Well, It’s been a good 6 months since I last wrote anything on here, and so it’s about time I got my blog going again! Not a bad time to start as well, just in time for the New Year!
So after a very quiet summer, I began to realise I was ‘mincing about’ and needed to get stuck into some proper training again! This all kicked off in August, and I raced for the first time mid-September. I ran the 3rd leg for our 4 man Blackburn team in the NW Road Relays, and I was just treating this as a very low key run out. Anyway I took over in a lowly position, after our first leg runner, hobbled home after injuring himself. I can honestly say I ran the best I have done on the roads since winning the 1st Leg of the National Road Relays as an u13!! I set of steady, picking off a few runners on the first lap, before giving it hell on the 2nd lap, and hauling us back into the top 10. I knew if I could get us somewhere near being in contention we would have a chance with Tom Cee on the last leg! He smashed it, running in the 14.30’s through 5k! My official time was 15.27, which I was shocked by! Like I said, I gave Tom Cee a chance, and he caught Warrington with 200m and this gave us bronze, to go with the title of Lancashire Champions! Also my 15.27 equates to 15.13 through 5k, so a huge p.b!
I went back to Loughborough the next day, and moved into our new house! I live in a ‘runner’s house’ with 3 Southener’s, Seb Foy, Matt Sullivan and Andrew Mariani. So far it has been a great laugh, the perfect environment to get the best out of myself and have a load of fun at the same time! Training continued to press on in earnest, and I hit some good mileage pb’s of 58, 59, 67 and finally 69! My sessions were also getting better every week agreeing with one of George’s Gandy’s infamous quotes, “In your face progression”!!! My best arguably 4 x 1mile in 4.49, 4.47, 4.46 and 4.39.
So after a very quiet summer, I began to realise I was ‘mincing about’ and needed to get stuck into some proper training again! This all kicked off in August, and I raced for the first time mid-September. I ran the 3rd leg for our 4 man Blackburn team in the NW Road Relays, and I was just treating this as a very low key run out. Anyway I took over in a lowly position, after our first leg runner, hobbled home after injuring himself. I can honestly say I ran the best I have done on the roads since winning the 1st Leg of the National Road Relays as an u13!! I set of steady, picking off a few runners on the first lap, before giving it hell on the 2nd lap, and hauling us back into the top 10. I knew if I could get us somewhere near being in contention we would have a chance with Tom Cee on the last leg! He smashed it, running in the 14.30’s through 5k! My official time was 15.27, which I was shocked by! Like I said, I gave Tom Cee a chance, and he caught Warrington with 200m and this gave us bronze, to go with the title of Lancashire Champions! Also my 15.27 equates to 15.13 through 5k, so a huge p.b!
I went back to Loughborough the next day, and moved into our new house! I live in a ‘runner’s house’ with 3 Southener’s, Seb Foy, Matt Sullivan and Andrew Mariani. So far it has been a great laugh, the perfect environment to get the best out of myself and have a load of fun at the same time! Training continued to press on in earnest, and I hit some good mileage pb’s of 58, 59, 67 and finally 69! My sessions were also getting better every week agreeing with one of George’s Gandy’s infamous quotes, “In your face progression”!!! My best arguably 4 x 1mile in 4.49, 4.47, 4.46 and 4.39.
Anyway back to the races. I did the Fell Relays up in the lakes, and although the team had a disaster with our leg 3 runners getting lost and ending our hopes of a top 10 finish, I had a good run! I managed to come home 5th on the first leg, behind 4 senior internationals! Next up were the XC Relays at Mansfield, and I ran a solid 1st leg, but got a little carried away, virtually leading after 2k! Anyway I ended up 9 seconds off an overall top 10 fastest leg (which was my target). A guest appearance and 4th place in a Manchester League was my next task. I think this was my first 10k XC and I judged it pretty well, starting off very cautiously, only being beaten by some top class runners in the shape of Dave Norman, Gaz Raven and Andy Nixon.
My final race pre-Xmas came at the Liverpool XC Challenge at Sefton Park. My target was top 25 u23’s and a position in the 50-60 region. However I came down with something in the days leading up to it, and probably shouldn’t have run... I unsurprisingly underperformed coming 97th!!! And was then forced to take a week off ill!
Anyway all in all the last few months have been very solid and I am looking forward to some more big (for me) mileage in the New Year, along with some good championship performances! I must stop waffling now!!
See you in the New Year,
Pete
