Lancashire Cross Country Championships

The picture above pretty much sums it up!!! Cannot believe the race went ahead, however it did and full credit to the marshalls, course builders etc!!

I finished 8th, which was a steady run, considering the time I've had off over the last 6 weeks with illness. Would have liked to have made the top 5 or 6 ideally, but it wasn't to be. It will be touch and go if I make the Inter-Counties team with the likes of Ben Lindsay and Anthony Ford to come in, but I'm not really fussed as I'm 75% sure I won't run anyway!

Lets hope I can get my head down and put in some solid training now in the build up to the Northerns and then the National! Until then.....

2010

Well it’s here, 2010, the start of a New Year and a new decade! How exciting and with it came buckets more snow! Let’s hope 2010 is a successful one, not just for me, but for you guys too! To bring in the New Year, I have made a few changes to the blog, mainly just making it more aesthetically pleasing! I hope you like it!!

Training has re-started today, with a 30 minute jog, and I feel I am finally over this chest infection (touches wood!). I’m looking forward to getting back into full training over the next few days. My New Year’s Resolution this year is to have to the perfect diet and get really lean. This means absolutely no death until after the National! Death is what we (my housemates and running friends) call any kind of unhealthy food! I really want to put 2009 behind me, and hit my targets for 2010. These start on the cross, where I am targeting 3 big races. The first is the Northerns on 23^rd January, at my home course, Witton Park. My next big race is for Loughborough, at the BUCS XC Champs up in Stirling, Scotland. Finally I hope to produce my best performance at the National XC Champs, at Roundhay Park in Leeds. This is my last ever race as a junior and I hope to make it one to remember!

In the mean time, this next week is one of serious revision, as my University exams are getting dangerously close, and a return to running! I’ll report back after the Lancashire Cross Country Champs a week tomorrow. Let’s hope I can put in a half decent performance and get picked to run for Lancs in the Senior Men’s Race at the Inter-Counties.

Happy New Year,

Pete

Back to Blogging!

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 3^rd 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 1^st 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 2^nd 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 5^th on the first leg, behind 4 senior internationals! Next up were the XC Relays at Mansfield, and I ran a solid 1^st 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 4^th 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 97^th!!! 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

Light at the end of the tunnel

Well its been too long since I last blogged. This has mainly been down to the fact there hasn't really been much to write about. I have been running on and off for the last month or so, with no real breakthrough. Weak tendons in my ankles kept meaning I had to take a few days off at a time, but I finally go through it and am back up and running (*touches wood*)!

The last 3 weeks have been solid. I have put together a few 40 mile weeks, and intend to keep it at this whilst gradually increasing the intensity of my main sessions. It was only 3weeks ago when I managed to stride on the track again. Since then I have done 5 'sessions' ranging from 4x300m striding, up to 3x600m at 1500m pace. So I'm definately taking steps in the right direction.

I am back home this week, as I have done 2 of my exams, with my next 2 not for another 3 weeks. The main reason I am back home though, is that on Saturday, I am racing on the track for the first time in 2 years!!!!!! Exciting times!! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes, even though I'm not expecting much!

Chow for now!

Back on track...........just about

So a week of mixed emotions.....

Started off on monday with a 20 minute tester to see how the legs were. My shins and ankles felt slightly strange but there were no ill reactions post run, so I upped it to 30mins on Tuesday morning. Again I felt fine and so decided to go on the track that evening. I did 6x 3minutes off 2mins recovery, and it felt amazing to be running on the track for the first time in 18 months :) However straight after the session I knew I had done too much....

Role on to Saturday and I managed 40 minutes easy running, the first run I had managed since Tuesdays exploits. I definately paid for my lack of patience...

On a brighter note, the weather here in Blackburn is gorgeous, maybe even as nice as what my training group from Loughborough are experiencing in South Africa.....yeh right!! Spent yesterday afternoon at Rivington Pike, where Tom Cee put in a decent performance to finish 3rd, and then did another 40mins this morning in the sun once again! Apart from that there hasn't been that much excitement really. Lets just hope I can be sensible over the next week or so and not upset my recovery.

I'll keep you posted,

Pete

P.S Happy Easter

Les Arc

Hi again. There's been lots going on since I lasted posted. My rehab started to take shape rather quickly, which was very pleasing. I just added a mile or so a day and was soon up to 50mins of running. A week last friday I did my first double day, 30mins in the morning and then 35 at night! Happy days! Was up at 3.30 the next day though and on the way to Manchester airport. Our 7 o clock flight to Grenoble and what turned out to be a 4 hour transfer, weren't great but we just got on with it and were in Les Arc by mid afternoon. For the first two days the weather was pretty poor, which made skiing difficult, but after this we had a near perfect week. We also had a great night out, and bumped into some old school friends who were out there, which was a great surprise! Small world!!!


I also got some solid training in whilst there, making use of the 1800m altitude (if that was possible for the 7 days I was there!!!) My training consisted of a 30min run on sunday, 1hr on monday and 30mins on the tuesday. These were all done on some of the flatter slopes right outside the hotel door, and with my brother for company on the short runs! On the Wednesday I did my first session since the op. I went for 18 x 40secs uphill with a jog back recovery. This was done on a dirt road, with my bro doing 4 sets of 3. The session went really well and I was over the moon to be back doing some more quality running. Unfortunately though later that night the bottom of my left shin was playing up, and so I took thursday off. Ran friday without pain but afterwards I could feel it niggling again so I decided to leave it for the weekend and start back running on the monday of my return home, when hopefully it should have settled down.

I'll keep you informed on progress this week,

Pete

Progress

9 minutes and 46 seconds of joyful running! Thats what I have just returned from. Progress at last! It has been 3 weeks and 2 days since my operation, and im finally back running. Unfortunately I delayed my return by going over on my ankle, but that is just typical of me! I stepped up my rehab to aqua jogging on thursday after getting the all clear from the physio's. I still have a lot of fluid on my right shin, but I will find out more about this when I see the specialist for the final time on thursday. At least things are moving in the right direction....

Role on 20 minutes tomorrow! Speak soon,

Pete

Welcome

Welcome to my blog, this is my first blog entry, something thats been a long time coming. I started at Loughborough University back in September and am studying Human Biology. I also chose Loughborough for its athletics reputation, which I'm sure you will all be aware of.

Since arriving in Loughborough I have loved every moment I have spent here, and wouldn't wish to be anywhere else. I am enjoying my degree as well as enjoying training under the guidance of George Gandy. Unfortunately I'm not training properly at the moment as I underwent surgery on my shins 3 weeks ago, which will have hopefully sorted out the compartment syndrome I have been suffering with for the last 2 years.

However just this afternoon, I was given the all clear by the physio's to step up my rehab to aqua-jogging, and then hopefully some light jogging at the weekend!!! Exciting times!! This should hopefully mean I can have a track season this year, which is fantastic news. I don't know how fit I will be but I am sure to smash my pb's from an injury disrupted season two years ago.

My current pb's are:
400m - 53
800m - 1.58.1
1500m - 4.00.0
3000m - n/a

Thanks for reading,

Pete