This year has seen a return to running.  Not to anything that can be construed as fast, or even ‘faster than before’, but still, I’ve been getting out there a lot more than last year.  Disappointingly however, last weekend saw my first DNS of the year, after waking at 6am with a bit of a dodgy stomach, I reckoned a 90 min drive to do a planned 10k race might be daft, so went back to sleep.  Thankfully the bug went after about 24 hours, but I’m now chock full of snot and to make the picture even nicer, I’ve been hacking up all sorts of crap since the start of the week.  Fabulous!  Thankfully I’m starting to feel better which is good because I signed up for a 100 mile running challenge this month, and I’m getting behind already, argg!!  Anyway, still time to recover and reach the target, with a bit of planning and some extras runs!.

I’ve still got a few more planned events this year – Bright10 next Sunday (a 10 mile’er in, guess where, Brighton!), A Day at the Movies in November where I can choose how far I run, and the Christmas Pudding 10k in December.  I’m looking forward to each of those.

However, my main focus is ultimately the Brighton Marathon next April.  The return to running this year is in effect the long-slow build up to Brighton.  Whilst in Mallorca last week I had a chat to my running mentor Nicky, and my plan for Oct/Nov. is as follows:

• 3 runs a week
• Run 1: get to the point where I’m running for 30 mins non-stop (currently i’m run/walking)
• Run 2: tempo runs.  Essentially 30 mins with 5 mins w/u and 5 mins c/d and 20 mins of Fartlek or intervals in the middle.  I NEVER do tempo anything, so this will be fun!
• Run 3: LSR.  Build by 5 mins a week, with the ultimate aim to be able to comfortably run 10 miles by year-end.

So while I’ve got a 10 mile event next weekend, I’ll be run walking and essentially ‘just getting round.’  The plan for year-end is to be able to knock out a 10 mile’er in the knowledge that I could manage a bit more without expiring*.

Of course I may have forgotten to mention to my lovely mentor my aim to run 100 miles in Oct when we were discussing the current 8-week plan (I’m a crap mentee – it was more through sieve memory than consciously not mentioning it!), so I might add in the odd recovery run here and there!  (There’s a pirate-esque medal involved, so I couldn’t resist….).  Anyway, my main focus is building consistency for the next 8 weeks and focusing on the three run targets above.  I’m actually quite excited about this!  It’s good to feel happy about running again 🙂

So that’s this year.  What about next year?  Well, as I said my main focus is Brighton marathon, my ‘A’ race if you will.  I also committed to doing the Outlaw marathon in a relay team, so this is effectively my ‘B’ race.  No less important, but if I don’t nail the A race, the Outlaw will suffer.  I’ve really enjoyed marrying up various events with my running training targets this year, so I’ve been signing up for the odd race here and there in 2017, to tie in with the training plan (I’ve already got it sussed for Brighton; marathon training officially starts on the 5th December!).  I thought I’d just write them up in my new diary, and jeezo, there’s more there than I thought!!  😀

Jan – Denbie’s 10

Feb – Lanza training week (cocktail training); Dirty Running (I choose the distance, 5K min.); Brighton Half Marathon

Mar – Larmer Tree Half Marathon

Apr – Brighton Marathon – the A race!

May – The Ox Half Marathon

June – The Thames Path Potter (I choose the distance, 5K min.)

July – Outlaw relay marathon  – the B race

Sept – Bacchus Half; Equinox 24 (target 50k min.)

Oct – have a lie down.

So, I think that ought to do for now!

Thanks for reading 🙂

*After I started writing this post, I may have been having a little search about online for late December races, and lo-and-behold I found a 10 mile race on the 31st December in Berkshire, so only and hour or so away.  It fits in perfectly with my end of year goal 🙂  So that will be my last race of the year – The Gut Buster!  Hoping it’s so named because it’s aim is to help get rid of the post-Crimbo excesses, and not because it takes you up the face of a mountain, but only time will tell…