I’ve asked everybody in Kazakhstan, but I still don’t understand…Bob Wilson – anchorman...

It’s going to be a funny month training wise, I done a few steady runs the week after VLM then headed out to Amsterdam with the wife for the Queens Day celebrations. We’ve been the past three years and it’s a great event, all the streets are closed to traffic with live music and parties on every corner. The canals are full of barges with people blasting dance music and everyone’s dressed in orange. Needless to say I didn’t do any running but plenty of walking and the odd dance move was busted on a glorious sunny day. I’m off to Benidorm for my cousins 40th on 18th (and missing Christleton in the process, damn!) and a ‘surprise’ weekend away with the wife for our wedding anniversary on 23rd.

Feeling guilty for the lack of effort (five rest days!) I’d put in I hit the tarmac trying to push myself in work on a few runs, I finished the Friday xc with a flourish running sub 6’s for the majority of the last 3 miles. I ran 10 miles on the Saturday which included the Park Run at Princes. I had intended to run the 5k as hard as I could but after a blistering 5:24 1st mile my lungs kinda gave up! I still managed 5:54 average which was tough but ok.

I headed over to Sefton Park to watch the ‘men only’ 10k race which part of a ‘Festival of Running’ set up by Run Liverpool. Unfortunately they’d scheduled the event on the Cup Final Weekend and the turn out was pretty poor. Jonny Mellor won the race at a canter, treating it as a training run. He pulled fellow Harrier Ian Lawton and my PLS buddy James McNally around for the first few km, Ian was gunning for 32:30 and was on for a sub 32 but the finish was on long grass with a few sharp turns. James was 3rd with a brilliant 33:50 but again he could have gone quicker if wasn’t for the funny finish. Without sounding too cocky, I probably could’ve managed the 1st v40 as the standard wasn’t that good.

I watch the race with Martin Swensson and then joined him for 11 miles or do in the evening, the first 5 were quite brisk, I was glad of the Parliament Street Hill to slow us down! Martin said he was still sore after London, we joined James the following evening for a bank holiday jog around Woolton.

I headed to Wavertree for a track session on the Tuesday, I always knew the first track session was gonna hurt and boy did it! The session was 6 x 3 mins or 6 x 1km depending on which you hit 1st. I’d done 5 miles in the day and met James at Lark Lane, running the 2 miles to the track. Speaking to Dave Evans, he recommended I run 800’s – maybe throwing in another interval if the 6 wasn’t enough. It was! I ran the first in 2:35, felt great and pushed on the second, 2:31. However on the third I just couldn’t get going, I was 10 metres off everyone. I managed to cling on to sub 2:40 for the rest but man it hurt!

After the session I was talking to Dave Evans and Al Ashton about more speed specific sessions and the Harriers run shorter sharper stuff on the Thursday. One session in particular Dave spoke about was one Salazar set up for Mo and Rupp that involved 400m with a 1 min rest, then 200m, jog the next 200 then back into the 400’s. At PLS we are in the process of setting some specific 5k/10k training , I’m keen to do something similar to these sessions with a tempo thrown in on the weekend.

Next race for me will probably be Hollins Green 5k – I’m away for two more weekends in May so it’s going to be tough to get any consistency in my training!