Turned out to be a pitiful week. The cold that started last friday is still with me, in fact it got a lot worse over the last few days and the result is a bedroom overflowing with discarded tissues and absolutely no update on the weekly running stats table.
I made a few positive moves – I contacted a local running club and I joined a gym. No further progress to be made with the running club though, apparently I will be the slowest runner in the group so I can’t say I feel particularly inspired to turn up – thats my second mental note to introduce fartlek to the routine. The gym is ok though, practically empty, almost on my doorstep and open 24hrs. I was particularly excited by the 24hrs bit when I signed up but in truth, when is the lure of a treadmill ever going to drag me out of bed in the middle of the night?
I’ve drawn up a list of 10k events in London that I’m almost committing to as well:
4th March – Frank Harmer Memorial this one’s already scrubbed – couldn’t persuade OGB to join me, the other two are official now though.
25th March – The Great Escape Run
1st July – The British 10k London Run
Given that I keep suggesting a need to increase my running speed I am also planning to make the Bushy Park time trial a fairly regular feature in my running schedule as well. That way I aught to have a pretty accurate record of any improvements.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hope your feeling better soon – colds are rubbish. I know what you mean about adding speed work – I have been adding some over the last few months, it’s well worth it in the end. I went down the Hal Higdon route:
http://www.halhigdon.com/10ktraining/10kinter.htm
His books are spot on and his free training programmes are ace, I think this link is an intermediate one but there are different levels available on his site for loads of different distances.
Get well soon!
Great to hear you’ve signed up for a running club. I’m hoping to join one when we we’ve moved.
I’m thinking of attending the British 10K. Next weekend is the 10K Love Run at Battersea, so starting to get psyched up for that one.
Having a 24 hour gym near you is dead handy. If you had a Nike+ sports kit I reckon that could drag you off to the trendmill at all hours. Not that I’m saying we’re (at the Nike+ site) a competitive lot, but there have a been a few times where I’ve been tempted to go out and run a few miles just to beat a few of the guys
I have to admit to being embarassingly competitive so it could work for me too.
Thanks for the Hal Higdon link, I don’t think I’ve come across that before and it looks like it should do the trick.
I thought about the 10k British London Run but I think I’ve decided it’s too early in the morning, doesn’t it have a 9am start or something?
I’m doing the London Heathside 5 miles on 25 Feb, the Marrow Fun Run 8k on 4 March and the Crisis Square Mile Run 3.5 miles on 7 June.
I went to a running club a few months ago, I was the slowest but they didn’t mind in the slightest and made me feel incredibly welcome.
Hope you get over your cold. I think joining a running club is a good idea, it will add variety to your running.