Yikes, it's been a while since I posted! Will take a few days to catch up with everything here.
The beginning of the year was really busy with 3 weeks back to back travel and I'm only coming back up for air.
Have kept the training going despite an early morning fall on black ice in Hopkinton early one morning, gave my elbow and knee a good slap off the road, knee still hasn't fully recovered I suspect some bone bruising. I didn't miss any days, but had to back off the intensity and elected for the treadmill on icy mornings.
Races:
I finished 1st M50 in our county masters XC on a good course, covering the 6k ish at 5:49 min/ml pace, felt very strong.
Ran the regional masters XC on a sticky, twisty course, didn't suit me and I was a little fatigued from early morning runs while travelling and generally out of my normal routine, 4th about 20 secs behind 3rd.
Target was always the regional and national indoor 3,000m, so even though my knee wasn't quite recovered I ran an evening open indoor 1500m, race was delayed (started at 10:20pm), I started a little hot and that combined with the lack of sessions led to a disappointing death match in the last few laps (4:44).
I did follow this up with an outdoor 5k on a hilly course, had a great battle from 3k with 2 others and bagged 1st M50 and a 17:07.
Regional indoors, we were combined with the M45's, I ran an honest steady race finishing 2nd overall and 1st M50. Didn't over stretch because at that stage the nationals were the following weekend (subsequently postponed due to back weather impacting travel). This left me in a little limbo, but a timely Magness article on adjusting race week sessions to how you are feeling gave me a plan.
7 days out, I really felt ready to race, so instead ran a steady 10 miles at 6:40 pace, this flattened me for a few days, 2 recovery days of easy running, followed by 6 x 200, 1 easy day and 6 x 200 3 days out and felt sharp again.
Again for the Nationals we were mixed with the M45's, 17 in the race I felt was a little crowded. 1st place wasn't up for debate with a 9:30 guy in the field, but silver and bronze could go anyway. After a few laps I found myself in a little group of 3 M50's, the battle for silver was on. Nothing much happened between laps 3 and 12, one was taking it out and I was sitting in 3rd, just trying to stay relaxed and alert. We were running a little slower than my season opener (9:55.9), I recall seeing 6:42 at 2k versus 6:36 for my SB. With 3 laps to go (8:02) the 2nd placed guy made a move, which I responded to and we navigated our way through lapped runners and some M45's that were getting blown out the back. Entering the last lap he had 5m on me, but I stayed relaxed, focused on closing from 125 and as we entered the straight gave it a good rattle to claim 2nd by 4 /10ths in 9:54.52. Very happy with my performance and race management.
Next up a 5k next weekend, a down week to coincide with work travel followed by a solid 4 week training block introducing more 5k stuff.
End of April hopefully the club can pull a team a together for the National Road Relays (1M - 2M -1M) for the masters and then the regional road race champs 1st week in May (6k).