a slight stumble

well yesterdays race at shortwood started well that was about the only thing that went well. that was for about the first 150 yards or so, when some complete bastard tripped me from behind, sending me crashing unceremoniuously to the ground, one of two people that went over. cut my elbow and grazed my hip but far more importantly than that, it cost me the chance of a fast time and it also meannt that i didn't break 18 mminutes for every race in the series. not only did i lose time for the actual fall, but i also lost time for havingg to fight my way past the slower runners. one of them was being a real bastard, accelerating then slowing down in front of me so there was no room for me to squeeze past on the narrow windy path that forms the entire course. he managed it about 3 or 4 times until he eventually blew up, serves the bastards right ffor trying to compete with a far superior athlete. i was quite incensed when sian monahan said that she would treat the race as a training run and jog around with me-she hasn't beaten me yet this winter-bloody cheek! i still managed to beat all the people that i would usually beat, but i couldn't help thinking that i would have beatenn more of them, had it not been for my fall. i'm begining to think that beating 17 minutes for 5k this winter in the time frame that we have left is just totally unrealistic now and i will have to have a good track season over 800 and 1500 meters before it becomes a viable proposition. having siad that though it is still worth keeping it in my head as a target because as they say, if you aim for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars.

i've had a look at the race fixtures for the coming couple of weeks and i am tempted to do the easter bunny 10k down at rnas yeovilton as a final race for the winter season if i don't make one of the teams for the national 12 stage relays, which the way my luck seems to be going at the moment, i probably wont as i'm sure the hand of fate will have some ddirty trick up its sleeve to try and halt my progress. just to make matters worse i am on mendip road next week, by far the worst round in the office, home of colin "the yeti man" luxton and his wife/boyfriend/what ever you think it is. ask me about some of the stories about him, such as the time his false teeth flew out when he was half way through telling a joke, or the the time he dragged a bike all the way around his entire round with the lock through the wheel, or the time that he turned up for work on a bank holiday monday, or the time that he turned up for work wearing a slipper on one foot and a royal mail issue shoe. the list of thos is endless

a nice easy day

just a nice easy 10 mile plod this morning when i got out of bed. felt a bit lethargic like i hadn't slept properly for the first 3 miles or so but after that i was fine. i'm trying to avoid all thins rugby for the next couple of days after yesterday with bristol and england being beaten. bristol outscored quins by 1 try to nil and still lost thanks to indiscipline. i have confidenc that they will come back to foprm very quickly, because they were without england scrum half shaun perry but england i am very pessimistic about.

i still feel optomistic about my chances of a fast time on tuesday night, so bring it on!

relaxing

it was just an easy run today, 8 miles at a very steady pace. i am starting to feel noticably more dehydrated in the mornings now so i am having to carry extra drink with me at work. i hope it doesn't get as bad as some of the days we had last summer with guys going down with heat exhaustion, me included, as that is some thing that i am very prone to. my stomach felt bad all day at work today so i made a conscious decision that today was going to be an easy day, especially in consideration of the fact that i have a race on tuesday evening so obviously i have to ensure freshness as a top priority in order for me to have a crack at my pb.

i'm still having trouble deciding what my main distances are going to be for the summer when the track season rears its ugly head again. i am thinking in terms of 800's, 1500's and 3000's with possibly a 5000 meter race thrown in for good measure. one thing i have decided though is that if i don't pb at 800 this year then this will be the last time i race over the distance this year and next summer i will concentrate on longer races. if, as i hope i do, i manage a pb over 800 then i will give it another season. i've also thought about acquiring my self a bike and entering dome duathlon races, but that would be a winter thing and would only be logistically possible after i have passed my driving test

long time no speak

well its been a while since i've been able to publish on here due to a few technical problems regarding the signal on this computer as it is a lap top. been a fairly productive week trining wise, with two interval sessions and a few steady paced runs dotted inbetween along with two games of squash, both ofwhich i was soundly thrashed in. first session was on tuesday night doing mile reps around aztec west business park. i didn't manage to pull out my fastest time around the circuit which is 5:21 but the time i did that it was the first rep of the session and i ended up suffering really badly for it come the third or fourth rep. i was aiming to do 5 of them on tuesday but decided to call it quits at 4, the times i posted being 5:31, 5:30, 5:30 and 5:35. no one else from the group- did more than four so there would have been little point in crucifying myself to run a time that would have been significantly slower than the rest of the repetitions that i did.

last night i did a training session with the bristol university group, who ususally train with us any way, the main bristol session being cancelled owing to the fact that a significant proportion of our runners were doing the inter counties champoionships tomorrow, good luck to all who are participating in that event. it was the usual combination oflong and short reps with me posting times of 3:00, 2:50, 2:53 and 2:53 for the short reps and 2:15, 2:17, 2:15 and finishing of with an absoloutely storming 2:12 for the shorter reps.

on to matters races now and the next one is coming up very shortly, the final race of the bridge inn series is on tuesday evening and i feel in shape to have a serious crack at my pb hopefully i will get under 17:30 this time. one more race has been addeed to my calender, the gloucester road relays. i don't know a great deal about the course only that it is roughly 4 miles and is flat, straight and reasonably quick so it will hopefully be absolutley ideal for me. sometimes when i run a new course i don't like to know too much about it and i just get out there and run it as hard as i can, rather than worrying too much about tactics

b****cks at bath

well i managed to drag my self out of bed for the team bath 5k at 6:30 in the morning and quite frankly, i wish i hadn't bothered. it was utterly rubbish. 17:53 was the piece of s**te that i ran today. embarrasing is the word. jonathan goodland was ill and he still beat me or so he said he was any way. it was a two lap course and i managed to stay in touch with where i wanted to be for about the first lap and three quarters, but after that we went through a twisty turny section of the course and for no apparent reason other than the fact that i can't run i just lost about 60 or 70 yards. those twist and turns are quite difficult for me being 6 foot 5 and as rob whalley was explaining to me afterwards, you have to learn to run the optimum route for yourself around the corners, ie go around the corners at as close to maximum speed as you can without going too wide but also not cutting too close to the corner so you don't have to slow right down and end up screwing yourself over un neccessarily because you are constantly having to accelerate out of the corners, which is an inefficient use of energy.

still i suppose when you f**k up you just have to learn the lessons that are there to be learnt and apply them to the next time you race or whatever. one thng that also annoys me is that i can't seem to race as well as i train and i can think of no explanation as to why whatsoever. i'll be up with people in training and come race time they'll be in some cases over a minutre ahead of me. i've looked in training manuals and everything and none of them seem to offer any explanantion that makes any real sense to me. oh well i suppose its back to the drawing board for now, as my dream of beating 17 minutes is obviously far too ambitious for the moment. i still want to do the 10k at the same venue for the moment as apparently the course is quite fast, so may be there is potential for a big pb there as people were running fairly fast times there last year. there was a time earlier this winter when i would have been delighted with an time under 18 minutes but my mind has moved on since then and is really ready for a sub 17 minute time but it looks as though i may well have to be patient and wait a while before my body and mind are thinking along the same lines. i am sure it will happen at some point but it looks very much unlike it will happen at any point in the immediate future. not sure whats next on the race calender but i want to get some thing else organised to make up for the disappointment today. the wind was a factor as well today, but i'm sure it wasn't 14 seconds.

knee probs

done a bit of self diagnosis on my knee, i reckon i've got tendonitis in the platella of my knee. i've yet to work out how to treat it. i don't suffer any discomfort running, but if i have to sit in a cramped position it can hurt. still doiing the team bath 5k tomorrow morning as it has eased off considerably, since running my pb at weston on thursday night. sub 17'sthe target tomorrow.

what a day!

in the afternoon i re passed my theory test for my driving. in the evening i ran a 5 mile pb down at weston in the prom runs, ok 29:32 wasn't the sub 29 minute time i was hoping for but it was windy and the wind can play havoc down there when it wants to. i also achieved my best ever position down there, 15h out of a couple of hundred. the best thing about it though was that i just felt so strong that i could probably have gone and done it all again. unfortunatley though i seem to be getting some sort of problem in my knee, but iam convinced it is not running related as it doesn't give me any problem when i am running only when i am forced to sit in acramped position when my knee goes really stiff. i've had it since before i started running but this past week or so it seems to have got worse and i don't understand why. answers on a postcard please...

just an easy 2 miles tonight and probably a steady 6 or 7 tomorrow. i've got the team bath 5k on sunday morning. i don't know anything about the course but apparently it is a two lap course with a slight hill in it and it is fast but no exceptionally so. ever since the temper tantrum i had because of the utter sh**e i ran at the previous brdige inn race i have been feeling very fit. i feel like i can run a sub 17 minute 5k and a sub 37 minute 10k by the end of this winter. lets hope eh....

well its wednesday 14th today and that can only mean one thing-its the next weston prom run tomorrow and i will be aiming for sub 29 minutes weather conditions permitting. weather always plays a big part down there because it is on the sea front and consequently very exposed to the elements. bad weather will mean racing for positions rather than time.

last nights session with mike downs group was at sneyd park on the hills and the steepest sections of the course were very exposed to quite a strong headwind meaning that times were a little slower, except for me i managed to pull out the fastest rep i've ever managed on that course. only by one second but still a best all the same. Quoite a few of the good guys were there last night. you just have to let them get on and do their thing, chasing them you would only end up blowing yourself up. my times were 3:29, 3:29, 3:25, 3:31, 3:38 and 3:39, i think memory may be playing tricks on me there, but what does it matter? what did surprise me last night was being as far ahead of jerry hogan as i was, but to be fair ithink he was just having a bad night.

has the potential to be a very good or very bad day for me tomorrow as i have my driving theory test in the afternoon before the race in the evening so if any one approaches me and i don't speak to them you'll know why! wishing me luck and signing off for tonight...pete

i went out twice on friday in the snow eventually, steady paced six mile run in the evening ended up chatting to some guy who was doing the barcelona marathon in march. i've decided that i want to do a marathon atsome point in my career but as to when i really don't know. in all honesty, i and many people around me think that my better chance of success lies in the track and shorter road races, eg 3k's, 5k's and 10k's and i would be inclined to agree with them. i've only just managed my first 50 mile week and i would have to be doing probably double that if i was to record a time that was any thing like respectable, but thats all in the future, this is very much the present.

i have finalised what my races will be for the second half of the winter season. they will be as follows

1 the weston prom run on thursday 15th of feb. hoping to either set a pb or break 29 minutes here

2 the team bath 5k on the following sunday. hoping to break 17 minutes here, but it is apparently quite a twisty turny course, which may not be to my liking, being quite tall, hope to break 17 minutes

3the final bridge inn race of the winter series at the end of the month (last tuesday). here i am hoping to avenge my defeat by gareth cooper in the previous race, where he made me do all the work for about 4.8k before outsprinting me andd beating me by probably less then ten centimeters...i also like to beat bill graham from bitton road runners, theres a bit of a story behind that one but ask me in person, because if i published it i'd probably get sued for libel

4 i'm hoping to do the team bath 10k where i will be aiming to set another pb, hopefully under 37 minutes

5 another weston prom run and hopefully another pb...

and finally, 6 is the midland and national road relays although the nationals could be abit problematic with regards to getting time off from my old postie job, as they have already said no as it is the easter weekend and it is already fully booked, but they said to ask again nearer the time.

on to the past couple of days training. as well as going out twice on friday i managed a 8 mile run last night and my weekly 12 mile long run this morning. i felt quite fresh so i thought about pushing the boat out and trying for 14 but decided to err on the side of caution as i have already done my highest mileage weekmof the winter, and i probably increased it a little bit too much in all honesty, so i will probably stick at the same level for the next couple of weeks to allow my body to adapt to the pounding and abuse that it takes

zooming at the zoo

Did the session at bristol zoo last night and for once i think i did ok there, but being a 6 foot 4 monster i still have difficulty getting to grips with those tight corners. i reckon i was losing a yard on everyone for each corner that we went around. did the same session that we usually do last night. 4 long laps and 4 short ones alternating off a recovery of about a minute and a half. i was leading the chasing group behind craig and rich peters who were about 15-20 secs in front of us. my times were. the 1st rep me and another kid from the university were comfortably in front of the rest of the group and thought we were cruising to a really fast time when it hit us that we weren't and we had to crank up the gears a little bit. "3 mins" called out mike as we crossed the line, a good 6 seconds outside outside our best times. my times, in order were 3:00, 2:54, 2:59 and 2:57 for the long rep and 2:19, 2:15 2:17 and 2:17 for the shorter reps. dave austin gps'd it once and he said (i think) that the lengths of the respective courses were 870 meters and 720 meters respectively, which makes it just under a mile long.

anyways it was my day off work this morning so i took advantage to go for a 2 mile recovery run even though the snow was coming down. things like that just don't bother me. i had to laugh when i saw the other posties out in all their winter gear, freezing their bollocks off and i thought to myself unluck mate, you got another 3 hours of that...what goes around comes around though and i'm sure that when i get snowed on they'll laugh at me.

this is my running blog

this is my running blog as you will probably guess by the title and i will be using it to create some sort of record of training/diary for my self. well yessterday we did an interval session at the coombe dingle sports ground last night which cosisted of diminisshing time intervals starting at 6 mins, 30 seconds jogging recovery followed by a hard minute 90 secs recovery, then 5 mins and a hard minute and so on and so forth until we reached 1 minute. that was 27 minutes of hard running which i actually thought was quite short for this time of year. i was the only person who was brave enough to wear shorts and vest-not stupid or mad as the rest of the group seem to think-personally i think their a little bit soft.

thanks to a little bit of gentle persuasion from their club president ann singer i have also joined portishead second claim. i'm not entirely sure what all the rules on 1st and 2nd claim are so i will have to either do the research or ask ann next time i bump in to her running around portishead, probably with one of her 5 off spring and i'll be either be doing my postie round or running mmy self i rather expect.

tonight i just managed an hour about 8 or 9 miles hilly in total. felt pretty good all the way around, followed by my stomach exercises. i delibrately kept it low key preparing for the fact that we are doing a session at bristol zoo tomorrow. i'll be hard pressed though if i am going to get a decent sleep in the afternoon before training. they've put me on st peters rd a round that has no drop boxes for the mail, so it means that i have to go back to the office 3 times to pick up mail and being thursday it should be reasonably busy, so that will quite probably mean a late finish although there hasn't been much work around recently