make it out running at lunchtime then I always make sure I work through my lunch break then leave work quite early so that I can fit training in before I get home, often stopping off en route from Hexham at somewhere like Hamsterley Forest. Either way, the important thing is that by the time I get home on an evening at around 6.30pm I will have completed a full day at work and both of my daily training runs, leaving the rest of the evening free to spend time with the wife and kids.
By 10.30pm it’s time to have a brew in bed while reading whatever book I’m on with at the time. This has to be my favourite time of the day. The ability to lose myself in a book and switch off completely from everything that has happened during the day is wonderful and something that I have always cherished. Then it’s lights out at 11pm so that I can get 6 hours sleep before starting the whole routine again at 5.15am the next morning. Needless to say I never have any problem sleeping!
So overall I’d say everything fits together like clockwork! None of this would be possible without the support of my wife Rebecca however. As any runner with a partner will know, it takes a certain type of person to have the patience to put up with a runner and all of their trials and tribulations. I’m again very fortunate in that respect. The support I get from Rebecca is rarely from the side of the road at races but more a case of indirect support when she is stuck at home for hours on end, looking after two kids on her own while I’m out training, away at races or off coaching others. She’s inevitably looking forward to the day when I decide to wind things down a bit so that I can spend more time with her and the kids, but she has always given me unconditional support since the day we first got together 8 years ago and I count myself incredibly lucky that I found someone who has been willing to do that for me.
Until next time, happy running everyone!