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I sympathise! I'm meant to be in Aberdeen, getting a good night's sleep before the university cross-country champs tomorrow- but they cancelled it cos of the snow. There goes my only chance ever to stand on a starting line with a world champion and an olympian!

Never mind PP, there will be other races. Do something fun with your weekend to cheer yourself up- maybe something you haven't had time for cos of training?

Yifter- what you're saying is true- but as I read in another thread recently "speedwork is the icing on the cake- without endurance you don't have a cake to ice". You say running slowly won't make you faster- true in an absolute sense, but it will make you run faster at a given heartrate, which makes you more efficient (can you tell I've been reading up on this?)

 I've been running for about 5 years but I think I dived in way too quickly to trying to be faster, without building up the necessary base first. I've run marathons, but my marathon times are way down on what would be predicted from my 10 mile times. From the article PSC posted on this thread, this is a classic sign of not having sufficient endurance. I think that the argument in this article is extremely persuasive, and I'm going to give it a go.

The plateau comment is obviously valid, you have to keep challenging yourself in order to improve. One of the good things in the Hadd article is that it offers a framework for regular assessment of your fitness level, and a gradual ramping up of the programme as your endurance improves. (oh dear I seem to have become a bit of an evangelist and I haven't even tried it yet)

I don't think anyone is suggesting that you can to go for a slow, gentle jog a few times a week and then expect to break the marathon world record!