Janathon is clawing at the last few tattered scraps of my dignity. I’m not averse to nipping into town or wherever dressed in my running kit, but it felt a bit weird doing a full weekly shop round Tesco. Weird or not, the only way that I was going to avoid a Janathon fail was running home from the supermarket (while Ginge drove past me with all the shopping) so run home from the supermarket I did.

In all honesty, if it wasn’t for Janathon I wouldn’t have run today. If it wasn’t for Janathon, I would have just wanted to get the shopping done, have tea and hunker down for the evening. If it wasn’t for Janathon, I wouldn’t have had to run a miserable route (it’s along a bypass – what it bypasses isn’t particularly interesting, but is better than industrial estate to the right, housing estate to the left). If it wasn’t for Janathon, I wouldn’t have had really achy calves and Achilles that complained on every rise of the undulating path. If it wasn’t for Janathon, I wouldn’t have surprised myself by positive self-talking myself up the last incline despite wanting to give up (and I couldn’t give up and lose face after overtaking a man who took up the entire pavement, just by walking).

And if it wasn’t for Janathon, I wouldn’t have realised that my Shuffle seems to know just what I need, giving me Don’t Worry, Be Happy for the penultimate quarter of a mile.

Day 24/31 –3 miles

Ferrero rochers burned