That was the reason for deciding not to try and do another marathon this year. I decided that it would be better for my long term development and my overall running. In something of a catch 22 situation however, I also wanted to increase my mileage in order to develop my endurance, strength and stamina.
The result has seen me now feeling comfortable with running off 80 miles a week on a regular basis now, often running twice a day in training. I am also fitting in quite a lot of quality speed work within this mileage too.
So a third of the way through the year, how do I think this game plan is working out for me so far?
First thing to consider is that my 5 and 10k times have both improved somewhat already. I know there is more improvement to do, and am confident that there is still much more to come, but I am satisfied with how I am going at the moment on the shorter stuff.
Strangely, despite increasing my mileage - which I would have thought might also improve my performance over the longer distances too - my half marathon race performances so far this year have not quite tallied up how I would have hoped.
There are things to consider here though, sickness and poor conditions affecting the run at Cardiff. It was none the less frustrating however, knowing how far off what I believe I am in shape for and capable of.
With that in mind, I took a bit of a last minute decision to have a run out at Valiant's Half Marathon this weekend, rather than the Lancaster 3 bridges 10k that I had been eying up previously.
As regular readers will know, I like my local races and try to support them by turning out as often as possible, when it doesn't clash with my training plan for the bigger races. With Cardiff and Cheshire out of the way and a fair wait until my next targeted races, I didn't see any harm in having a bash at this one, on what is my pb course especially.
The perfect situation today would have seen somebody turn up who was capable of running around at my target pace for me to share the workload with and to push me when the going got tough, and also obviously for the conditions to be still. As it was, much of the first half of the race especially, as well as the final mile, was run into a headwind which made the task a little bit tougher. Sadly there wasn't much competition at the forefront of the race either.
I led the race out from the start, and was happy to pass through the first mile in 5:18 in what felt like quite a blustery straight, the pace slowed a tad to 5:27 but again that seemed to be into the wind and I felt confident that as we turned almost back in the opposite direction, that if the wind was to be behind us for a stretch then I might be able to push on once again.
Far from that however, in fact as we passed through Hambleton the wind actually grew stronger! I don't know how that is even possible, possibly a swirling wind, but whatever it was it was persistent and there was no escaping it all the way through to about 7 miles. It was tough going, especially with the open stretches of country lanes meaning that I was left exposed with no hiding places. The pace dropped considerably through this section and I made quite an early decision to reign it in and rather than expend any more energy than necessary, I took the decision to ease off and try my best to do just enough to win the race.
As I say, this decision saw the pace drop to around 5:40-5:45 as there was nobody around me. Up until that is, mile 8 where I was given a much needed kick up the backside when I had a little glance over my shoulder and found Philip Ecclestone (2nd place) closing in on me!
It was just what I needed to get me going again, and I kicked back on a bit in the final 5 miles, still not especially fast, but back towards 5:35s, which opened up a nice little gap back to the next runner.
I finished up with 74:06 for the win, not exactly the time I was hoping to achieve, but certainly a step in the right direction from where I was after Cardiff, being some 2 minutes faster than that performance.
Having achieved a pb at Cheshire last weekend and raced just 3 days prior to that too, and with a full training week off 80 miles once again, it might be a case that I am getting ready for a bit of a step back now whilst my body recovers from the recent exertion.
With that in mind, the May bank holiday weekend will provide me with a good opportunity to relax and have a few days off from training, as I will be away with Moll on a family break. So just one more week of training to go in this latest push then!
My main thoughts as I look towards the next block after that break are that I will be looking to push on with my plan to improve my 5k performances, and I will be looking to try and improve my top end speed work on the track in the coming weeks and months. Track work is still fairly new to me, especially the really short, sharp stuff and I am enjoying the challenge and learning curve that running with the real fast lads is providing me with on a track night. Hopefully if I can persist with it and keep working at it, there will be gains to be had through the summer season!
A small side note this week is that I have invested in a new watch - I will be using the Tom Tom runner 2 instead of my old Garmin forerunner 610. The main reasons for this is the fact that the new watch has a built in heart rate monitor and also Bluetooth connectivity, so I will be able to record and follow my progress more easily by uploading my data to my phone. Hopefully this will allow me to continue training smarter and working in the correct training zones. I will let you all know how I find it!
Total mileage for the week: 80
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:34
Total mileage for the month so far (April): 175
Total mileage so far 2016: 1115
Average miles per day 2016: 10.32
