A New Year

It's the first week of 2013 , it is also the first week I have been training for my half in April.

I don't want to make this blog into a bland training diary, I have on of those over at Runners Forum. Hopefully I'll manage to keep this interesting.

Monday's are a rest day for me, so all the running I have done this week has also been in 2013. It started on New Years Day with a parkrun at Huddersfield. As it was a flatter course than I'm used too at Oldham I hoped to be able to clock up another sub 20 run. It wasn't to be as the wind was very strong, slowing me right down. Having said that I still registered a time of 20:25 which I have to say I was pleased with.

You might not think Mary Poppins would have much relevance to my running, but because it was on our TV that afternoon i decided to go back out for my second run of the day. A five mile fartlek session followed, more on that later.

Thursday was a threshold run, another type of session I have not tried before, this was a warm up followed by 5k at just a bit faster than my target pace for the half marathon. Considering I've never tries this before I think it went well, I was able to hold the pace I wanted for the whole 5k and I should hope so as it was still slower than my usual 5k pace.

Another parkrun on Saturday, or parkrun day as it should be called. Back at home in Oldham, the conditions were near perfect; no wind, dry and clear. Could I start the year at Oldham with a pb? The run started well, with a good fast start, and at one point coming down hill I was leading, it was a strange feeling to look behind me and see 89 other parkrunnerrs following. By the time got to  the Woodland Walk on the third lap I felt like I'd missed my chance at a pb, but I was wrong a good sprint finish and I clocked a time of 20:12 not far off that elusive sub 20 at Oldham.

Went for the usual Sunday long run today, which took in Daisy Nook I sometimes forget I have somewhere like that so close to the house and need to make more use of the area in my forthcoming runs. Finished today's run with a pain in my right quad, hopefully it's nothing serious and as I write this it feels a lot better.

So that is my first week following my training plan, it makes a difference going out with an objective to each session rather than just going out for the sake of going for a run. Fingers crossed all this work pays off in April, looks to be doing so already if yesterday's time is anything to go by.