Back on Track

During June & July I focused on my first love - TRACK! It had been 4 years since I last raced on the track, and I couldn't wait to compete again. Over a few weeks I put in a few 1500s and 800s, competing at the Trafford AC Open Meetings on Tuesday night as well as a couple of Midland Women's League raced for my club, Telford AC All my track results are listed on the statsgeekery heaven which is Power Of Ten I had a nice victory at the County Champs, which was possibly my best race of the year:

I also had a terrible run at the Midland Champs - I seem to be cursed at Alexander Stadium, Birmingham. Every time I've raced there I've performed poorly - the track feels too hard underfoot and when I was u17 I used to claim it was longer than 400m! It was nice to be competing at the Midland Champs again, but it really highlighted the huge gap between myself and the speedy international runners at the front of the race. I did manage a 4th place though, despite lacking any focus throughout the race.

It was a funny track season - by the time I got used to the short sharp track sessions and started improving my speed, I ended up not racing again! I'd planned to do a few races in August and crack the elusive 5 minute barrier for 1500m, but my attention turned to Triathlons again. Next year I'll be structuring my training a lot better and making sure I'm training for the races I'm actually doing. There's nothing I love more than speeding round a track - it's my favourite training and my tactics over 800m are good, I just need the training behind me to execute them better. Having been outkicked in a couple of races this year, I can tell I'll have to focus on speed work a lot sooner next year to race well. The British Sprint Triathlon Champs are at the end of May, so if all goes to plan I'll focus my training on Duathlons & Triathlons till then before switching to track races - not sure how effective this is going to be though - coaching advice welcome!