Into the cold

Unfortunately this week's main event was called off once again due to poor weather conditions. This time the reasons being the cold snap that hit the north over Saturday night.

I had been due to run the Inskip half marathon, however after heavy snow through Saturday evening and freezing conditions overnight, the race organisers were left with no option but to call the race off in the early hours of Sunday morning.

As I've stated previously in the blog, I really do feel sorry for organisers of races at times like this, it must be incredibly difficult and stressful to come to the decision as to whether conditions are safe for running or not. The safety of the runners has to be paramount and so I can definitely see why the decision was taken.

I had seen the disruption of the snow first hand myself on the Saturday night actually, as the drive back to Kirkham from Newcastle (thanks Moll for the treat! - she got us tickets to the match, being the brilliant girlfriend that she is!), as the drive back turned into a crawl around Penrith and Kendall. So in truth I was already anticipating the decision to be taken.

Instead, I ended up slushing and slipping my way around the local school fields - and by the time I had churned out 10 miles worth of tracks, the roads had been re-gritted once more and I was able to top up my long run to a fairly respectable 14 miles. Considering the conditions and the fact I had banked on doing 17 miles at Inskip, I am quite happy with this Sunday session. I hope that the extra grass session might come in handy when I get to the Northern's in two weeks time...

Through the week my training had been tailored towards the possibility of the race at the weekend. The track session on Tuesday was a hard slog, as it was a solo effort in driving rain. The back straight of the track actually flooded quite badly across the first two lanes. I completed 5 miles of effort work, in line with the target times that had been set for me by the training group, but I had to cut out a final half a mile of effort that had been set, due to my legs still feeling heavy from the cross country the previous Saturday.

Thursday's tempo session saw me complete 4 miles at sub 5:20 pace, in line with my race pace target for the half marathon. I was very happy with how this session went, as the pace felt both comfortable and controlled throughout. I hope to keep building on this in the coming weeks.

My week's training ended up falling short of my intended target mileage due to the race being cancelled and the difficult conditions on Sunday, but overall it's been another solid training week as I continue to build to my next race. It's been quite a while since my last road race now, and after a 7 week absence, I can't wait to get back out there racing. That said, with nothing booked in just yet it will be another couple of weeks of hard training miles and building a platform first though.

Weekly mileage: 68

Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:39

Total mileage for the month (January): 164

Average daily mileage this year: 9.65