Birthdays and slow runs

Happy birthday Sidney and Mark

I've been celebrating in Birmingham with my brother-in-law as he celebrated his 50th and my niece her 18th. I was also 41 on Sunday, so it was a good weekend spent with family and having fun. Some great presents and lovely food too :)

Feeling tired after that though and having just had a few weeks with little running I'm seeing that catch up with me. I was ill for a week with a cold that I'm mostly recovered from now, but it's taken 3 weeks to properly clear up. I was also very busy for a week finalising artwork for my exhibition at Sacred Trinity, which launched last week and looks great. Very happy with the results of that, but it was more effort than expected.

So, after a few weeks of PBs on the back of good training, I'm now feeling sluggish from a couple of weeks of poor training... Race simulation (10k) on Saturday morning was under 54 minutes, but I had to walk for a minute a couple of times and generally didn't feel it. I forced myself out last night and was totally knackered - managed 4.8k in 28 minutes so not atrocious, but I plodded all the way round.

Still these are the variable factors that impact runners. Can't be getting PBs every week. I'm happy I got out (took a lot of willpower) and really need to make sure I keep going out and don't slacken off now. Stride Through The Woods 5k trail race is tomorrow night. I've no idea what the course is like and while I will put effort into it, I'm not pushing for any PBs so will just enjoy the experience and supporting a fellow running club :)

One month to go until Manchester 10k, my race pack arrived on Saturday! I'm in the White wave (wave 2 of 5), which starts at 11.55am. I will have to be careful about food and drink during the morning and when the race is ended will definitely be ready for lunch! I'll also have to be careful about warming up - the warm up at the start line is 11.23, which seems quite early... not sure I want to keep warmed up for half an hour! But getting to the start line too late will be difficult to get into position. All part of the race strategy to try and work out...

Also, half an hour after a gorgeous run up the hills around Dovestones on Thursday night there was a fire! It took 10 fire engines most for he night to control and extinguish and has burned around 3 square miles of hillside. I've not heard about what started it and hope most of the animals in the area got away unscathed - there are a lot of sheep and lambs around at the moment. An unpleasant reminder to be careful in the countryside - small issues very quickly escalate.

So there we go - time to rectify the training balance before the Great Run & enjoy being hosted by the Hyde Striders this week for race number 5. And some great inspiring runs from the Greyhounds this week in the Blackpool Marathon and Half Marathon, the London Marathon, the new unofficial Dovestones Marathon & also a Triathlon!