The training for Berlin is now well underway, and this week I clocked up my biggest mileage week for the second successive week. I have also managed to get my second 20 mile long run completed and it feels good to have a couple of good long runs under my belt early on in the training block.
The longer training runs are the ones that I feel I was a little bit apprehensive about. I hadn't done a longer run than 18 miles since training for the London marathon in 2015, so mentally it feels good to have a couple done nice and early, knowing that I can at least cope with that distance, and it seems less of a barrier now to increase that distance gradually over the coming weeks and months.
I feel positive about the way the longer training runs have gone too, although I haven't focused on running at any sort of pace, I seem to be finding a nice and relaxed rhythm on them so far and have been hitting 6:20 pace fairly comfortably, and feeling strong towards the end of each of the runs too.
This week was also the fourth race of the 2017 interclub race series, staged at Thornton Cleveleys. The course was a 5 mile single loop, with the first 2.5 miles out being fairly undulating in parts and very much into a straight on headwind. The second half of the course, on the return, was downwind and ran on a harder - albeit much flatter - concrete surface.
It was a nice evening for racing really, with dry and overcast conditions. The turnout wasn't quite as strong as the previous races so far in this series and so I won the race quite comfortably, and was able to treat it as a nice hard run, putting in the effort still - but without ever really having to move into the top gears. I held 5:08 pace throughout, finishing in 25:42, which was a pleasing effort in what was effectively a time trial run.
The lack of top end competition turning out from other clubs also benefited Wesham in the team standings too, as we managed to take a well deserved first place on the evening to open up the race for the team title a little bit and make things much more interesting going into the second half of the season.
My other main training session of the week was my progression run on Thursday, as we upped it to 11 miles this week, running the 5.5 miles out at 6:05 pace, before returning at 5:30s, to give us an average pace of 5:48 for the session overall.
Apart from that, the rest of the week has been largely easy running, with the focus at this stage being very much on racking up as many miles as I can and getting that solid endurance base built as much as possible. I have managed back to back 80+ mile weeks for the first time since February 2015, so hopefully I can keep that going now in the coming weeks as I try and keep getting stronger and fitter on the road to Berlin.
12 weeks to go...
Total mileage for the week: 85
Average pace for the week (m/pm): 6:25
Total mileage for the month of June: 320.5
Total mileage so far this month (July): 29
Total mileage for 2017: 1779.5
Average miles per day 2017: 9.78
