I’ve finally found a real use for a training diary other than the triuphant feeling that you get when you proudly write down ‘Saturday 3 March – 1 mile, 25 mins’ in biro. Next Sunday is my second 10K, so yesterday (when I should have been running a half marathon) I did a 5-mile run, as that’s what I did the week before the last 10K.

The route took me 48 minutes 33 seconds and was exactly the same route that I did last time. The only difference this time was that I didn’t have my flatmate with me and the competitive streak that kept me going slightly faster than was comfortable for me and (I hoped) far too quick for him to go the full 5 miles. I was right about him – he dropped off after 3.5 miles.

Today I looked over my notes from last year thinking that my time was about the same as last time I ran the 5 miles and feeling a bit disappointed as I’d somehow hoped I’d get a bit better after six months of not running further than 3.5 miles.

The training notes, however, showed me that it took me more than a minute longer to do the same route last year so (and this is the tempting fate bit) hopefully I’m on for beating my 10K time of 57.17 from last year. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed.