Solid week this week, as I continue to move back towards peak fitness. I arrived at the track on Wednesday to again find it closed, but as I was doing 800m reps I did them along the footpath instead. I’ve now found a timetable of track closures for the next month, it seems most local schools are using it for their sports days so it’s shut a lot during the day throughout June. A bit of creative schedule juggling should ensure I can still get my sessions in though. I’m also continuing to enjoy the yoga and strength training I’ve added to my training, and can already feel my exercises with the dumbbells getting easier as my strength increases.
Double race weekend this week, plus I had my parents and nephew staying, which made for a rather tiring combination! The Westminster Mile went well on Sunday, and I knocked almost 30 seconds off my PB bringing it down to 5:34. I’m not really a speed runner so pleased with this performance, and hopeful with a few more weeks of solid training I can get under 5:30 at the City of London mile in a few weeks.
Monday then saw the London 10,000, which I ran as my first ever race back in 2012. I’ve run it every year since, and is always good fun with a great route through the city. I do miss the old route along the Embankment, but the new route is a bit flatter and faster I think, so I’ll let them off. I was hoping to sneak in under 40 minutes but with the Westminster Mile the day before, plus a long day chasing after my nephew, my legs weren’t in perfect shape and felt a little sluggish on the warm-up.
The start didn’t help either. Despite being a big race (12,000+ finishers) I’ve never had much of an issue with congestion, but this year it seemed quite bad in the first few kilometres, and was compounded by idiots who must have been stood right at the front of the race, yet were walking within 100m of starting. This made for a slightly slow, and very frustrating, first mile but I tried to channel my annoyance and just push on.
I eventually settled in to a nice rhythm and managed pretty consistent splits. The wind whipped up a bit in the second half of the race but I pressed on and managed a nice fast final mile and a good sprint finish to come across the line in 40:01. So close, yet so far! Not too fussed to not quite go under 40 minutes (whereas if this was a PB it’d be pretty annoying!) and happy with that performance after a tiring previous day. I definitely still had a little in the tank, and felt good the following day, so overall a solid hard tempo training effort.
With May’s little block of races done now full attention turns to the Swansea Half in four weeks. Hopefully some decent track sessions, tempo efforts and long runs will get me towards PB shape for that, then it’s onwards for a big 10K PB attempt at the end of July!