Weds 31st was the first race of the Wednesday League at Barnham. I love this league, short sharp 5-6k cross country races that, in combination with speedwork at the track, can really help to sharpen fitness. Barnham is a great course with forest trails and tank traps. I got a poor start and got stuck behind some slower men for the first 200m. Once the field opened up I was able to move back up to my usual slot. I felt good, my legs were strong and I was able to work hard enough to be a little out of breath. I kept a consistent pace throughout and finished first lady.
A recovery gym session on Thursday morning and a 30 minute run on the treadmill on Friday set me up for a hill session in Ickworth Park followed by a kilometre swim on Saturday. On Sunday the weather was horrendous. I couldn't face trudging through the mud again so ran on the treadmill for 90 minutes. I have to say I found the long run on the treadmill harder than running outside!
I scheduled gym sessions on Monday and Tuesday in preparation for the Wednesday League cross country race at Gt Yarmouth. However, on wednesday morning things didn't go quite to plan! I woke up with a cold and during the morning felt progressively worse. By 11am I realised that there was no way I was going to be able to run. I was really disappointed as it was a beautiful day and I had been looking forward to the second race of the league.
Belfast British and Irish Masters International was on the Saturday and I had to do all I could to be well enough to at least try and run! Even though I was only running in the reserves and open race I wanted to capitalise on the opportunity to get myself noticed and run well. We had already paid for flights, parking and a hire car so I decided that we would travel out there and see how I felt on the warm up. The flight wasn't the most comfortable experience with blocked sinuses and I felt pretty lousy when we got to the airport although a hot coffee and toasted cheese sandwich did improve things a little!
The team race was great to watch with a sprint finish between the leaders with a mistaken location of the finish line the deciding factor in the winner. The course was three laps and starting to get very churned up in places. I felt pretty grim warming up, sneezing and coughing up muck and my teeth chattering so much I though they were going to break. Once I had got warm I felt a little bit better and decided to give it a go.
I got a good start and was on the back of the group of leading men. Unfortunately I lost my footing in the first 200m and fell flat on my face! I got back on my feet fairly quickly but had been overtaken by two women and lost contact with the lead men. I took the two places back fairly quickly and got myself back as lead lady but was way off the lead men now.
I felt ok and was able to hold a good pace. I overtook a chap who had fallen off the back of the lead men early on but other than that was on my own for most of the race. I finished comfortably as first lady which I was really pleased with but also a little disappointed that it wasn't much of a race and more of a tempo run.
I managed a steady 13 mile long run the following day. I still felt pretty rough the following week so only did gym and treadmill sessions. My second Essex League race was on Saturday and I wanted to give myself as much of a chance as possible to recover in time. I enjoy the Essex League as it is a very high standard of competition with great racing.
The race was at Hylands Park in Chelmsford. The course was two laps with a mixture of woodland and grassland and very boggy in places. I had a great race and felt strong throughout moving up three places on the second lap. I finished fourth lady, 30 seconds behind the winner. I don't think I could have done anything any different to get myself further up the field, its a case of working on my fitness in the second phase of winter training to close the gap.
On Sunday I ran a very easy 11.5 miles, I was still coughing up muck and sneezing a lot so I'm still aware that I need to keep my toe off the pedal in training at the moment until I get rid of the cold completely. I've got three races left in this first phase of winter training; 2 Wednesday League cross country races and a half marathon.
All in all a great weekend; Antonio Felix DeCosta winning in Macau, Norwich beating Man Utd and Lewis Hamilton winning the American Grand Prix, woo hoo!
The second phase of training starts in January. There are less races scheduled so I plan to return to the track and work on increasing my race speed to close the gap...........................
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