My target time is in doubt again. Just what should I be aiming for? A few people have been leaving comments saying that I am doing so well to have my long run up to the distance that I do so early on in my training. Well maybe, but the real reason is the Swedish winter, Snow and ice wouldn't have made for very interesting 20 milers come February. They might have even have been impossible. Best to get the long runs in early and hope to hang on to as much fitness as I could while the Swedish winter had its fun.

That would have been all well and good any other year but not 2005. Has anyone seen a Swedish winter wandering around looking lost as it certainly isn't here. There should be piles of snow lining the roads and a cm or two of crunch beneath your feet on the paths. Not a bit of it. A few piles that have been bullbozed here and there but not much else. So there's a cling film layer of ice most of the time but then threes the gravel that has been put down to provide grip. So there's n real problem there and together with the icebugs it seems to be full steam ahead towards London. I am going to be able to get in much more training than I ever thought possible.

Then on Sunday I ran my first 20 miler. I had run the entire route before as I had added together sections of my regular loops to form one long run. I hadn't however run them in the order I did on Sunday so I was able to judge my pace by regular landmarks and make adjustments as necessary. I didn't think I was pushing that hard, just concentrating on getting the section that I was on at that moment completed and hoping that the extra distance at the end wouldn't be too painful. My only real aim was to make it around. So why, or maybe the real question is how, did I end up running at the same pace I would have for a 10km run? And seeing as it really wasn't
that bad at the end, how much longer could I have kept the same pace for?

Even though its totally irrelevant I plugged the data into a race predictor. Based on the 20 miles run with a 5 percent allowance for slowing on the final 6 miles I should be able to come home in just under 4 hours. If I "could" do that now a sub 3:45 in April looks a rather weak target. Maybe a 3:30 is a better aim? On the other hand I don't want to start out to hard in April and end up missing the lesser target of 3:45 as well.

Its probably far too early to be thinking about race day pace anyway at the moment. Not worth getting anyones nickers in a twist over. Something to mull over and at least the dilemma is because I am considering that I might be able to achieve more than I had rather than the depressing thought of being slower. The end of March will be the time for the real decisions but that I don't suppose that will stop me pondering over them now all the same.