Was it the 4hr drive? The 100 mile weeks? The lack of speed work? Or just poor fitness?
I have no idea, but after lap 1 of 4, I am in 150th place in the National Cross Country Champs. Not good when I am targeting top 40.
I am panicking, but I keep running, I don’t have any better ideas. Then, with 2 laps to go, everything starts to click, I find a rhythm and am flowing through people. 1 lap to go and I’m really in a groove, I overtake around 20 people. When I discover an extra hill tacked into the last lap I am thanking my lucky stars. More time for me to overtake more runners.
Looking up at all the scalps coming back to me is making me anxious and in danger of losing the flow. I keep locked into gear and don’t get greedy. I finish strong and full of running in 68th place.
“68th” sounds so much better than “150th”, which was the reality I had faced for half the race.
Such an epic event the National XC, nearly 2000 runners battling it out over mud, hills, streams.
Otherwise, I had a rest day on Monday to mark 4 weeks of 100 mile weeks. Some runners really struggle taking rest days, I don’t.
Did a talk called ‘How To Be A Better Runner Without Getting Off The Sofa’ on Tuesday with the Bangor Psychology students, who are training up for Liverpool Marathon. We went to the track after and it was great to see them putting their all into the session. We finished the last rep with some Usain Bolt celebrations.
Storm Doris smashed our windscreen on Thursday, 5 or 6 trees were blown down on our land, but it ended up being a nice day for me, hanging in a cafe with the family instead of working, waiting for storm to pass.
After my Sunday long run I took my little ones while Nina went for a run. Don’t tell her but we went to McDonalds and had a great time!
100 mile week 5 of 8 is done, next up: Trafford 10km, hoping for sub 31min.
| 20/2/2017 | AM | PM |
| Monday | REST | REST |
| Wake up feeling coldy. Up late working on slideshow for talk @ Bangor Uni | ||
| Tuesday | 3 | 10 tm |
| ab pain in PM run. | ||
| Wednesday | 5 tm | 10 tm |
| PM run supposed to be 7x1km but still getting ab pains | ||
| Thursday | 4 | 13 tm |
| AM run in storm Doris, challenging! | ||
| Friday | 3 | 9 tm |
| Saturday | 3 | National XC – 68th. 12 miles total |
| Sunday | 21 | 7 |
| AM run supposed to be 25, but get ab pains | ||
| TOTAL: | 100 miles. tm = treadmill | |