My cousin posted this to Facebook a year or so ago and it always makes me laugh. This week however it’s not so funny.

I’ve been having what feels like a really annoying couple of weeks running wise.

Partly this is because work got even busier than usual. In order to fit in all my different sessions at various times of the day in various places, I have to be quite organised about bringing my laptop, kit or work clothes in or out from the office on the right days. It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare at times. This week has involved a lot of off-site meetings and whole days away from my normal office, and it’s thrown my system out of whack. Honestly if I can crack this over the next few weeks I should be running UPS.

It is also, if you’ll pardon, pretty bloody hot this week in old London town. The start of the week was in the low 30’s (just nudging the 90’s for anyone playing along Stateside) and it’s not much cooler now.

Us Brits are just not built for this sort of heat. We get no practice at it, and we don’t know how to deal with it at all. We can’t sleep (air con in the home is not a thing here). There have been men on the Tube without tops on (unacceptable – I don’t care how hot it is, put some damn clothes on). Ladies in questionably see-through linen outfits with insufficient underwear (seriously people, mirrors). Ice cream being brought into the office (but none for me, the bastards). Oh, and one topless youth in the park on Tuesday who may or may not have been attempting to flash me. We’ve all gone mad!

I had a catch up with my coach last night and was surprised to see that actually I am pretty much hitting my sessions. We have moved a few things around but I have done all my long runs, plenty of tempo and technique work, and really the only thing missing has been hills.

So what’s the matter with me? I feel completely slumped, lethargic and crap. And the Gollum conversation seems to be going through my head on a daily basis, except without the raining bit. It’s been ages since I had this sort of loss of mojo and I don’t like it one bit!

I’m hoping it’s just the heat and that I can pull my compression socks up and get on with it once it cools down a bit. I need to keep reminding myself that I am training for the New York City Marathon and that’s a huge, very cool deal.

For the moment my get up and go very much seems to have got up and gone. Hopefully my race pace 8 miler this evening can help me chase it down and catch it up!