I managed a second run between dragged around the shops during our trip to England. 69 minutes around the winding country lanes taking my total for the last seven days to just under 2 hours. Not the best of weeks but during several months worth of training it is likely that these things will happen. So my running totals were down but that doesn't mean I didn't manage to achieve some cross training.

There is a thread on the runnersworld forum at the moment rather bizarrely asking if its okay to run with a Swede stuffed down your lyrca shorts? The generally consensus was that it was fine as long as you asked first. Taking a Swede shopping however is not such a good idea. I had to check each day to make sure my wife hadn't been taking my sports drinks before each days outing but it seemed to pure a case of pure naturally ability to shop. Maybe I can log it as endurance training?

Our trip has also brought a new found respect for all of you training in England during the winter. So you don't have the levels of snow or ice that we should have at this time of year but you also seem to be lacking in other departments as well. Street lighting. Maybe I have been spoilt over here. Maybe I am expecting to much from a village, admittedly a large village but still a village. A set of distant glows on the horizon isn't what I have become used to.

Then there are the roads themselves with all the crazy drivers to be found upon them. Narrow little twisty country road with rally drivers tracing along them. We have a special phrase for streches of tarmac like these in Sweden, we call them cycle paths. No matter how erratic your running style becomes you know your greatest danger is that you might just hear a cyclist tutting as they pedal off into the distances. How do you manage to piece together a long run in England avoiding too many hills, mad cyclists, in places where you can actually see where you are going and still run the distance that you had planed? Your all amazing, keep it up, you deserve my awe...