This week has been a difficult one on the running front, things have been going quite well for some time now and I have been feeling good and growing stronger each week, but for the first time in a while I found it hard to fit everything in and stay focused this week.
I have always been somebody that likes to keep busy and am always trying to juggle all aspects of life and fortunately up to now I have managed to keep them all in the air. But throwing Christmas into the mix, as well as the added workload and stresses of building up our first home has made that a tad more difficult.
I have coped quite well so far I think, I have to admit that despite always maintaining that I wouldn't let buying a house impact my running and training, I did have some concerns about how I would manage it all at first. But having PB'd a couple of times and progressing nicely in the first few months since, I think I have managed to adapt quite quickly and it is something that will get easier with time and experience.
This last couple of weeks has seen me also juggling more of a social life too, with Christmas do's and get togethers meaning I've had to be a bit more flexible with my training routine. Saturday just gone for instance was my works do, so I knew I wouldn't be in any shape for my long run this morning! So instead I moved it to Saturday morning, but knowing that I had a busy day of plastering at the house and Moll to get to work for 9am, I had to set the alarm for an early one and was out of the door for quarter to 7 for a 15 miler through the fog! I was pleasantly surprised to maintain a healthy 6:15 pace throughout.
The hiccup this week came on Tuesday, which is usually one of my main speed sessions. I had planned on my first trip to the track in some 5 or 6 weeks and had even planned out my session - I was going to do 4 x 1 mile repeats and a couple of 400s to finish - but I ended up staying late at work and by the time I got out I didn't fancy the trek up to Cottam for a session on my own. Instead, it crossed my mind to do the same hill session that I have done in recent weeks, but no I bottled it and actually ended up having the day off completely!
I hate missing sessions and especially taking days off, and I always feel guilty when I do so, and this was no different. It was my first day off in a few weeks and in the long run it won't do much damage to have had a little rest, but mentally this week it put me back a bit. We all have blips and are only human though. As a substitute, I did build a mini session into my usual steady run on the Wednesday, doing a 20 minute warm up, 30 minute tempo, and 20 minute cool down. In the 70 minutes I managed just under 11 miles in total, with the 30 minute effort seeing me clock 5.4 miles at 5:35 pace. I did the session on the Wesham handicap route, which is a 2 mile undulating loop so I was able to judge how far I was up to etc throughout. I was fairly happy with how it went as I didn't want to take too much out of the legs before Thursday's speed session with Rob Affleck.
Thursday's run really saw me back on task and I ran strongly in quite windy conditions. I completed our 2 x 2 mile repeats in exactly the same time as the week previous, despite encountering a lot of traffic around the docks and conditions being less favourable. Again I clocked 5:01 average pace per mile, so just about on target pace for Ribble Valley.
I managed to motivate myself to get out of bed early on Friday too to cram in an extra 5 miles before work in my first double run day in a couple of weeks, so I think I have just about covered for Tuesday's little lapse now.
Seen as this will be the final blog before Christmas, I would just like to take the opportunity to wish you all the best. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and get to spend time with all those you love most! The blog will be back for the end of year review on the back of Ribble Valley 10k on the 27th. If anybody has any tips, advice, or requests for how I can improve or progress the page over the next 12 months please feel free to send suggestions 😊
Total mileage for the week: 70
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:31
Total mileage so far this month (December): 185
Total mileage so far 2016: 3289
Average miles per day 2016: 9.37
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