After a month or so running with the new shoes and new in-soles, painful feet and blisters forced me to re-assess.  A quick trip back to the physio, who just said the shoes are too loose and then a few more runs with them tied up better, but still not good.  Back to good old Sweatshop in Teddington today and with their fantastic 30 day returns on shoes (after you’ve tried them as much as you want).  A long chat with one of the guys there and trying on new shoes, and back to Brooks, that just feel far far better on my feet – it’s so comfortable when you put your feet in them.  And then a chat about marathons and the guy serving me (Tim) being very modest about his own one-time marathon run of 2 hours 35 minutes!  Awesomeness right in front of me.  That’s 26.2 miles at less than 6 minutes per mile.  Unbelievable.  Now I’m listening even more to this guy – some good training tips as well from him (including doing speed running as I’ve been doing).  Then a suggestion from Tim on looking at lighter shoes – as well – to use for actually running the marathon in.  Something I’d never thought of.  Tried on a pair of bright yellow Adidas Adizero ones – and you can’t feel these shoes on your feet.  So nice.  Plan is to do the longer pace runs in these ones.

A very productive trip to Sweatshop and thanks to their 30 day guarantee and great service, I got better shoes, another pair (some more socks) and paid more money but all happy.

4 good runs this week.  8 miles to start and then 9 miles the next day (at a faster pace) and then 10 the next (slightly slower).  Really enjoying the 10 mile distance as well.  And then a 4.5 miler on Saturday with first 5km fast (not as fast as recently though – being about -5 degrees C didn’t help).  3 planned this week with an 18 miler long one.