Back on track

With no races planned after the 1st, January was never going to be an eventful month, and so it proved to be. For the first two and a half weeks of the month, I stuck rigidly to the training schedule that my coach has drawn up. Then I was struck down by a virus. I did a track session on the morning of Saturday 18^th January. Six 400 Metre reps, with a three minute jog interval. I should have felt fresh and have been flying; I wasn’t. I felt excessively tired. I woke up the next day with a pounding headache. A week of enforced rest followed, giving me time to think about my training.

Over the last few months, I’ve increased the workload that I can handle, getting used to training six days/running up to 50 miles a week again. So a reasonable level of base fitness has been built up. However, I have felt stuck in a rut with my training for a while. I’m just not making progress. My times are not coming down. I woke up one morning with the realisation that I’ve not ran well since late 2011. Something has got to change.

The first priority is to get back to training on a tartan track. Training once or twice a week on a tartan track has proven itself as transformational to my running in the past. The cinder track that I’ve been using for the last 5 months is just not cutting the mustard. Figuring out how to get regular, reliable access to a decent track has been a challenge. I sought and begged for help. Basically, with a lot of paper work and a small fee, I’ve found a way to train on a tartan track on a Friday and Sunday afternoon, each week. Not ideal days, but with some jigging around of my training schedule, it can work.

I was thrilled to get the chance to do two track sessions this week, having bounced back from the virus. It was hard. I am even more unfit than I thought I was. Yet, I know this is the solution. Training on a tartan track means I can make a comeback, albeit slowly. The second step is to re-introduce training twice a day. I’ve never been keen on this. Getting out of bed at the crack of dawn to put in a few miles before going to work is brutal. I did train twice a day, five days a week, in the build up to my first marathon in 2010. I ran several personal bests on the back of that training. Therefore, I’ve started running twice a day. Just two miles in the morning a couple of times a week to begin with, before I try and increase this to running twice a day, five times a week. 

That’s the plan anyway. It does feel good to be back on (tartan) track.