Its official winter has arrived with a bang. One of the neighbouring towns, Hedemora received around 50cms of snow just on Thursday! If you think you vaguely reconise the town name it might be because you watched the BBC's "Get a new Life" when a Scottish fireman and his family moved to Sweden. It is his new hometown that had the one powder dumped from above on it, just have to wonder if he is still wandering around in a t-shirt.

luckily it is was just localised and here we received a measly 2cms. It did mean however I had a chance to try out the new icebugs and so far so good. 7kms run and I never felt like I was going to slip or fall. The studs while noticeable were never uncomfortable and my feet felt fine at the end of the run. The real test will come when the snow starts to melt and then refreezes, then the true value of the icebugs will be found out.

Having worked last Sunday, today was given as a day off so I rescheduled my long run for today. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. However despite clear blue skies today's midday sun only managed to "warm" the air to between minus 8 and minus 10 while I was out running. The advice I have heard from the locals is that training is fine as long as the temperature doesn't go below 15 degrees. So there you go, if you are marathon training in England I don't what to hear you moaning it was too cold to go out from a run.

There is no wrong weather just the wrong clothes. Bearing this old saying in mind thermal trousers under my normal tracksuit bottoms, a moisture wicking t-shirt under both a ski-ing polo shirt and tracksuit top and gloves were the order of the day. All topped off with a bobble hat. These hats are probably the most important part of a Swedes running gear. In my wide ranging in-depth study I have noticed that the faster runners all have their bobbles (some even have two) dangled from the top of their hats on a length of wool. My wife brought me a hat with the bobble firmly attached at the hats summit.

The run itself passed without much of notice. At 26kms or 16.25 miles it was one of the longer runs that I have ever attempted. Apart from the last mile where my legs were starting to feel tired I was more than happy with how it went. I think also that may have been partly a mental struggle and my legs were not really as tired as my mind was trying to tell me they were. I kept the pace slow and had an energy gel and a few dried figs to help keep the body willing during the final stages and it seemed to help. I think I still have to work on keeping my pace down a bit during my long runs as it is out of sink with my target marathon time or maybe I should think about re-assessing my target time. It all depends on which way you look at it I suppose. Anyway 2 more days of the week to go and if the planned runs are achieved this will be my highest weekly total to date. The words counting, chickens, and hatched spring to mind but fingers crossed...