Following on from my first week of training since my summer break, this week I continued my push back to full fitness and sharpness with another tough spell of training, topped off with a blustery race along Blackpool prom for the Airshow 10k on Sunday.
Having been pleasantly surprised by the shape I was in at Podium 5k last Friday night, I decided to chuck in a 10k this weekend having heard that the great Andi Jones had signed up to run he race also. I had hoped that if we had got some favourable conditions I may have got pulled around in a good time - however the gusty weather along Blackpool's front meant that this was never in danger of being the case.
Rather than tucking in behind and merely trying to hang onto the back of Andi, I was determined to try and make an honest race out of it in the early stages and through the first quarter of the race we shared the workload and both pushed the pace. With the first mile being down wind, we soon ticked that off in 4:50, however after the turn down onto the concrete lower promenade we were hit by strong winds of 40-50mph and were sandblasted too all the way down the stretch towards the Pier at 4 miles.
That meant we were running head first into the winds for a full 3 mile stretch, which gradually got the better of me. I managed to keep in touch with Andi until just before the half way point of the race, although he had begun to stretch out away from me from around the 4K mark.
My splits into the headwinds were: mile 2 - 5:29, mile 3 - 5:43, mile 4 - 5:54. These splits show a couple of things, firstly how much the wind took out of me as I gradually slowed throughout this section to nearly as much as 6 minute mile-ing, but also secondly, how much easier it is when you have someone to work away with. As soon as Andi got a lead on me, I found it much tougher mentally to keep the push on.
At 4 miles, the course saw us climb back up onto the higher promenade, back onto Tarmac and also turning back to have the wind in our sails once more. Unfortunately by this stage Andi was now long gone and I found myself running in on my own and again struggling a tad for motivation to push myself to hurt enough when it was clear that times were out of the window at this point. Mile 5 was quite undulating and I recorded 5:31, before a mainly downhill stretch through mile 6 at 5:19 pace. A quick look at my watch showed me that a final push would see me dip under 34 at least, and so I sprinted the .2 miles home at 4:50 pace to record a time of 33:52, some 63 seconds behind Andi Jones, but after all he is one of our nations best runners and has represented England and GB so I will take that!
Speaking of Team GB, Olympic fever has well and truly gripped me now, and the next couple of weeks it will dominate my life watching it all unfold - I might not find time for training! 😝
This week's training included a session of 6 x 1k, 2 x 400 and 2 x 200 on the track on Tuesday, and lots of steady running at around 6:30 pace through the week. Thursday saw me running an early 3 miles in the morning before work, as I had a rush on to get ready for Noel Gallagher at Lytham Festival after work, whilst Saturday's running was largely limited by resting up ahead of the race and also working in the morning, Sunday racing also meant no long run, so my mileage was restricted further.
Total mileage for the week: 62
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:18
Total mileage this month (August): 62
Total mileage so far 2016: 1997
Average miles per day 2016: 9.16
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