Springless.

   I did my pre-race training routine on Saturday morning which is half hour of running with around 8 minutes of some faster paced stuff included, it's my way of letting my lungs and legs know that they had better get themselves ready as they will be needed for a maximum performance the next day. On Saturday even the steady paced running felt hard so my plan for Sunday's race at Kilburn was to take it easy from the start and to see what happens. After a quick refreshing rain shower the race got under way and I managed to stick to my plan for once of taking it easy, the thing was it didn't feel easy but instead it felt as if the springs had gone in my feet and had left me struggling with no bounce in my stride. I eventually finished the 7 mile race in 6th place in 41 mins 42 secs. In winter I have a 19 mile course that involves running  6 miles to Kilburn and then fast jogging around the 7 mile Kilburn route and finally run the 6 miles back home. I have managed a quicker time  fast jogging around the 7 mile race route section than what I did racing it on Sunday so you could say something was not quite right. On a positive note I was part of the winning team with North York Moors and with my two prizes added together I should at least be able to buy one new training shoe out of a pair with my start fitness vouchers.
  Normally I would be back upto full speed again today or there abouts but my legs are giving me the signal that it's time to back off from racing and speed training for a while. I have experienced this before when I have spent too many weeks racing hard with hard speed sessions put in between so I suppose it's a case of doing too much too soon on a limited amount of base training. It will take at least a couple of weeks before I see any signs of getting the spring back into my stride so my plan is to spend at least the next four weeks getting in the miles with no speed work or racing.