Ellesmere 10km

This weekend I had the choice of the following:
* 3 mile tempo, (2min jog) 2 mile tempo
* 5x1mile tempo (2 min jog rec)
* 10km race

Looking at the target paces for the sessions I decided doing a 10km race would be far and away the easiest option!
I find it much, much easier to run fast in a race situation - there's something about having people around me also taking things seriously that helps me focus. Recently I've been able to focus pretty well during tempo sessions and get my head down and hit my target times, but this week I was suffering with a bit of jet lag and was pretty tired from my week in Canada with work.

I found a nice, supposedly fast, 10km in Ellesmere, Shropshire - which fitted quite nicely into our plans of visiting my family over the bank holiday weekend.

Unfortunately finding the race was pretty much the only bit of planning which went well! I was super tired from Canada, and still jet lagged, so I woke up late on the Sunday morning, struggle to get ready in time and we then got stuck behind slow moving traffic on the twisty roads to Ellesmere. I arrived 15 mins before the start of the race so I just had time to get my number on, dash to the loo and get my racers on.

It was the first time I'd even tried my racers on in over a year, and as soon as I tried to jog in them I remembered exactly why I'd left it so long - somehow the right shoe is far too narrow, despite them being exactly the same size as all my other Saucony trainers! With my other trainers being totally soaked from yesterday's training session, I had a choice of totally wet shoes or slightly small shoes. I went for the slightly small shoes hoping they'd loosen up. Which they actually did, but not until 6km!

I was also feeling dehydrated from the start, despite having downed pints of water and a bottle of powerade in the morning. I guess I hadn't rehydrated properly after Saturday's session (10 min run, 25min bike, 15min run) and I struggled in the heat, finishing the race with a headache!
The race itself actually worked out as a great tempo session. I started running with pretty much the same group of people, going through kms in just over 4 mins till I hit 5km in 20.18. As you can see from the photos taken at 1km, 7km and the finish, I was running with the same group of people pretty much all the way - good pacing from us all I think!

I slowed a bit over the last 5km and I could have sworn the last hill was a lot steeper than it was. In fact I was telling my boyfriend, wait till you see this really steep hill we had to run up, and when we got to it I saw it wasn't much of a hill at all - on the way round it felt like Snowdon! There are some excellent photos from Bryan Dale and it was a lovely, well organised and well supported race in pretty countryside. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more without the last 2 weeks of training, travelling and jet lag affecting me, but it served it's purpose as an alternative to a tempo session!

I finished 8th Lady in 41.07 which is a Season's Best so I can't be too disappointed! My 5km split of 20.18 is only a few seconds outside my 5km SB, so I'm hopeful of going under 20 in my next 5km. I've also got a 10km planned in a couple of weeks, the City of Salford 10km, which I'm going to ease off a little for and hopefully get under 41 mins!

Unfortunately I didn't have much of a sprint finish at the end and narrowly missed out on 7th - hopefully I'll have time to get some speed in my legs before the next 10km!
Results available here

Top 10 Women:

Pos	Name	Club	Chip Time	Pace from Gun
1	Michelle Ross-Cope	City of Stoke	00:35:16	5:41 min/m
2	Kim Fawke	Telford A.C.	00:36:23	5:52 min/m
3	Mandy Vernon	Trentham A.C.	00:37:52	6:07 min/m
4	Clare Thurgood	Orion Harriers	00:39:26	6:22 min/m
5	Laura Gray	B.R.A.T	00:39:49	6:25 min/m
6	Becky Lewis	Unattached		6:34 min/m
7	Emily Dove	Whitchurch Whippets	00:41:06	6:38 min/m
8	Sarah Mackness	Telford A.C.	00:41:07	6:39 min/m
9	Jacqui Smith	Oswestry Olympians	00:43:07	6:59 min/m
10	Catherine Voyce	Shropshire Shufflers	00:44:31	7:12 min/m

Before the next 10km I'm going to get myself some new racers - I think I might go back to Nike's as I loved my Nike Zoom Marathoners. I'm also looking forward to getting some more training in and then easing off a couple of days before the race so I have a bit more bounce in my legs! Salford Quays should be a much flatter course than Ellesmere, though with £250 for first place it's likely to be a much higher quality race - can't wait!

Jet-lag & Training!

The last fortnight of training has been quite tough, because I had a week in Canada in the middle of it with work. I was worried about how I'd fit training in with travelling and working - on one of the days the conference lasted from 7.30am to midnight so there was absolutely no opportunity for training then! Luckily jet lag meant I was up early most mornings so I managed to get some training done before breakfast. While none of my training was perfectly as I'd like it this fortnight, I stuck to my schedule with the exception of 1 day and I think I continued my good progress!

W/C: 13th August

Mon: 45min steady
Tues: 2 x 2miles tempo. Great session clocking 13.55 and 13.05 (the first effort was slightly uphill. I got chased by a very scary dog and it's vicious thug of an owner on the last effort, who responded to me asking him to call the dog off with a load of swearing. This probably speeded me up a bit though I did take a detour through a hedge!
Weds: Travelling to Canada, as soon as I arrived I tried to adjust my body clock and headed straight to the gym for my first attempt at cycling in weeks. 10min run, 10min cycle, 10min run. All went well and it was nice to get on a bike again!
Thurs: 75min long run. REALLY HARD. It was far too hot and humid and I was far too jet lagged and generally tired for this, but I managed a decent run - when I got back I measured it at 8.5 miles so I wasn't quite as slow as I thought. Though I did have to stop and sit under a tree for a few mins half way through, just to recover from the heat!
Fri: 6x800m (90s recovery) on the treadmill. Not the easiest way to do an 800m session, especially as I hate running on treadmills, but I got it done!
Sat: Rest with full conference day!
Sun: 10min run, 15min cycle, 20min run. Actually enjoyed getting in the gym on the treadmill, putting my music on and getting this done after yesterday's long working day!

W/C 20th August

Mon: 10min run, 20min bike, 20min run. Spent the day walking round Toronto, which seems like good extra training to me!
Tues & Weds: Rest. I was so tired from travelling and jet lag and the long days in Canada that I had absolutely no energy to run or do anything apart from sleep.
Thurs: 45min steady run. Really struggled to pick my legs up. Have been feeling dizzy with jet lag!
Fri: 10miles in 80mins. I was feeling really dizzy all day but didn't want my training to be affected any more so my boyfriend came out with me on this mammouth run to keep me company and I equipped him with energy gels, just in case I got dizzy while running! Luckily as soon as I got out in the fresh air and start running my body decided to co-operate and I had a lovely long run with the boyf before a nice Friday evening relaxing on the sofa! Just what I needed after a tough couple of weeks.
Sat: First Brick session on my racing bike - I was a bit cautious beforehand because I really did not want to have any problems so close to the World Duathlon Champs. I faffed around a bit, and then had a word with myself - it's only 4 weeks till D-Day and I have to take some risks. So I blasted out an awesome session of 10mins run, 25mins bike and 15mins run - hitting it all hard and giving it 100%. I was exhausted after and (as I discovered on Sunday) didn't do a good enough job of rehydrating!
Sun: Ellesmere 10km - 41.07, 8th Lady Race report to follow. Good hard workout and some warm weather training!

All in all it's been rather tough the last couple of weeks to fit everything in. I've definitely done the best I could though. It's quite surprising how hotel facilities vary so much. Considering I was staying in a 45 storey hotel I was expecting a decent size gym, but instead there were only 2 treadmills and 1 bike, meaning there was often quite a queue for the equiptment! It was nice to get a long run done in Canada and get out to explore a bit more of the area, but running in new places is hard as I'm always worried about getting lost or running into less nice areas. Luckily I was able to stick close to the river and enjoy some nice scenery without running into any problems (apart from the massive hill back up to the hotel - but I did get some support from pedestrians just for trying to run up it!)
The next couple of weeks of training are going to be really really tough as I ramp up the bike sessions in preparation for Nancy. I've had to promise my boyfriend that my permanent tiredness is only temporary as I've not been much fun the last week with training, work and jet lag to contend with. Luckily he makes it a lot easier for me by cooking dinner while I'm out training - it definitely helps with recovery to get in to a nice hot meal waiting for me. It's amazing how much of a difference having a good support team makes when trying to balance everything and get the best out of myself and my training.
I'm already looking forward to October and calming the training down a bit to build a good cycling base - something that I don't have at the moment. I need to get everything in balance a bit more and get the life:work:training sorted, however for now I'm just going to focus on doing everything I can to get fit for the World Duathlon Champs! Wish me luck!

Run The Flash 10km and Training Update

I am loving racing right now!

On Tuesday I went down to London to watch the Olympic Triathlon - what an experience! I watched the Triathlon in Beijing and the spectators were rather sparse, a totally different story in London where Hyde Park was totally packed!

It was really inspiring and has made me even more determined to qualify for the World Triathlon Champs in London next year! However I've got to take things slowly as I come back from training, even if that has meant getting a few races under my belt.
Using races as training is helping so much as it's taking the pressure off the races as well as giving me good markers of how my training is progressing.
In previous years I've been kind of scared of racing, only wanting to race when I felt I was in shape to get a PB, and only being interested in running on fast courses. Now I'm getting the benefit of racing on different courses and conditions to help learn how to race over longer distances. I've always done well at track tactics, but my tactics for road races have been shockingly non-existant. This summer I've taken advantage of not being in PB shape as I recover from tendonitis by entering lots of fun races as training.
This Saturday was the Run The Flash 10km back at Leigh Sports Village and I was looking forward to have a nice hard run out round a lovely course.
My training leading up to the event came off the back of a hard week of racing the week before.

W/C 6th August:

Mon: 30mins easy
Tues: 4x1200m at the track. It was just me and Sandra doing this session so it was a bit too much like Sunday's race where I was trailing after her! I'd just come back from watching the Triathlon at the Olympics which was a fantastic day and inspired me to run fast. I was doing my 1200ms in around 4.40 but struggled towards the end with Sunday's races in my legs.
Weds: 45mins run
Thurs: 3x1 mile tempo (1min rec) This session was meant to have another 800m rep on the end, but I was SO tired I just could not move my legs any more and ended up pretty much crawling home!
Fri: Rest
Sat: Run The Flash 10km, Leigh, 44.13. 1st Lady. Race report below.
Sun: 75min run with the boyfriend on the bike doing a great job of keeping me company so it was a more enjoyable Sunday!

Run The Flash 10km

Using a slightly different course to the last race I ran at Leigh this was a 2 lap race and had fewer hills, which I was very happy about! It was a hot day and the field looked slightly smaller than the last one. From the start I was the first lady and got a good gap on everyone behind me by 5km so I eased off. I went through 5km in ~21 mins and then as per coach's instructions used the race as a training run and enjoyed the encouragement from the marshalls for being first lady! It was really nice to win a race and I enjoyed every step of it!

I also came 11th overall - makes a bit of a change from some of the road races I've done where I've been down in the hundreds overall! The next race organised by Sports International is the City of Salford 10km where 1st prize is £250 - unfortunately I think the competition might a bit tougher then!

End of July Training Update & 3 Races!

W/C 23rd July

Mon: 40mins
Tues: Rest
Weds: 10min warm up, 4x3mins hard, 10 min warm down
Thurs: 40mins
Fri: 30mins
Sat: Rest
Sun: Leigh Legacy 10km - 43.13, see race report

Feeling great after the race I had a week of quality training and racing!

W/C 30th July

Mon: 30mins
Tues: 6x600m with Altrincham AC. Great to be back down training with the club and to see everyone! The rest of the group were doing 8x600m so I missed a couple to get a bit of extra rest and felt strong running on the track. First track session back, DONE! I didn't even take my times as I just wanted to focus on running smoothly and getting the session done.
Weds: 45min easy to easy the legs off
Thurs: Sale Sizzler 5km 20.11 Absolutely awesome run to take over a minute off my time from a fortnight ago! Very very pleased!
Fri: 73min run - very pleased to run this far! Just started running and enjoyed it so much I kept going, though on the way back I was listening out for the road traffic noise to know I was getting back home!
Sat: Rest
Sun: Northern Track League, Litherland (Southport) - 3km in 11:33.1 Found this really hard in the heat and couldn't go any faster but another huge improvement on a month ago. Also trotted round a 1500m to pick up some extra points for the club.

Had a great week of racing, clocking some fantastic times and making huge progress all in the space of 8 days! Looking back I can't believe I managed these times after such limited training - at the time I was disappointed not to go under 20 mins and 11.30, but I feel confident I can hit these times very soon and I'm quite excited about next year's track season! Things are definitely going in the right direction, and fast!

Racing as training seems to be working - I'm getting more out of it than I would a training session and it's building my confidence nicely!