12 weeks to Edinburgh; 14 weeks to Manchester Run

Monday: A disasterous start to the week. The school mid term holidays mean my daughter is home this week, so I dropped my son at nursery, and went to the park with my daughter, with a plan in mind. However, I could not run around the play area, I would not have been able to see my daughter properly and there were odd characters hanging around the area. After playing with her, I tried to get some very slow running in, but it was far too slow, slower than walking at points, and my daughter dragged her feet moodily. I timed 15mins but I didn't break out into a sweat or feel tired, I had not gone fast enough for that. Frustrated, I picked my son from nursery only to be told there had been a mix-up and he was also on holiday this week. Training with one child had been impossible, with two, I may as well give up this week, I thought. Such a wasted session ruined my mood all day. After much deep thinking, I have decided to try and run very early in the mornings this week, when the kids are in bed, or at least under their father's care. What I can try and learn from today's awful experience is to try and plan better when the kids are home from nursery and school. I feel I need to be training harder now at this point and a day like today is demoralising. I overindulged with food over the weekend when I had staying guests, and I feel the need to burn it off, and get back to my healthy eating plan. The frustration that comes from not running well is unexpected for me, there was a time I would have relished taking things easy in terms of exercise. But I have lost no weight at all lately, rather, the scales are tipping back up the way, which is annoying when I feel I have tried so hard to run more than is expected of me in the training plan. Tomorrow, fingers crossed I can drag myself out of bed so early for the park, and may the weather be kind.