After months of waiting and weeks of frustration, lots of hard work and a few set backs, this weekend I finally got back to racing for the first time this year.
My last race prior to Trafford 10k was at Ribble Valley 10k back on the 27th December last year, the ten weeks in between have been testing and I've had to work hard to get back to this point, but I'm pleased to say today was well worth the wait.
I may not have been racing, but my main concern in the build up to the race was my lack of top level speed work. I haven't been near the track in months, my last visit being back at the end of October. I have been worried that this will affect my racing performance as I will find it harder to hit top gear and my fastest possible speed. Today's performance doesn't take away those concerns over the shorter distances, and I will definitely need to revisit the track before the summer 5k season.
However, I have maintained solid tempo sessions and have increasingly picked up the pace across my longer runs, meaning that I am confident that stamina and endurance wise I am at the best level I have ever been, and I feel I am more prepared and in better longer distance shape. It will be interesting to see how I get on at Wilmslow Half in two weeks time on the back of this performance.
Throughout the week I had been a bit unsure as to my approach to training ahead of the race, I knew that I needed to some sort of pace work in order to sharpen up, but having not visited the track all year I was wary of doing too much and expending energy. To complicate things a bit more, Rob Affleck has been struggling with a niggle and so we had to cancel our usual tempo run on Thursday. So I had some decisions to make and it seems I got away with it all a bit!
On Monday I did a longer steady run, including 9 miles of work with Wesham at our club night - it has been a while since I had made it down to our regular club nights, and it was good to see familiar faces for the first time in a while. I topped my mileage up a bit more with a 4.5 mile jog beforehand to give me 13.5 miles in total for the day.
On Tuesday I decided to run easy rather than do any pace work - this was for no particular reason other than the fact I started playing mind games with myself about how tired I was, how much effort I should be putting in on race week and whether or not I needed a rest. In the end I did 8 miles at a steady 6:23 pace.
Wednesday was again interesting from a mental perspective, as this time I felt guilty for not doing enough the previous day. I made a decision to do 6 x 800 metre efforts on the road, but after just two and a half reps I pulled up and decided to just jog it in through the rest of the session. My legs felt heavy in the aftermath, but I cut the session short for no oh her reason than voices in my head telling me I was being silly and doing too much.
On Thursday I was due to do a 20 minute tempo at about 5:20 pace, but again I decided to reign this in to 15 minutes at 5:22s, with a 15 minute warm up and cool down either side.
On Friday and Saturday my legs felt terrible and I was running very leggy. I did 6 miles on each day at around 6:55 pace. With hindsight, as weird as it may sound I think my body had tightened up in order to protect me ahead of race day, sensing that we were about to be exerting ourself much more than what I have done in a while.
Sunday. Finally we had got here, I was back on the start line of a road race. On the back of my recent tempo runs and my park run performance a few weeks ago, I was fairly confident that if I ran well I was capable of a sub 31:30 run and was hopeful of hitting around about the 31:20 mark. I knew that I would have a lot of people around me and that this could have the potential to drag extra out of me and help me hit my best form.
I had a race plan and I stuck to it. Knowing that I had confidence in my speed endurance, and that I have been running negative splits in all of my main sessions in recent weeks, I decided to start more conservatively than usual and try to grow into the race. That way, I could pick up the pace as I hit a nice rhythm and gain confidence and momentum by passing runners in the second half of the race.
I ran a steady first two kilometres and then started to slowly increase the pace, mile 3 was into a headwind and slightly up hill, which slowed me again somewhat, but I went through half way in 15:42, meaning that I was in the range for a 31:20-31:30 run. I got into a few really good battles through the second half of the race and did indeed manage to gain a few positions and some momentum on my way to the finish. I did manage to negative split, just as I did at Cheshire 10k in November. I went through the second 5k in 15:28 in order to cross the line in 31:10 for a new 10k personal best and 56th place in a ridiculously stacked field!
(Thanks to Mick Hall photography for the photo, you can find more images from the race on his Facebook page and online)
It has been a long time coming, but the comeback was well worth the wait.
Total mileage for the week: 64
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:37
Total mileage for February: 281.5
Total mileage so far this month (March): 50.5
Total mileage for 2017: 606.5
Average miles per day 2017: 9.33
