The Running Bug.

  I think I have caught the running bug again, my plan was to continue with what I have been doing over the last month or so training wise that was until the running bug struck. It's looking like I will be notching up 80 to 90 miles this week which is about double my usual weekly mileage. I will ease back down to normal with the mileage though the week after as I gear up for my next set of races.
   This week's interval training session last night was a tough old work out to say the least, the bad weather, the gale force head wind, being off road, the long uphill section and training partner Phil Utley all mixed together to make it one to remember. All I can say is that its a good job we don't do it every week or I would have some mental health concerns come Wednesday evenings.
   I have been checking up on some of my rivals latest race results and all I can say is that its such a mixed up bunch of results from week to week that I have come to the conclusion  that I have not got  a clue who I should keeping a close eye on in a race so I might as well continue with my strategy of just turning up and seeing what happens. When I hit 40ish I found that inconsistency started to appear in my results and training, were I used to train and race and could guesstimate my times within a few seconds I found an extra 30 seconds or more seconds could suddenly appear out of nowhere. The good days are when my guesstimation is nearly spot on and a bad day would be around a minute or so in a 10k race. There's never a super day where I suddenly shave off an extra minute or so, that would of been an excellent part to ageing.
   When I did hit 40 I used to change my date of birth so I would still be in the seniors classification but once I started doing some of the veterans races I found a new lease of life running wise. In normal races  I had two races for the price of one,  the overall competition and  the battle to be first vet. And in the vets championship races we had an equal footing, no excuses, just the way I like it. I'm sure its the vets championship races that drives me onwards and keeps me running. Can I get a national medal ? at what distance ?  and what about a veteran record ? Seriously though those veterans records are almost unbelievable and I don't think I could beat any of them even if I hit my absolute peak of a life time. Martin Rees v50 has the 5k record at 15 minutes 00 seconds. T Davies has the v50 10k record at 30 minutes 35 seconds. Yes, a bit out of my league me thinks. I will work towards trying to get back in the English cross country team instead, wether its a v45 or V50 that is the long term goal for now.