Longest Distance, Personal Best and Run in the Sun

Been a busy boy the past couple of weeks and my weekly mileage is steadily going up. The week started off with a pyramid session of two to five minutes and back down again at the track. This is always a high intensity run at near threshold pace with half the recovery being half the running time, tough workout and good for speed work.

As the clocks went forward last night, it’s going to be dark by 5pm in the evening so I took the opportunity to run a 7 mile circuit around the hills of Etherow Park on Wednesday. I love hill running, you really feel like you’ve been in a tough session when you’ve finished it and you’ve the fun and game of the down hills in the second half

I’ve got to know two lads very well in Stockport Harriers, both great runners and seasoned marathoners and last Saturday went for a long run with them in the local area. Got up at 6.15am in the dark and rain to run the 1st of a 3 tier run. 10.6 miles, then the Park Run and then back to Mike`s house. Total of 15.6 miles. This was the furthest I've ever run and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When we got to the Park for the 5k, I ate a gell pack, which seemed a bit odd considering it was only a 5k, but I needed the boost. I struggled a bit during the 5k as I'd warmed down and had to get back out again. Not surprisingly, but time was a lot slower than normal coming in it 24.16 (I'm usually just over 23 mins) but was happy with that considering the long run before it.

Aftr the Park Run we finished off by a couple of miles back to Mike`s house, I was delighted with the run in 2 hours 16. My furthest run and longest time.

There`s a new by-pass opening in Alderley Edge late this year, so a local running club organised a 5 miler along the so to be openned road on the Sunday aftr my long run. It was very icy and sunny on the Sunday and rather stupidly, I put on 3 layers for the cold weather. Hmm, yes, of course during the run, the day suddenly warmed up and I became very hot. It made it a very tough race, but I was happy with my time of 35 minutes, especially as I was sore from the day before.





1 Ryan Holroyd JM 1 Staffordshire Moorlands AC 26:26
2 Stuart Doyle Vale Royal AC 27:02
156 Andrew Potter Unattached 35:47
157 John Richards Stockport Harriers 35:48
158 Geoff Hand V50 0 Spectrum Striders 35:49
866 Nicky Watts L 343 Unattached 1:06:58
867 Cat Woodham L 344 Unattached 1:06:58

Took a week off this week as I was feeling a bit sore after clocking up 30 miles last week, my furthest in a week to date. I did pop down the gym after work on Friday and did a hard hill session on the treadmill, sit ups and push ups, and some general core workouts.

Week got better and better with a personal best of 22.19 at the Park Run knocking 43 seconds off my previous best, I felt fine during the race and had no idea I was running that quickly.





I went out again on Sunday with Mike and Simon for our weekly long run, it was mainly hills throughout but all the training on the hills I've been doing lately seems to be paying off as I seemed to be able to attack the hills very strongly and covered the 15.5 miles quite easily in 2 hours 40. Huge thank you to Mike and Simon for the encouragement during the route.

My aim for the next year is to run a marathon, my initial thoughts were to take part in the Snowdon Marathon but my brother came out with the cracking idea of running my first marathon in the States with him. I'm very excited by this idea and really really want to do it, dependant upon finances, its something that`s on our calender for next year as part of a tour of the States we're hoping to do.