Post Outlaw Training & The Rest of 2012

Well my blogging has gone the way of my cycling post Outlaw and been reduced to nil. I have enjoyed big chunks of time off since the Triathlon including a 3 week period which included the Olympics. The wall to wall coverage took priority over my own training, but since it ended I have run consistently and my motivation has definitely returned.

I haven't cycled at all and only swam once with Luke to try and help get him ready for his Triathlon, which he did brilliantly in and was a great mornings entertainment. I will definitely look at doing an Olympic Triathlon sometime in 2013. Luke enjoyed it so much he has signed up for his second, but unfortunately it's the same day as Berlin so I won't be able to chase round Eton Dorney supporting him. The 30th September is also the Bristol HM a race I have done 3 times previously and would love to do again but the clash means I will have to miss it. Luckily Pete will be flying the flag and I think he'll have a great race there.

Pete and Luke both seem to be training well for their respective events, unfortunately the same can't be said of my Marathon training for Berlin. I have got out running regularly but this has in the main been 4-5 milers with the only exception being an 11 mile run that I did with Joe whilst he was back from Oz, it was great to run with company and I felt my body held up fairly well. Guests for the Bank Holiday weekend and then some niggles from a game of football plus a good dose of laziness have all contributed to a lack of long runs.

I have not run well all 2012, my year has been saved with the achievement of my first Ultra and the Ironman. Neither was fast, but the target for both was always completion, both events need revisiting at a later date where I hope to have results that I can be more proud of.

In 2012 I have just managed to dip under 20minutes for 5K, I have run one of my worst ever Half Marathon's just squeezing under 2 hours and run my worst Marathon by some margin. I hope to right some of these performances with the Marathon, 2 x 10K's and a 10 Miler booked and I will squeeze in a 5K Parkrun before the end of the year but even if these go well 2012 will still have been a poor PB running year.

The reasons for this are many and varied, and I'm still trying to get the root of it. The answers or theories I have come up with thus far are:

- I have run fewer miles than previous years in training.
- I have lost the peak fitness that my running combined with LEJOG managed to achieve.
- I have also run pretty fatigued in a lot of races particularly from the Ultra through to the Southend HM.
- I have run my training runs slower than previous years.

I hope to tackle all of these short comings in the final 3rd of 2012 and headed into 2013.

By the end of 2012 if I meet my targets the annual mileage will beat 2011 and could even beat my peak of 2010 but that would be pushing it. 2013 I will really look to push it on.

The problem of the LEJOG peak can't really be replicated and I won't cycle again until next summer but then the training will ramp up for LEJOG in 7 days in 2014 and so I hope to see this benefit my running.

The fatigue from races has been noticeable but I enjoy racing and so I did ask for it. I'd love to say I'll cut back on the races, but I have promised Lauren that for the last 2 years and failed to deliver, and with my new drivers licence I have even more reason to go race. So even if the race frequency stays high, I hope that post Brighton Marathon and the Thunder 24hr run the longer races will be put on the back burner for a while. I don't get huge enjoyment from either the training or the races and so I don't think they will be missed.

Which brings me to the final weakness that needs to be addressed the slow pace of my training runs. I'm not quite sure how it happened but from an average pace in previous years of around 7:45 per mile to something like 8:15 this year. It's partly down to my lower level of fitness but maybe it's down to a change in emphasis. I previously ran low mileage but pretty much all sessions were of a good intensity, I then shifted to wanting to run higher mileage and maybe I eased off the pace for this reason. The problem was I never achieved the high mileage and so just ended up running slow and low miles. I have made a real effort to ramp up the pace this week and I've enjoyed the results. Now we just need to combine high miles, with good pace and avoid injury and come 2013 we will be quids in!

So there you have it my 2 months post Outlaw, lots of rest, a return to training and a look forward to what I can achieve if I could only get my butt into gear.