It still seemed a little early on in the autumn for crosscountry in my opinion, and Burnley's Townley Park provided very little in the way of any traditional XC mud, but it did at least prove to be a decent enough course for easing into the winter season.
There will be far tougher courses and conditions to come of course, but it was nice to be back out there and seeing just where I am at early doors in the XC season.
Overall I was satisfied with my effort last Saturday, although I soon regretted leading out for the first mile or so of the race, as I dropped down to 7th momentarily in the second mile before recovering to finish in 4th place after a constant battle for position with Blackburn's Karl Billington throughout.
Training-wise the last two weeks have been satisfying too, as last week I managed to put in 70 miles, and after a good 17 miler today I am on track to record 75+ again this week too.
Tuesday night saw me return to track training, after 4 weeks away for one reason or another. It was hard going getting back to running sub 5 minute miles after such a long break from it, but I was really pleased with my session seen as I was running on my own.
The last two Thursday's have seen me putting in solid 5 mile tempo runs at 5:12 and 5:10 pace respectively, and I am happy with how my training is going ahead of a few big 10k's to come before the end of the year.
This week also saw the 3 year anniversary of my first ever marathon attempt. Looking back on it, it is hard to imagine that it has been that long - it seems to have gone so quickly. That said, three years on and I have now completed 5 of them, so I have been busy!
In another way, I kind of can't believe it has only been 3 years, I have come a long way since the days of training off 30 miles a week, playing football 3 days a week and only putting in one 20 mile long run as preparation!
Needless to say that on my next attempt I will be a little bit more prepared...speaking of which, I am still sticking to the plan of avoiding the marathon in 2016, despite a little wobble during the week which nearly saw me enter Berlin for next autumn! Possibly an idea to revisit for 2017 though, we'll see :)
