The week in running (to 28 Feb '16)

Taking Monday off, and a swim only on Tuesday, turned out to be a good move. I started the week feeling whacked after a busy spell with work and a lingering cold, but the two day running break seemed to be just enough to flip back on to the right edge of the knife, which I seem to spend most of my life negotiating.

I doubled up on Wednesday with an easy 8 in the morning, then the BAC marathon session of 10 x 5mins (1min) in the evening. I was pleased with the outcome of the session with average pace starting at around 5.50m/m and generally getting quicker until a 5.37 final effort, save for a bit of bobbing around in the middle. I ran most of the session alongside Ant Clarke who’s in final preparation for the Anglo Celtic Plate 100km, running for England, at the end of the month. He’s also been doing quite a bit of longer running recently, so we nudged each other on nicely, and got through what felt like a rather protracted set of reps.....

My other pleasing run of the week was a 20miler on Saturday morning, again with Ant, averaging 6.44m/m pace overall, including a Blandford park run ‘effort’ in the middle. I do love those Saturday morning parkrun sandwich sessions – it seems a nice way to add a bit of structure and again get the legs turning over a bit quicker. I hit the hills again on Sunday morning for my usual long-ish run of 21-and-a-bit miles, trudging around the north Dorset hills and villages via Bulbarrow, Overton, Iberton, Hameldon and Hod hills. Lovely, except I felt a bit knackered. I enjoyed the new route though, and nice to run off memory and carrying nothing other than a car key.

So another solid week in the bag, despite only running on 5 days, and it’s now spring. How did that happen? Hopefully the trails will now start to dry out and get a bit quicker, and I’ll be in a position to run them faster. Onwards and upwards…..