2015 review

30^th December 2015

It’s been a age since I bothered to write a blog update so I better get on with it.

On a running front I had a reasonable if not a spectacular year. A steady 2015 in keeping with a steady 2014. I was delighted to say I completed 2 marathons and my first ultra, even if on the day I ran or walked into very tough places for the last 10 miles. I do intend to give  the Connemara ultra, 39.3 miles, another  bash in 2017. I  enjoyed and was happy to get another sub 3.30 in the Frankfurt marathon and while not a PB I can say I gave it my all having nothing left to give in the last 5k. Yeah it’s a race I hope to return to next year with hopefully me getting a better training cycle in this time.

I haven’t been doing a whole lot of mileage in the 8 weeks since. I can’t  really explain why but the fire isn’t really there at the moment and for the last few weeks I was focusing on one tempo and one interval session a week with a long run no longer than 10 miles. Rather than aim for a long term goal like a marathon, for the moment I am training in 4 week cycles aiming for a target race at the end of each cycle. The idea is to increase my speed in shorter distances and hopefully pick up a few pb’s between now and June. This approach paid off with me getting a PB in the Newmarket 5k, 20.22, two weeks ago. It's a modest time but a good one for me especially I was running 20.48 for the last couple of years in the same race. The next race I will try to aim for will be the Dungarvan 10 in 4 weeks time. While I may not get a PB I will be aiming for a course PB , hopefully under 1.12.53. 

Other possible races include Adare 10k, Ballycotton 10 and so on but we will try to get the hunger back for running first. At the moment I sometimes feel I am a step away from not running anymore. It doesn’t feature very high on the list of my priorities at the moment and hasn’t in a while. That is the way it goes.

I ran a total of 1940 miles this year, which works out as a average of 37 miles a week