Thankfully I haven't had too much after effect from the spiking at last week's cross country and I have had my best training week in quite some time. I even topped it off nicely with a solid runout at the Preston Park run this weekend.
Having got my week underway with a fairly easy start, settling for an eight mile run, as opposed to my usual 10-12 on a Monday, as I tried to rest my foot up a little bit and allow the wound to heal as much as possible to see if I could get away with some speed work the following day.
Indeed I did manage to, and it was actually my best speed session in a while. I still didn't make it to the track, as I had to be back for a massage and was squeezing the session in a bit after work. So instead, I did a makeshift mile repeat workout around the Wesham handicap route. For those that this route is unfamiliar to, it is a two mile loop that takes in a flat section down Blackpool Road (kirkham bypass), one tight bend at the bottom of dowbridge and a few steep hill climbs and generous down hill sections on the second mile. I did a 15 minute warm up loop, followed by 5 x 1 miles off a 90 second jog recovery. Bearing in mind my lack of recent speed work, I was quite chuffed with my return of 5:14, 5:01, 5:01, 5:06 and a final mile of 5:30 as I decided to tempo my final repeat as I was happy with the amount I had got out of the first 4 repeats.
With a confidence booster from that session, I took it easy with another 8 mile recovery run on Wednesday, ahead of my usual docks tempo run on Thursday. I was down to step up my tempo training from 4 to 5 miles this week, and despite missing a few of my recent times and having an up and down few weeks, we decided to stick to the plan. The run couldn't have been expected to go much better really, and I managed to clock 26:57 for an average pace of 5:23 into some stiff winds at some points.
Friday's run was a steady 10 miler at 6:30 pace, as I had it in my head that I wanted to have a go at the local park run on the Saturday in order to see what sort of shape I was in and to basically give myself a starting point to base my fitness from and to give myself something to work with in the coming weeks. I have managed to maintain a half decent mileage despite the recent problems, and I think I am more in need of doing some extra speed work, so making use of the free park runs is useful, as it enables you to get a decent early morning workout over the 5k distance. I turned up expecting to be running in the region of a low 16, which I would have taken, as my best time on the course was 16:02 and would indicate that I was still not far off from race fitness.
The presence of Chris Durney of Preston Harriers helped me to get up to a strong start and the company at the front definitely helped us both to push a fairly quick pace throughout, and as I crossed the finish line I thought I might have actually managed to just dip below the 16 minute mark and set a new pb, when I was told that my time was actually 15:42 and not that far off the course record I was quite shocked though! Not a bad indicator of where I am at considering the start to the year I have had and the fact I haven't done any speed work on the track for around 12 weeks! I reckon that the hilly nature of the course and the volume of traffic you have to contend with as he laps tick over mean that the run would probably equate to around 15:15ish on a flatter course with more serious competition, so hopefully in the coming months I will be able to get down towards 15 minutes over the 5k distance.
On Sunday I finished off a solid week with a 17 mile long run through the lanes with Rob Affleck (and a flock of sheep) for company. It was my longest run of the year so far and I was happy with the pace as we recorded 6:13 on average and finished strongly too with the last mile down to 5:40 pace.
Looking back on my start to this year in comparison to January 2016, and I have managed to get 274.5 miles under my belt this January, whereas twelve months ago I managed to start off the first month strongly and recorded 315 miles in the first month - but seen as I was running twice a day at this time last year, I am actually not that far off with my current mileage if I manage to start doubling up again a couple of times a week in the coming few weeks.
Total mileage for the week: 74
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:29
Total mileage for January: 274.5
Total mileage so far this month (February): 56
Total mileage for 2017: 330.5
Average miles per day 2017: 8.84
