I had planned on 16 miles, however due to the torrential downpour that came down whilst I was out there I decided to cut the distance down to 14 miles, which is the amount I needed to do to round myself up to 75 miles for the week.
I have honestly never seen the roads as flooded as they were this afternoon - down Blackpool Road and through Newton in particular the entire streets were flowing with minimum ankle deep water!
The weather kind of summed up the conditions that we have had throughout the week on the fylde coast. From the mist and fog on Monday and Tuesday, to the wind and rain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is fair to say that the weather has started to turn and winter is coming fast. I'm already getting sick of the sight of the local bypass as possible routes become few and far between in the dark nights.
The Abbey Dash is fast approaching and this week provided the final full training week in which to build towards getting myself in the best possible shape for the start line.
From here on in it will be reduced mileage and slightly reduced intensity on the faster sessions that I am doing as I kind of taper down ahead of the race.
I was delighted with how this weeks main sessions went, with a quality track session on Tuesday, in which I pushed myself harder than I expected on a solo effort. I completed my 5 miles of work at on average 7 seconds per mile faster than the previous week.
Despite the increased effort on the track, I maintained a pace on the Thursday tempo equal to that of the previous week, which was very pleasing too.
Saturday saw me head off to Barrowford for the latest of the Podium 5k races. This race hopefully provided me with an ideal sharpener before next weeks big race. The weather conditions were pretty poor, as a strong headwind down the final straight and rain falling made for difficult racing.
Early on in the race, it wasn't so bad as I managed to tuck into the middle of a large front pack, which protected me from the worst of the weather. However unfortunately at didn't last for too long as the field got drawn out through the second kilometre. From there on in it became much more difficult to maintain a good pace.
One noticeable aspect of the race was just how many of the top end runners dropped out as the race went on. At least 3 athletes in front of me ducked out early for whatever reason, whether it was through injuries, too quick a pace, or disappointment at being off the time they were looking for I don't know, but I was very surprised to see so many fail to finish.
In the end I managed to come in home in around about 15:27, which although is 13 seconds off PB pace, I was satisfied with in the conditions and gives me some confidence for next weekend. My mile splits for the race were 4:47, 5:00 and 4:55, so perhaps I set off a little fast, but I felt I needed to to try and get into a nice pack.
Finally, I would like to congratulate my mum and dad on their own pb's at Catforth 5k this morning in what I hear were tough conditions. And whilst they were there they took delivery of my new sublimation vest courtesy of Terry Lonergan and his Fastrax team. Hopefully I give it a worthy debut in Leeds in a weeks time.
Here's a sneak peek...
