Monday 29th October - Friday 2nd November

Training Report:

Training went well again this week, I got some good milage in my legs on Monday and Wednesday averaging about 16 miles each day. My Tuesday speed session didn't go as well as they have done in the past. The session was 3 x 2000 metres on the track. The first rep went well and I was hitting my 400 metre lap times dead on, the second set started to get hard at the halfway point and I averaged one second off my set lap times, the last rep was really hard and I was four seconds down for each split, which doesn't sound much but it adds up and meant that I was twenty seconds off the pace. It could have been down to the increased mileage I've been doing, but I felt the real culprit was the temperature. I could almost feel it getting colder throughout the session. It also started to cause my right hip flexor to seize up which wasn't going to help matters.

I was speaking with my coach and we were thinking of a few ideas to help me. We felt that a face mask, like the ones bike riders wear to protect them from car fumes may help as the main problem is taking in big gulps of cold air, the colder it gets the less I'm able to take in with each breath. And as getting as much oxygen as possible into the body, particularly the legs, is the key to running well, taking in less is a problem. Whether I go through with it remains to be seen. After wearing a ladies vest last week I don't know if wearing some strange face mask would exactly make me the coolest guy in town! But I guess if it helps... Thursday's speed session was eased back for my two races over the weekend, and Friday was just a couple of easy runs with some relaxed strides at the end to get my legs feeling a bit fresher than they did last weekend.