An update

First of all I have to apologise for the long gap between blog posts, I have been running a lot and working a lot and between the two I have not been able to keep blogging as much as I would like.

There is a lot to get through, a lot of progress has been made, and hopefully there is more to come.

I started the year with a PB for half marathon of 1:26:00, with a target for the year of 1:20:00. I've raced in four half marathons since then and I set a new PB in each of the first three. First up was Santa Pola on the third weekend in January. Santa Pola is one of the biggest races in Spain and the course would be one of, if not the quickest if it weren't for the immense number of people, there were around 7500 runners. Thankfully this year they introduced starting pens based on predicted finish times, this made things a lot better than in previous years. I knocked 43 seconds off my PB with a time of 1:25:17.

Three weeks later it was on to Orihuela. The start of the race didn't quite go to plan, I wanted to use the toilet immediately prior to the race, but the queue was unduly long and the trees around the start that would number serve as a substitute seemed to be surrounded by families with young children. I had no other choice but to start the race and hope the need would pace. I got through about 5 kilometres and then had no option but to stop. Thankfully it didn't slow me down too much, I still came away with a PB, 45 seconds chopped off this time to get to 1:24:38.

In Orihuela my average pace was 4:01 min/km, it's a fairly meaningless target but for the following race in Torrevieja I gave myself the objective of running sub 4:00 min/km pace. I managed to do that with a good deal to spare, there was a big leap this time with 1 minute 23 seconds coming off my PB to make it 1:23:15. With only two months of the year gone I was only fifteen seconds away from the half way point to my half marathon objective.

Since Torrevieja things haven't really gone to plan. Prior to Torrevieja I had suffered with tightness in my calf after cramping up in the swimming pool, thankfully the physio worked her magic and it eased down enough that I was able to run. Then a few days afterwards while sitting on the sofa eating dinner I felt a slight pain in my back as I reached for something at the other end of the coffee table. It wasn't anything major but it stopped me training at full tilt for a few days. Then when I did start picking up again I had the same problem in the pool, I cramped up and had a tight calf for a few days, it wasn't so severe so I just let time heal it rather than go to the physio. It settled down in time for my race last weekend but meant in the three weeks I had between races I only did two series sessions when I would normally do two a week.

Unsurprising my run of PB's ended last weekend in Murcia, but I still ran a good time, 1:24:56. On a hot day without a great preparation I have to be happy with it. Unfortunately I'm still not back to proper training. I woke up on Monday morning with a cold that I'm still fighting off, so I haven't really trained since. Hopefully by the weekend it will be gone and I can get going again. I won't have any half marathon races in April, just a 10k over Easter while I am back in the UK so I'm planning to take the opportunity to do some good speed sessions so that I can have a good go and taking another chunk off my PB come May.

That's all for now, I should be back soon with an update on my 3:00 min/km goal.
Happy Running

El maratonero