Going . . . Going . . .

. . . Almost gone! Yes, not too long now until I leave for - let's call it a change of job for 4 months out of the country! Training will be limited and racing virtually non-existent! To be honest, the recent clutch of good weather has me feeling down. I hate the winter. But love the sunshine; the hotter it is, the better for me. So today is the last race of the Lincs Services Cross Country League. The sun is shining and I aim to dream I am racing somewhere exotic! This could be difficult as the venue fills me with good and bad memories!

As far as the actual racing goes, our team is leading the league overall! Awesome! However, we recently lost a key runner (Paul Vernon - sent to the same place that I will be going to soon!). With RAF Waddington not far behind us in the team standings, we gould be overhauled by them and lose the lead in tyhis final race! They have a far stronger team then us; hence we need to run out os our skins!

I am trying not to think about going away for the summer; hopefully, I will get back and see some British summer remaining and catch the view from my turbo - It's pictured at the top! Fantastic eh?!!

One Season Ends . . .

. . . And another season begins. With the start of British Summer Time starting this weekend and the final Lincs League Cross Country race taking place next Wednesday, there is a real feeling of a new season starting. Add to this the lighter evenings and the fact that I only have a few weeks to go until I fly out to a hot and sandy deployment, it really does feel like a new chapter has begun. That's a bit deep for me really! I have lots going on in my life, for sure; however, as normal, I will try and keep this blog true to the aim of concentrating on training and racing.

Training has been ticking along, with no real schedule. If I feel like running, I run. If I feel like riding, I ride. . . You get the picture. The broad focus has continued to be on running. After the good run at the Inter-Services XC I sort of felt as though I had made a bit of a break through with my running - I was a lot closer to some of the fast guys. A decent run at Coningsby XC backed up my thoughts. However, a poor run at Waddington last week left me quetsioning myself:'is age catching up with me?' I thought to myself. After having a stern word with myself I banished such crazy thoughts from my head! So last Tuesday I ventured to track to train with the real athletes at Hunts AC. I love track running. As a youth, I started running on the track with Leicester Coritanians AC and this instilled a love for the speed and pain that a full on track session can provide. I guess it's hard to explain. Track running is, well, just 'different'! Anyway, we did 12 x 400 with 200 jog recovery. I was slightly fatigued from a hard ride on the Monday and 40 miles of commuting prior to the track session itself. I ended up being pleasantly surprised by starting off with 74 - 76 second 400 reps and then being able to up the pace to finish with 3 reps at 71 seconds. Now I know these times don't exactly burn the track up! But for me, it's progress. Finally, since starting track work early November, I felt more comfortable and able to clock semi-decent times. Not quite in the realms of my youth, when I could knock off 65 second reps with a minute recovery; but hey, I'll take 71 seconds right now! The wierd thing is, I expect to go faster if I keep up the track work. Will this happen? I'm not sure but I am going to try my very best to make it happen. To run fast, I reckon track work is essential. The difference now is that I need to factor in conditioning and, dare I say it, run drills to keep injuries at bay.

Happy training folks. 8-)

Cross Country Races Continue

The latest round of the Lincs Services Cross Country League took place yesterday near RAF Coningsby. Although I had been fighting off some sort of bug the preceeding Monday and Tuesday, but felt brighter on Wednesday. As I warmed up I didn't feel that great but the race venue was nice - forest tracks. So I was determined to enjoy the race. As we set off, I ended up in the lead. It didn't last long as I went the wrong way! Everyone stopped and retraced our tracks to get back on course! That left me pretty much last. Some of the top runners were not there and the remaining faster guys looked a bit jaded. I think the cross country season was catching up with people.

I managed to work my way through the field of runners and settled into a reasonable pace. I felt like I had good legs but something was not right. I pushed on and held my position throughout the race, with only Daz Sharpe passing me. the good thing was that I didn't fall that far behind Daz. But then he was only just back from a mega week of training in Lanzarote - ah, the life of a top class triathlete! I finished 5th in the end; happy with that. Not so happy with the illness that followed that night! I had bad stomach problems and ended up being off work. Not done any training since as I have been too ill. Feeling brighter now, but with a week of deployment training next week I doubt there will be much training completed for a while.

Next race is the RAF Waddington Lincs League Cross Country race on 14 March. I will either be rested and healthy, or flat and out of shape!