The week in running (to 20 Mar '16)

A solid training week – it is nice to be reporting that :o)  

So despite some lingering sinusitis in the early part of the week, I managed to train through without it flaring up again (maybe the antibiotics are working), and it feels like I’ve just about got away with it. Monday to Wednesday involved long days away working in the Midlands and London, but I still managed to get my runs in, and was back in Bournemouth in time (just) to jump on the back of the Bournemouth AC train banging out a marathon session on the prom. It was horrible, I’m not going to lie, with a stiff easterly wind to contend with one way, but I got the session done, albeit not quite as quickly as planned.

I then trained through and toed the line at the New Forest 50km on Saturday morning, a 3 loop trail race around some lovely rolling gravel tracks. This was my substitute for the Hobble which I had to bail on the week before, and I admit to feeling rather blasé and not really up for it on Saturday morning after Thursday and Friday nights out (must be getting old, can’t handle it anymore), but again the machine took over, and I turned out a really pleasing run.

Start of The New Forest 50km (am I asleep?)

I knew a win wouldn’t be realistic given some still competition from Southampton speedster Matthew Bennett (who’s currently in the midst of Comrades training), but my aim was to average sub 7 min/ mile pace, and get round in one piece. The first lap felt a little laboured, and the cold easterly certainly didn’t help the sinuses, but I seemed to feel my way into the race and ran the last lap really strongly, bringing the average pace down from 7.04m/m end of lap 2, to 6.57m/m at the finish. I finished second according to the results, but 3^rd according to my counting, in 3hr 40mins (measured at 31.5miles). Happy days.

So it made for a pleasing 100 mile week, my first in the best part of a year, and some reasonable quality in there too. Hopefully I can maintain that sort of mileage for a couple of weeks, before my taper for the Fling starts in about 3 weeks time.

Kudos must also go to BAC team mate Steve Way who ran 3.55 for 40 miles at the Barry 40 on Sunday, and in doing so achieved a world best (for an old boy) at the distance. Nicely done mate!

The week in running (to 21 Feb '16)

I thought it was about time I penned some running ramblings. Looking back at the blog and seeing the last entry was June 2015 on my Ramsay Round is rather demoralising, so time for a fresh start. I thought a paragraph or two a week would be a good discipline, if nothing else providing a good time to reflect on what I've been up to, which of course largely evolves around running. How long I will last, who knows…

So ignoring the write-off that was the second half of last year (I won’t bore you with the gory details of that), since Christmas I’ve felt on an upward trajectory. I guess if you start somewhere quite bad (i.e. unfit) the gains are going to be regular and significant. And they have! I’ve been building up the miles again, running 6+ days/ week most weeks, and getting in some good regular sessions, plus the odd race. Above all, feeling positive again.

So the aim is to bag a good block of consistency in the build up to the Highland Fling at the end of April, my first ‘A’ race of the year. It’s been quite a while since I set foot on the West Highland Way so a return to the shores of Loch Lomond is an exciting prospect. Prior to, and in the build up to the Fling, I’m running the ‘Hobble’ in mid-March, plus a handful of road races to get some sharpness.

So the routine is going to be 80 odd miles a week consistently until mid-March, then perhaps cranking it up a touch in the final build up to the Fling. Wednesday night I’ll run the marathon sessions with the Bournemouth AC boys down the prom, and get in some 5km parkrun efforts within longer runs on a Saturday morning. Sunday morning will be a long run, on the hills most weeks. So a nice balance of quicker stuff to improve on leg turnover, and endurance built from slogging it out on the hills. Nice. And the biggest challenge as always will be fitting it in around 'life' - the job which calls me away from home quite a bit - and all the other important stuff. More on that as we go along.

Last week I was pleased to nail some good 12 minute efforts (x3) on Wednesday night in horrible weather on the Bournemouth seafront, consistently getting faster from marathon pace, as is my style. In fact if you study my runs on Strava, I find it impossible to run a first mile at anywhere near the average target pace for the run, so always tend to be playing catch up. Most runs turn out to be progressive, which of course is the best way to run an ultra anyway, so I'm not particularly worried :o)

I’ve had a lingering cold which I hoping I’ve just about got through the worst of after 2 weeks. On Saturday morning I ran my quickest parkrun of the year so no impact there, but on Sunday’s long run on the North Dorset hills my body wasn’t overly happy, calling for some back-off – too early in the year to risk over cooking it. So a quiet Monday and possibly Tuesday me thinks.