24th January: Training

In keeping with my resolution I have been getting out as often as possible between races to put quality miles in, something that my finish at Anglesey has also mentally encouraged me to do… I have now seen a direct result from all the hard work I put in over the Christmas period in regaining - and perhaps exceeding the fitness I had lost to the lurgy late-on last year. What’s more, I have really enjoyed getting out there and doing training.

I said ‘quality miles’ as I am wary of the theory of training just being ‘junk miles’ in other words, just going out for the sake of doing so with no real plan or goals, so you just churn out X number of miles and are done with it.

One of my goals has been to increase my pace over the shorter distances when I go out (10k) with a view to it improving my overall pace on longer runs and give me an extra gear to step in to on my marathons should I feel I need to.

To help achieve this, when it has come to running around the block on my normal 10k route I have been accompanied by Spud, our Springer Spaniel/ Border Collie cross (Sprollie?) who in his desire to run, and run as fast as he can, is akin to strapping a turbo charger to you... He has helped me to cut 7 minutes off my previous best time for the run as he makes you go as fast as you are able the whole way round, certainly faster than you thought you were capable of pacing yourself, so as far as speed-work goes, Spud certainly beats fartleks as rather than upping tempo between every second lamp-post or what have you, you go at that speed the whole time.

Running with Spud is also beneficial for him as it burns-off some energy by doing something he loves - and energy is something he has in abundance! The aim is for him to be able to accompany me on the occasional marathon, and so far he can easily cope with 10k’s and manages half marathon distance with me no problem.

I have also been keeping to my long run at least once a week regime, which is all well and good until you tread in a puddle that turns out to be a pot-hole that trips you up and you end up looking like this:

Eat pies.
Drink beer.
Run far.