It's been a while since the last post. The last couple of months have past pretty quickly. I tried to get back into training in October and ended up with a torn hamstring. Nobody to blame for this one, but myself I'm afraid. I tried to run a 10 mile race in Battersea Park with no training, no warm-up and being pretty tired generally. I should have known better, frankly. I've managed to last for 9.5 miles until my hamstring gave up.Daily treatments and Alex's help with stretching it meant that I was able to run again after only three weeks recovery. Just as well as I was required to run as a pacemaker for the Run to The Beat Half Marathon. Before the start I was worried that the hamstring wouldn't hold as it was cold and absolutely poring down with rain. Luckily I was required at a reasonable pace of 6:53 per mile aiming at getting the pacing right for 1:30 finishing time. We went off at a steady pace of about 6:50 per mile and by half way we we about 30 seconds ahead of our target I don't quite know where we lost that time but we had to run the last could of miles pretty hard just to come 10 seconds under 1:30. The hamstring tightened up towards the end, but managed to hold to the end. Our pacing and the race itself was a success despite the inclement weather and the delayed start due to the underground problems. The event run to life music in the centre of South
London is a great idea and I hope to be back for the next year's event.
Since the half marathon I've been gradually increasing the amount of training I've been doing. This season I'm changing slightly the approach to training with slightly lower overall mileage, but much more of a focus on quality. I'm not doing virtually any easy training and every session has a purpose. I'll expand a bit on the new training approach in my next post.
The next event in my schedule was the annual Ballbuster – an event held at the infamous Box Hill near Dorking. The event consists of an 8 mile run, 24 mile bike and an 8 mile run and goes up the notoriously tough Box Hill five times in total. It seems like I've not had much luck with the weather in this year's races and the morning greeted us with cold weather and pouring rain again. The rain has transformed the transition into a mud bath and mad the cycling conditions treacherous. The race started OK, but I wasn't feeling great from the start and about five miles into the race my legs completely seized up. It was really strange and has never happened to me before, one minute I was running well and the next minute I was reduced to a jog. I've never really recovered from it and was just going through the motions on the bike and the second run. Eventually I ended up in the 24th place with 3:05, which I think is my slowest time ever on this course.
Since the Ballbuster this have been going a little bit better, despite pretty bad weather we've had. Running has been going OK and I've recently run 50:45 at my aerobic pace over my usual 12km course, which is a life-time best for me. I've made some great progress in the pool and my times over 400m have dropped in training to 6:50 in a short course pool, again a life-time best. The biggest surprise is perhaps my cycling – despite not doing too much cycling my threshold (FTP) has improved to about 260W and I was recently able to complete 2x20 min intervals at 267W. I've been riding my fixed wheel bike since October and I think the increased strength it's given me is starting to pay off.
That's it till the next update, the festive Christmas season is upon us and I don't know how much training I'll be able to do, but I'm hoping to at least keep my run frequency up. Watch out for the next update about the plans for 2009 and my new training programme.
Mike.
