Day 19 - more shopping

No running today. After yesterday's exertions a long walk at lunch time and stretching the legs seem as much as I want to endure. I don't feel too bad this morning, but a slight ache in the muscles gives away what I put them through yesterday.

Instead I take myself shopping. Cotton t-shirts and football shorts were fine for starting out, but now I am getting more serious and this means serious gear. I wanted it all - a synthetic, tight weave top that would wick away sweat faster than I could produce it. Compression shorts that would keep muscles warm, injury free and shockingly tight. I restrained from anything more adventurous - the heart rate monitor can wait for another day.

I went to the London Marathon store in Covent Garden and bought three items. In retrospect I am pleased with two, less so with the third. The pleasing items were a blue Ronhill short sleeved running top (silky, wicky and lovely) and a pair of Hilly lite [sic] running socks. I had previously bought some basic running socks, but these are the more specialist kind for longer runs to minimise risk of blisters. They also got highly rated in the Runner's World round up of socks (it is a fascinating world). I appreciate that at the moment I am as highly susceptible to overspending as I am to overtraining - but with good advice from the store and Jarlath I am happy that I am not doing either to excess.

The third item was a pair of LP compression shorts. I had been looking to get some lycra base shorts to wear under plain football shorts (without that ridiculous netting that so many running shorts have and which just seems to chafe me rotten). I looked at Ronhill, but the man said to try out the much cheaper LP shorts first. I asked Jarlath to explain all this afterwards, and I probably should have just got a pair of Skins compression shorts. That said, I will order the Skins online, save as much as the LP ones cost, and then have two pairs, one as a spare pair. So not gutted by this purchase, just not terribly enthused.