Two weekends without racing: no bad thing given the weather and the need for some decent mileage. So, time for a bit of reflection and to get on my soap box a bit. On a personal level the training has been going well although at a price. I've churned out more winter miles and the last two weeks have been my biggest for many a year; just steady running, which is all my aching body will take but it seems to work. I really am aching all over; slipping on the frozen snow and lethal ice hasn't helped (picture is from our bedroom window), especially my ongoing Achilles problems and slight hamstring tweak. Went to see an excellent physio today, Helen Hall who practises in Cirencester & Fairford (I have number if anyone interested). She didn't mince her words but talked real sense. She also told me what I already know, my body is in pretty rough shape! Possibly more on this - the physio, not my body, in due course. 
The point about how I feel at the moment and the training I'm doing is important. At some stage the hard miles need to be put in and by their very nature they make you weary. The fact that I am 52 (v nearly) just accentuates the pain. Most reading this are much younger than me and can therefore get away with it. I'm taking a gamble just to see if I can have one final fling at some relatively decent times but you lot can cross the weariness barrier and make progress.
I vowed when I started this blog that I wouldn't harp on about the 80's when everyone ran fast; if you ran 3 hours for a marathon you were in danger of coming last (it happened to a friend of mine); everyone ran 150 miles a week, drank 10 pints every night then ran 10 miles home in their hob nailed boots ... However if it helps to illustrate a point then why not? After all, the way people ran 25 years ago must hold some clues to what is still possible today despite our sedentary lifestyle. Sites like 8lane waffle on about training methods and theoretical quality sessions but the overriding thing that strikes me about the comments that I read there and elsewhere - and they are written by good runners - is a lack of consistency. Yes they train hard but not all the time. This, I think, more than anything else is the difference today. The long term view must be taken - forget the race coming up next month, yes do it but only as a stepping stone. The real target must be year on year improvements off good endurance training throughout the year and the belief that this will eventually lead to times currently totally out of range. It must be a lifestyle thing.
Work out what your base week is i.e. number of times you can run broken down into easy recoveries, intervals, tempo / threshold, fartlek, hills, lsd (long steady distance) then build into that being your normal week. Then just get on with it. As Steve Cram once said, if you want to be a better runner then run more miles.
We had a fantastic group of runners at Ranelagh and we all grew up together. The Wednesday night club run around Richmond Park was the highlight of the week as well as being a hard tempo run of generally 12-13 miles. The elation afterwards in the bar was sensational and if a Wednesday run was missed there was a real feeling that your weekly fix had been missed. This was a year round session done with friends with similar attitudes, the camaraderie was wonderful. That's why a talentless runner like me was able to post some half decent times. If I could do it then so could most of today's runners. You just have to have belief in your own ability and faith that consistent training will bring its rewards.
I'm attempting to build something similar with our Tuesday sessions at Cirencester. It's harder because it's a session evening but it is beginning to gel and I get the feeling that we are working well as a group, cajoling each other into sustaining the effort. It is definitely taking shape. I don't know what will happen during the summer, only time will tell.
Stop press: May have wrecked my Bourton chances. Got into an awkward position lifting my wheelchair bound mum from car to her chair, something I've done hundreds of times, and thought nothing of it at the time. A few hours later I tried to stand but couldn't as my back had seized up. I'd struggle to run a bath at the moment, let alone a 10k.
