Definitely a more positive week this week. My body appears to be remembering how to run again, and my paces have picked up while my heart rate has dropped down a bit. I’m definitely still not back to peak shape, but seem to be heading in the right direction and hopefully will continue to improve fast.
I was quite apprehensive about Wednesday’s track session because of my dip in form, but was pleasantly surprised with the speed I could manage despite the pouring rain. It was also encouraging that my legs felt great afterwards, showing that even if I’m aerobically a bit below my best at the moment, my legs are nice and strong still. No doubt the yoga and strength work I’ve been doing have also helped that.
At the weekend I had the Bristol 10K, but I spent most of Saturday drinking in the sunshine, and had a rather late night, which wasn’t exactly the best preparation for a 10K on a warm and very sunny spring morning. I therefore decided to abandon my original plan to try and go sub-40, and ran at a hard but comfortable tempo pace. Given that I felt tired and a little hungover I was pretty pleased to be able to settle in to a decent pace and stay there. Again my legs felt great afterwards, hardly any fatigue, so overall a decent training run. I think if I had been fresh and properly pushed I definitely could have come in around 40 minutes, so that’s positive.
I now have a couple of weeks before the Vitality (née-Bupa) London 10,000. I want to have a proper crack at that, and hopefully I will be in a position to go solidly sub-40 by then…