Treading along nicely.

After happily doing nothing for the last four days besides enjoying Christmas it was time to get back to some hard training. With ice and compacted snow all over the place still around here I opted for a treadmill session. After doing so well before Christmas and just about getting down to my race weight I have now drifted along way off the mark yet again, at least I'm still keen and ready to start all over yet again. This time with some top of the range scales that can measure body fat,muscle mass and body fluid percentage, now I'll know exactly what's going on. Anyway back to the treadmill, I might of done next to nothing for some time now and put on half a stone but I set the interval session harder than ever before. I suffered really badly but managed to complete the session I set myself. Nine minutes of hard running followed by three minutes jogging with four of these to get through. Not only do I find it hard physically but it is also mentally very hard due to the length of time running faster than 5k race pace.
Hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get back into some descent race shape. The Brass Monkey Half Marathon in York will be my next big race with Snake Lane 10 mile and Dewsbury 10k also being very important to me. Why I would want to set some good times at these distances when my main target is the marathon is a complete mystery, especially when I know very well that to smash my marathon P.B. I have to forget all about other P.B.'s and just use the odd shorter distance race to help me start to get into peak condition.
I definitely will be racing less in the first six months of 2010 than previous years. Even fitting races into a long run training weekend if need be. An example would be to run 12 miles to Ripon for a warm up and then race the Ripon 10 mile. Norman Smith the Thirsk and Sowerby Harriers Chairman (who was a great runner himself in his day) sadly passed away earlier this year, often told me to use less important races as part of training but the fear of someone beating me has always prevented me from doing so. But not anymore. It's a shame I seem to be listening more to his ideas now then when he was with us.