My last race was Newton Aycliffe 10k back in June where I was beaten into 2nd place by Rosie Smith. Since then I have had a bit of a tough time of it. First off I was diagnosed with under active thyroid (see previous blog) and then just as I was getting back into things I stupidly ran into a metal barrier whilst out training and smashed my head open! (again see previous blog) After all of that I have now been back training for 4 weeks.
I have went back to the good old routine of high miles, longer lower intensity reps, a weekly hill session and a good strong tempo run. I have built my miles up to the 95-100mile a week mark and now incorporate a weekly rest day (Friday) into my programme. I am feeling so much better for doing this than what I was feeling whilst trying to do low miles with short fast reps.
My main aim for this autumn is to run well at the Great North Run in two week’s time so everything has been geared towards that. I have been feeling really good in training, maintaining a good pace on my tempos (av 5.45 min/miles) and getting some nice strong hill sessions in so I was hoping for a PB in the Tees Pride 10k race. As it turned out I ended up 6 seconds outside of my PB but I’m still happy. It was hot out there and I suffered in the last 3k, which seems to be a common theme amongst most that ran. I also ran the best part of the race completely by myself. There was no-one within a minute behind me and until the last mile when two of them starting to come back to me, the guys were a good bit ahead. Still I am happy with it considering only 5 weeks ago I was sitting by the side of the road covered in blood!
Hopefully I can now convert this into a good half come GNR. When I set my current half PB I ran 33.26 at Dewsbury not long beforehand but I had also just come back from a month in Kenya. During that half (Bath) I set off a little too quick and went through the first 10k in 33.28 so hopefully with a bit better pacing and some better weather (tailwind and about 17degrees would be awesome!) I should be able to nail a good one.
I’ve not really looked much beyond the GNR yet. I know that if I can get a PB then I will be in with a shout of a place on the GB team for the World Half Marathon Championships in Bulgaria in October (standard 73.00) then the only thing after that which I have looked at is the Leeds Abby Dash in late November where I can hopefully get a 10k PB.
For now though, it’s one more week of hard training before I ease down for the big one. After today’s race I’m looking forward to it even more than what I already was! :)
Good luck to everyone else in their final few weeks of GNR training!