A step up in pace

Half marathon training started this week. It's certainly a step up in pace and distance for me compared to the past couple of months. You'd think that with all the marathon training last year it would be pretty easy. This is not the case. I've lost a lot of fitness over the last few months. Hopefully I can get it back by the time of the race in May.

What I've realised is that I do not like running to time. I think it's because I cannot alter the time but when I run against distance my fate is my own. So with this in mind I've altered the training plan from time based to distance based. Much better.

I've had no recurrence of my ankle injury. It was certainly not due to my running shoes. I'll just have to keep my eye on it.

This morning I ran a set of six intervals of 600m each. It was tough but I got through it. The pace I had to run was actually slower than my best 10km pace although it felt a lot tougher. Such is the loss of my fitness at the moment. Next week I will be running the same session so it will give me something to compare against.

A rest day tomorrow and then a 4 mile tempo run on Thursday, which will be another tough test. Looking forward to it though.

*sniff* *cough* *sneeze*

It's been two weeks since my last post. This is because I was off sick for three days and missed a couple of runs. A slight chest infection and a touch of the man-flu laid me up. I trusted in the adage that if the cold is below the neck then it's best not to run.

I'm now in my final week of recovery runs. Yesterday I ran for thirty minutes and at the end my ankle started complaining! Disaster I thought. Will I never by rid of this turbulent tendon? This morning I decided to risk my scheduled forty minute run that included six 100m sprints. I came through with flying colours. What's the next step? Well tomorrow is a rest day then I have a thirty five minute run on Thursday, twenty of which is at a tempo pace. I will be wearing the same running shoes that I wore yesterday and if I start feeling pain again then it may well be that it's the running shoes to blame. It's a scientific process of elimination, so we'll see what happens.

My half marathon training is due to start on Monday so I will bring forward my Sunday run (fifty five minutes) to the Saturday so I get a rest day before the schedule starts. Providing my ankle doesn't explode.

Stay on target

Three weeks until I start half marathon training.

My run this morning was 35 minutes. Pretty much 4 miles. It's the longest distance I've run for about two months and it felt like it.

Still no issues with my calf and ankle so all is well at the moment. So much so that I've chosen my training plan for the Chester half. I'm going to use the Lucozade running plan for sub 1:35. It will be a stretch since I am not up to full fitness and 1:35 would be a new pb for me so it may be a case of changing plans if I find it too tough to start with. Until then I'm sticking with it. This weekend I'll be up to 40 minutes, then it's 45 minutes the weekend after and 55 minutes the weekend after that.