An easy week before my half marathon tomorrow.
On Monday I was feeling it a bit from Sunday but managed a good solid circuit session which lasted just over an hour. Circuits are weird for me, I don't do them that often maybe once a month but i find it really easy until I do my super circuit at the end where I try and do as much of each type of excercise as I can. I don't know if I'm just not doing enough per circuit or I've plateaued or I'm just doing it right??
Anyway Tuesday my shoes hadn't arrived yet so it was out with the trail shoes. I realised quickly that my trail shoes are now gubbed. I don't know if it is because they are not designed for concrete or because I have done enough mileage in them in the past year. So I just did an easy 3 miles as I really did think I might get an injury if I did anymore.
Good news is I got my new shoes on Wednesday so plenty of time to break them in before Sunday. I did an easy 10k on Wednesday just to not over do it in my shoes debut appearance.
On Thursday club night, they were doing one of the hardest sessions they do. I was planning to just turn up see if there was anything happpening with Alloa then go on my own jog. But Shelia and Yvonne were doing the half marathon on Sunday too, so we just did our own run. They are both very good runners so their easy pace was not too far off my half marathon pace. So it really was the perfect run for me before Sunday. We did 5 1/2 miles and were doing pretty much bang on 8 minute mile pace which equates to a 1.45 half mara time. I felt really comfertable and felt I could continue easily at that pace. This was shown through even more with my very quick recovery.
I think every one of my posts on training have gone something like 'Friday rest day'. Not this Friday though! For sports relief my work were doing a charity mile round the grounds of my work which equated to a good fun 1.35 mile loop. One of the guys from my department Alex joined me and I agreed to run with him as I didn't want to go all out before Sunday. After half a mile easy warm up we got to the start line. I was suprised that there was only 30 people there as the offices must hold over 4000 people. But there was 2 other start times so more might have been starting later. I said to Alex to go slightly ahead of me so I wasn't dictating the pace. We set off and immediatley we were at the front. I had no intention of competing or winning as I say I just wanted a steady run. But everyone seemed quite happy to run behind us. Which we did then my watched beeped to indicate a mile (which we thought was the full distance of the race) but we still had a bit to go to get to the finish. Alex was struggling and if it was a mile he would have been fine. Alex was slowing so I slowed and a guy went passed and was off. After the guy got about 20 metres ahead, Alex saw the hill coming up and just told me to go. So I hammered off up the hill having no intention of catching the first place guy and just continued back at the steady pace. I crossed the line in 10 minutes which was maybe a bit faster than I wanted to run but it was comfertable. I also finished second but I don't count it as it wasn't really a race and more for charity and getting people to excercise. Alex was 5th and did really well. It was a really nice route and I am tempted to start doing an easy 2 miler every Friday lunchtime, especially if Alex is up for it.
On to today, Saturday. I managed to sleep in and get up at 9.05 with the park run starting at 9.30am! I texted Richard just to say I am coming and got there at 9.20 with 10 minutes to spare. This week I was marshalling the start with Shirley who although volunteers a lot too, this is the first time our paths have crossed. We also did Funnel Management together which was fun clapping all the runners finishing with the occassional shout to make sure people stayed in order. Just a half mile run to the Parkrun today and that'll do before tomorrow.
I am really looking forward to Alloa for a couple of reasons. Half marathons at the moment are my favourite distance as having done 8 I getting quite experienced at them. Another reason is because this is my first half representing Giffnock and because its a club championship race for the women there will be a fair number of Giffnock Northers there. Including my Lochaber buddies, Steven and Jacqui who like me are using it as a warm up race for Lochaber. It will be interesting to see how they do and how close we'll be at Lochaber. The last reason is because I think this maybe the time where a beat my PB of 1.40.19 from 2004. I am not going to put pressure on myself though as I realise that there will be plenty more opportunities later in the year or years to come. As I say that run on Thursday indicates I should be able to do a 1.45 which was my season best last year, even if I beat that I'll be delighted. But there is always random factors and I've just got to keep an open mind and try and run at a pace which is comfertable but maxing it for the distance. Easiser said than done! But we'll see...
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