My Forum

Hi Angela,

Ours is a road running club, we don't have access to a proper track, although the local park has an large oval circuit which we use for speed training in summer.

I can certainly understand that with your commute it might be tricky to get back in time - I'm not working silly hours at the moment but it's still a rush for me to get home, sort myself out and then get there for 7.30pm, and I don't manage to get there every week anyway because I have other stuff on. They do go out on a Saturday and Sunday morning as well though and have a good turnout at races and parkruns so I still manage to keep in touch even if I can't there on weeknights.

I hope you are feeling better in time for Monday anyway.   

Hi Angela,

Yes, I hear about most of the races through the club - in the summer we have a "Grand Prix" competition where club members compete against each other in certain nominated races, so I try to make sure I do most of those races and then look out for others which look particularly attractive.

The Great Trail Challenge looks like god fun, albeit certainly harder than Epping Forest. Are you doing the 11k or 22k?   

Morning all,

Angela - my 10k was at Henham, near Stansted. Next up is the Southend HM on 9th June. Good luck with the BUPA 10k on Monday, I hope you're feeling better by then.

Dotty - Good luck in Edinburgh on Sunday, I hope your injury niggle doesn't affect you too much. I didn't realise it was this weekend -  we're actually going to be in Glasgow on Saturday and Sunday and in Edinburgh from Monday to Thursday, it would have been good to get there a day earlier to watch the marathon.

Sarah - Yes, finding that balance is the key thing, and I think I'd rather err on the side of pushing myself too hard than end up feeling I hadn't tried as hard as I possibly could. I've got some good PBs from going off faster than planned but managing to keep up the pace. Anyway, I can only run my next race, I can't re-run the last one. 

Hi all,

I did a 10k yesterday, my first competitive race since the VLM. As I mentioned before I wasn't really expecting to beat my PB (43:28) as it's been taking a while to recover from the VLM, and I also had a few glasses of wine on Saturday night which never helps. I also didn't help myself by going off way too fast at the start - I did the first 1k in 3:54 (albeit some of it was downhill), and the second in 4:17 despite a long uphill section. I then eased up a bit but by the time I got to 5-6k I was finding it hard - my legs were OK but my lungs were struggling. It didn't help that much of the race was off-road, which I always find harder than running on the road.

My time gradually slipped back and at one point it looked as though I might not get under 45min, which was my absolute minimum goal, but I started to feel a bit better around the 8k mark and once I was back on the road I managed to pick the pace up again and was actually running quite strongly over the last 1k. I finished in 44:07 which was respectable enough in the circumstances and I was in 27th place out of 263 overall. So in principle I think I should be happy enough with that, but I may have done better if I'd been more sensible at the start.    

Hi Angela,

Well the Brentwood HM is the week before Colchester and I would normally do that, so I'm already looking to change my plans for you

I just prefer to sign up nearer the time so I can make sure as far as possible it's not going to clash with family stuff.