My blogging, like my running of late – has been sporadic and of mixed quality so a full mental reset was required.
Having struggled all summer and the months before with this insanely annoying hip issue, I finally had to admit defeat in my efforts to get anywhere near the level of fitness I wanted for the Edge Hill Ultra that was my last confirmed race for 2016 and I pulled out the week before.
I had big plans of running the 40 miles at somewhere around 7:30/mile pace or at least sub 8:00/mile pace but in the end I felt that while I probably could finish it I’d have been nowhere near my goals and I’m just not a half-arsed racer unfortunately.
So after a whole summer of low mileage and frustrating niggles, I took a look at the blog and apart from doing a bit of running in some Speedcross 4’s kindly supplied by Salomon for reviewing – there haven’t been many highlights. Running parkrun a couple of weeks back was a real shock to the system too.
I literally haven’t run at any pace since my fall in Feb and I felt it might be time to have a blast around parkrun as my hip felt alright and I like to use it to see where I am fitness wise.
As it happens, I ran 18:39 – a time I know a lot of people would be very pleased with but one that for me acted as a good reality check to tell me to no longer cling onto the dream of being a little off peak fitness because not only was it a minute and a half off my best, it took me nearly a week to get my legs back to normal!
Resetting expectations
With that parkrun done and a couple of weeks of nice easy running I feel finally there’s some definitive improvement to the point that I took part in the Utterly Butterly fell race and finished 9th last weekend and while it was hard work, I had a good race finishing first Meltham runner and helping us to the 1st place team prize.
I have however finally let go of the idea that I’m going to be close to my pb fitness for a while and reset my expectations accordingly. My goals have always been to spend the remainder of the year building steady base mileage to put me back around 50-60 mpw injury free and then go into January on a marathon plan for London Marathon 2017 and a real stab at a couple of shorter road races as I’ll be moving to the MV40 age group in November.
Having bought some new road shoes, they feel light and fast like nothing I’ve worn before so I’m hoping they’ll carry me to some significant PB’s.
In the meantime, it was nice to note after a few months of relative neglect, the blog has had a decent increase in visitors still – probably because of my previous race reports for the Hardmoors 60 which was last weekend and also the upcoming White Rose Ultra which I’ll be marshaling/supporting (so say hi if you see me!).
A new business starting
I’m extremely excited to say that my work partner Pete (who likes long distance bike races) and I are nearly ready to send out some samples of our NomButter product we’ve been experimenting with. If you’re a long distance/endurance athlete interested in potentially testing some for us soon let me know (sign up here). I’ll be at the GLOATURS 12 hour training run on 8th October too and bring some along.