Training has begun, London seems a fair way away but it’s going to come around fast!
I’m not sad to see the back of 2016 – in fact there’s barely much point even writing a review of the year of running because my year essentially ended in February with my fall during the Windy Hill fell race where I injured my hip and I struggled from there on to get back to running without niggles.
With my focus for the last couple being on getting to a point where I could reasonably start my London training at a decent level I’ve had several good weeks of increasing my base and the pace I’m running at so I could hit the first week of Pfitz 18/70 without blowing up.
That first week was still tough though! Pfitz has 3 quality workouts in the week – a medium long run, a tempo run and then a long run so that was still a tough introduction and while week 1 felt easy enough I’ve got to say I’ve already felt a bit fatigued during week 2 and the desire to run at tempo pace in the dark on the way home from work is limited.
Week 1 was also somewhat disrupted by a stupid trip on a wonky pavement where I gashed open my knee and had to visit A&E where I was lucky to not need stitches! Mobility hasn’t been a 100% for the week but fortunately it was more gore than damage in the end so running hasn’t been too badly hindered.
I’m enjoying getting back into a structured training plan again and doing some long runs – 15 miles last weekend at just over 7 minute mile pace felt reasonably steady and with Dewsbury 10k coming up in less than a month I’m hoping a little more endurance will get me a PB but we’ll see. Last year, I’d done 6 solid weeks of interval training before the race so bit of a contrast.