Blogging again

I was a bit in two minds about starting blogging again after a break of 3 months. The viral illness that I had stopped me running for 4 weeks & according to the doctors at Airedale Hospital, it would take me several weeks or months to fully recover......on the positive side at least it was nothing more serious.

I started running again (slowly) in mid August & during September I was running regularly, albeit at a reduced pace and shorter distances than normal. The weekly track sessions restarted & I had lost about 7-8 seconds per lap from my pre illness pace at the beginning of September. Now I'm closer to where I was, but still about 2-3 seconds per lap slower. I've done a couple of the Saturday morning Ilkley Harriers 'Hard run' interval sessions & it's been a bit frustrating to be struggling to keep up with people that I would have previously been able to match.

I was holding off from racing again, but decided to enter the Northern Vets track championships, just to get back into the swing of things with the intention to treat it more as a fast training session. I ran the 1500m, an event which I've never raced before and was pleasantly surprised to win a silver medal in 5:04, including a last lap of about 77 seconds overtaking several runners in the home straight. I followed that a couple of hours later with the 5000m. My strategy was to take it easy due to my lack of fitness and tiredness after the 1500m. A time of 18:46 was quite slow, but I did manage to win the gold medal for the M55s, by out sprinting the second placed runner in the last 50m.

Yesterday brought news that I've been selected as 1st reserve for the England team for the International Masters cross country race in Dublin in November. This was a bit of a surprise as I've run very few cross country races. Apparently selection was based on performances in championship races on road & track as well as cross country. I'll need to sharpen up my fitness now in the next 5 weeks.