November

168 days until the Boston Marathon.

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I've spent the whole year training for marathons, and so now I'm at a bit of a loose end running-wise.

I began my 20 or so weeks of training for the Edinburgh Marathon the week before Christmas last year. The race was at the end of May, and two days after I started my first of 19 weeks of training for the Loch Ness Marathon. Towards the end of my training for Loch Ness, I was a little consumed by my training, and was trying to get out six times a week.

Now that Loch Ness has come and gone, I'm back to base training I suppose. However, I'm missing the clarity of purpose that a training schedule provides. It was satisfying to enter each of my runs into the interactive RunWell site of the New York Times.

So, last week was comprised of four runs, of 4, 6, 10, and 8 miles, for and a total of 28 miles.

I think that for Boston I will go with the New York City Marathon Official Program, which served me well for the Loch Ness Marathon. In it, I don't start ramping up the miles beyond a baseline of 31 miles per week until late December.

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The leaves on the large Sycamore tree in our garden are really dropping now. The sun is noticeably lower during the day now, the shadows are longer, and the light is different.

The clocks were set back this weekend in the United Kingdom, and tonight, for the first time, it was dark when I picked up my children from their after-school club. It was pouring rain and cold; November is here.