Running in the Strid Wood at Bolton Abbey

It was a bit wetter today at the Strid Wood than when I took this photo last summer.

My run today could not have been much more different to yesterday's session. Despite the car showing the same temperature of 3.5 degrees, there was no ice & instead of laps of the track I was running alone through the woods at Bolton Abbey. My pace was also a long way off yesterday's efforts, the sub 3:30 minutes per km pace was replaced by something over 6 minutes per km.

The funny thing (to me anyway) is that today's run actually felt much harder than the one yesterday evening. My legs felt like lumps of lead. I certainly hadn't recovered from the short fast reps on the track. I managed to convince myself that 'active recovery' is better than just taking a day off......... in any case the route that I ran is one of my favourite routes & there were plenty of things to look at to take my mind off the less than fluid running style.

It's now just over two weeks to the Brass Monkey half marathon, so my plan is currently to mix a couple of fast sessions per week with plenty of slower running and an overall average of just over 100k per week. I probably won't do any more long runs (over 20k) & gradually reduce the distance I'm running generally before the race. Not sure how feasible it will be to improve on last year's time (81:31), my training is going well, but a lot depends how things feel on the day.....last year was one of those days when running fast seemed to be very easy (they don't happen very often).