Let my armies be the rocks and the trees — and the birds in the sky

My second track session since VLM didn’t feel any easier! The session was 5 x 1200m and I started off sub 80 for the 400’s but rapidly slowed. I don’t usually take my watch, I rely on Dave Evans barking out the times but I wished I was deaf on Tuesday. Not to worry, you’ve got to start somewhere and speaking to other lads at the track who’d ran at London, they were as despondent as me – even the ones who had good runs!

I felt a lot better through the week, running a four mile tempo at 5:55 average that felt easy. I then headed to Benidorm for my cousins 40th birthday celebrations, a mixture of peer pressure and lashing of drink meant I didn’t run for the four days I was there.

I got back on the Tuesday morning and decided to do the Walton 5 mile race in the evening, knowing full well I wasn’t best prepared but I figured there would be nobody at Wavertree and I’d rather race than run a track session anyway. My garmin had packed in before the start of the race, which is oddly what happened on the only other occasion I ran this race in 2009. After a decent warm I felt ok, the conditions were perfect and I started off in a group of runners similar to my ability with nothing to lose.

I went through the 3 mile mark in 17:36 but was starting to slow. A few runners went by that with hindsight I probably should have stuck with from the start but I managed to finish in 30 mins dead – 1 second slower than my 2009 outing. So from that perspective it was consistent but the conditions were perfect and without the Benidorm boozing weekend I reckon I’d have been closer to low 29’s. All the runners in Dave Evan’s group are starting to cook, knocking out some great pb’s on the track and at Christleton and Walton, though I don’t regret doing London, the combo of that and weekends away haven’t helped the cause.

I was away again on Thursday for my wedding anniversary, a bit more cultured this time (pints noty in plastic glasses!) and for the five days I was away I managed to get seven runs in, nothing over 4 miles but I put a few sprints and quicker tempo type miles in each run. I’m hoping to run the Hollins Green 5k this weekend, I’m looking like Melvyn Hayes in ‘It Aint Half Hot Mum’ at the moment so I reckon a decent haircut will knock off 3 seconds per mile!