Week ending 15th Jan

What a hard week! Very good though, I believe for the long term improvement of my running.

I did the following this week:

Tuesday - treadmill hill interval session. 20 mins of 1 min flat, 1 min at 8 deg's all at 12k, with a a warm up/warm down total of 5 miles.

Wednesday - 10.25 miles with the fast group in 1h18m. They had to stop for me on the hills and ran away in the last mile, and it was very tough, but a great hard run.

Saturday - Chiltern league cross country at Upton Court Park in Slough. Not a great location but 5.4 hard miles. Ran off to fast trying to keep up, and paid for it by having to hold on and no kick in the second half. I am not used to the shorter distances!

Sunday - 15 miles (supposed to be easy) trail run, but legs felt heavy in the last 5 miles.

Total of 35.65 miles. 5 in the mizuno's, 10.25 in the Innov8's, and 20.4 in the sic fuji's.

I am moving house next week, so will miss the first 3 days and will run a lesser effort/milage week, hence the hard efforts this week. I am tired and stiff this evening.

I am enjoying the shorter run's and hope they will improve my half marathon times later in the marathon training cycle.

8th January 2012 - the blog is back

After a long period of poor effort I have been running hard since early December and have had a couple of excellent improvements in the shorter distance I run efforts considering the apathy I had felt towards my running (I had still been running circa 25-30 miles per week). I ran the Regents Park 10k in London this morning and finished in 39.50 in a very consistent effort level for a 3 loop course which beat my target of 40 minutes. This was my first ever 10k.

I weighed 12st 3.75 pounds at the beginning of this week and weigh almost a stone more than marathon time last year. With some faster efforts such as club based cross country - starting next weekend and increased milage including regular 15 mile plus longer efforts I hope to get the weight off quickly. Also cutting on chocolate and fizzy pop will help too.

I am now running the Milton Keynes Marathon on Sunday 29th April after failing to get into London. I want to hit 3.15 as my B target, and a good for age sub 3.10 for my A target.

I will run club based cross country and off road championship races, plus some road half marathon's and a lot more 18-22 mile runs to ensure my speed and endurance are better this time.

I will put together a training plan this week and start monitoring the runs and the shoe wear I get too.

Here's to a great running 2012!