Greek holidays, hot sun and a new running venue

Just back from 2 weeks' holiday on the beautiful Greek island of Samos, where the temperature started high and got higher, reaching 39 degrees at one point. So a good time to enjoy the delicious food, relaxation at the beach, floating and swimming in the Aegean and the hotel pool, and a bit of sightseeing around the island.

The temperature meant it wasn't great weather for running, and I originally didn't plan to do any at all, but we took our shoes and shorts along on the offchance and in the end we did 4 short runs, 2 at either end of the holiday when the temperatures were marginally cooler.

Running at a leisurely pace and in the early morning also helped, and running along a beautiful coastline with the prospect of fresh fruit, Greek yoghurt and honey for breakfast was a nice reward for toiling up the hills in the heat.

So around 12 unexpected Greek miles to add to the June miles total - which I'd expected to be rather modest due to the holidays.

Back home and the weather in the UK is pretty hot too, albeit not quite in the same league as Greece. Since getting back I've managed a couple of trips to Dulwich, doing 5 and 4 miles, and also a visit to Fairlands Valley Park in Stevenage, a nice park with lots of scope for long runs alongside a couple of artificial lakes and through trees. It's a long thin park, split by a road, but a lap of the larger part of the park is around 2.5 miles, so it probably covers a similar area to Greenwich Park, and it's a lot quieter. There are some gentle hills too, although not quite in the Greenwich league.

But all in all a good venue for running when we visit Hertfordshire. On Saturday I did a couple of big laps and one smaller lap for a total of 5.9 miles. Just over 44 miles so far in June, with my total for the year now at 415 miles.

While I was on holiday I read a really inspiring book: Born to Run by Christopher MacDougall. It's a difficult book to categorise but at its heart the messages are clear: the human species originally survived, and then thrived, as a result of our ability to do endurance running; our bodies are capable of much more than we believe, as long as we eat well (avoiding processed food as much as possible), keep hydrated, and run easy - running is meant to be, and feel like, fun; and modern, expensive running shoes which provide a lot of support and cushioning and promote heel striking rather than forefoot running, actually cause, rather than prevent injury.

It's a book which taught me a lot and I'll be trying to put some of it in action from now on.

Since my last blog entry I've signed up for a few more races: I'm going to do the BUPA London 10000 again, in May 2011; I've signed up for the New Forest Half Marathon on 26th September this year and, next year, I'm going for the big one: 26 miles 385 yards at the Brighton Marathon on Sunday 10th April 2011.

Lots more about those in races in future blog entries....