Day 8.072: 70 mile week day 1: A double

If all goes according to plan I will run 70 miles this week. Of course there is every chance that things will not go according to plan!

A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend at work about marathon training and we were discussing how many miles you had to run to really run a marathon to your potential and he mentioned this: seventy miles a week. It seemed ridiculous at the time - I was peaking my training for my first marathon at around 40 miles in a week and really concentrating on the long runs and getting them up to 20 or more.

Now, in my fourth marathon cycle, 70 miles in a week definitely does not sound crazy - I've got pretty close in the last few weeks and this week my training programme calls for me to hit the number, so I thought I'd share how my week goes - whether it goes right or not.

This picture is from my long run on Saturday - not from today!

So day 1 started at 4:45 am - well, if you count snoozing my alarm as the start of the day. It took until just about 5 am to get up. Exile #3 was due to run the first mile with me, but she emerged from her room to say she was not well, so I set off to run six miles for my first run of the day.

I've never run two runs in a single day. Once, I ran one evening and the following morning, but that is the closest I've come, but the training schedule called for one today, so I thought I would give it a go. So, as soon as I got home from work, I climbed back into my running gear and hit the roads again. It's strange to run in daylight and when it's so busy on the roads when darkness and early-morning twilight have been the whole winter's running environment. Still, it was just a short loop of four miles - easy for me and not too much of a delay for dinner.

And we're done - 10.3 miles in the bank. Tomorrow is the first of two paced workouts. See you then!