Time to Re-Focus

It’s hard to believe it’s been a couple of months since my Edinburgh adventure and the culmination of my spring challenge. Since then I’ve been enjoying the simplicity of “just” running without any goal races to train for, other than a couple of 5k races whilst on holiday in Florida. I’ve found it liberating to be able to go out and run whatever distance or pace took my fancy, without worrying about whether I was running far enough or hitting mile splits. It’s re-invigorated my running and given my mojo a bit of a boost. But now that I’m home again, it’s time to start thinking about my autumn goals and getting a bit more structure into my training.

So what’s it to be? Well, like many runners I like to follow the pattern of a spring marathon followed by an autumn half marathon. Last year I missed out on autumn racing thanks to injury so intend to make up for that now. I’ve had a couple of races in mind since the early part of the year and have now made my decision. In fact, I’ve entered a race: the Scottish Half Marathon on September 19th.

This was one of the races I missed out on last year and was disappointed since it was the inaugural event, however I did enjoy supporting Steve and am looking forward to giving it a go myself this year – after all, who doesn’t like a scenic run by the Cockenzie Power Station 😉

 

And so as of now, I’m officially in Training Mode again. It’s not a massive change for me as I have been training consistently throughout the past few weeks, even whilst away on holiday, but now that training has a specific focus. I’ll be starting to add a few miles on to my long runs to build endurance, continuing to work on drills to improve my form and working with Steve to build strength through regular workouts. Steve’s written my new training plan so it’s all set out in front of me and I’m looking forward to really getting stuck in.

As for a time goal, it’s a little too soon to make a call. I ran the EMF half in 2:04 with negligible training (and a few miles in my legs from the day before!) so hopefully a sub-2 time would not be out of the question. As to whether or not I can mount a challenge on my current half marathon PB of 1:56:35 from Aviemore in 2012, I’m not yet sure. I know I have run quicker than that during marathon training runs, but not yet had the opportunity in a half marathon race. I’ll see how my training goes over the next few weeks, but I have started to see some improvements in my parkrun times again and the profile of the half marathon course certainly seems encouraging:

Well, anything is possible…!

What’s your next event?
Are you looking to break a PB this autumn?