I’ve had a big week, both mileage and results wise.
My main aim for this week was simply to test out how I could cover a 70 mile week without too much impact on family time at the weekend as I look to build my mileage up in preparation for Hardmoors 60 in 16 weeks.
With that in mind, my initial idea was to make the most of my run commutes by extending my morning run from 7-8 miles up to 10 and then run home again (5-7 miles) at least 3 times in the week.
I did manage it by doubling 3 days in the week and covering most of my miles Monday to Friday without too much discomfort and had planned to take a short “fun” run (rather than functional mile bashing) on some trails on Sunday but instead Ally couldn’t do parkrun on Saturday so I went along and had the best run ever!
1st place at Huddersfield!
Huddersfield parkrun is massive, most weeks see nearly 600 runners and the best I’ve ever finished is 5th when I ran my pb of 17:14 recently and I didn’t feel I was going to beat that on Saturday as it was windy as hell and I’d got a lot of miles in my legs so I was just after some points in the club parkrun championship table with a decent run.
I went out steady as usual and noticed that the usual couple of guys who finish top in closer to 15:5x to 16 flat weren’t there and that the two lads who led the first small lap didn’t really pull away much that I might sneak a decent result again.
After about a mile the two guys in front of me were still only about 15m ahead and not going anywhere fast and I felt alright so figured without the normal leaders I’d try to push past and even leading the run for a bit would be great fun. In the end, I pushed past on one of the uphill sections and just kept an even pace despite the ever increasing effort levels I noticed around mile 2 that the guy behind was 30m back so I just kept plugging on and somehow clung on to finish 1st in 17:36.
From the first time I ever went to parkrun I have dreamed of finishing 1st at Huddersfield – admittedly in my dreams that was by running an improbably glorious 15 minute 5k but I will take a 1st no matter what! That’s now two 1st place parkrun finishes this year. I’m blown away by that and it gives me a nice boost to know that putting in the hard miles week after week does deliver results.
- Monday – 10.4 miles
- Tuesday – 17.4 miles (10.2 & 7.2)
- Wednesday – 15.3 miles (10.2 & 5.1)
- Thursday – 7.6 miles
- Friday – 14.3 miles (7.8 & 6.5)
- Saturday – 3.1 miles (Huddersfield parkrun 1st place!)
- Sunday – 3.6 miles
Total: 71.9 miles, 5,430ft elevation