The Monday Debrief

Just an experiment in embedding Strava data in a blogpost. As you were, everyone, as you were.

Good morning runners! Here we are in our shiny new home* and here I am in Portugal. I arrived with the family yesterday after a few days in Sunny Seville. And when I sunny, what I actually mean is "good god I've been in colder saunas than this". Running in the morning was one thing, but even I wasn't quite insane enough to try an evening recovery run when it was still nearing 40 degrees at 9pm. Though I confess I was a bit tempted ... It was brilliant, though, to be back in Seville - where I ran the the marathon in February this year** even it made me realise quite how little of a 26.2 mile course I actually take in when I'm racing. Bits of the city would suddenly look very familiar, though largely in a "Oh yes, that's where I nearly tripped over the tram tracks" way rather than a "Oh yes, I remember admiring the magnificence of the world's largest Gothic cathedral" way. Most of it, though, was a blur. So while back in Spain,

Hello running blog regulars, and welcome to our new home! Sorry, the dust covers are still on and the builders are still making a right mess everywhere and it turns out I forgot to pre-order the new shoe rack for your muddy trainers - mind your feet by the door there - but hopefully we can still find a comfy space to talk about running together. There were many Monday mornings when, having published the blog, I'd get caught up in other work stuff and not have a chance to look back at the comments for ages. Going back in some hours later, it was always amazing how many conversations, race reports, triumphant tales and gloomy reports of injury woes had already started. I know, without me there! I mean, who would have thought it! And as time passed, I probably started to take the cameraderie and support almost for granted. Well, the last few weeks of blogging over at the Guardian certainly stopped that in its tracks. All your stories of support and advice received, laughs had