It feels good to back into structured training. the early morning sessions have been hard to get up for, what with the darkness that's suddenly come on, but once I have got going, it feels good to be getting my body moving.
It seems that pilates has changed my life. I had hoped it might be the magic bullet that would prevent or at least reduce the amount of injuries that stopped me from running and so far, that seems to be the case. Maybe it's also just a change of mindset, but my legs and lower back seem much more resilient. I'm doing a weekly speed session or hills, and this type of work would normally see me barely able to walk afterwards, but not now. I'm moving a lot more freely and my running is progressing well. I'm bound to get injured at some point, but at the moment, things are looking really good. I got a bit of a shock when I saw my Strava stats which showed that I'm averaging just over 20 miles a week for the last 4 weeks. This is a very modest mileage for most cub runners but for me, that's immense and fingers crossed, the tip of the iceberg.
I've got the Royal Parks Half Marathon in two weeks and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hopeful that I should be around the time I did for the Hampton Court Half back in March, or even a little quicker, so 1:28ish would be a good day out, 1:27 would be great and 1:26 would be awesome. Starting and finishing uninjured continues to be the main aim, however.
Cycling is just ticking over. A turbo session one morning and a long, 3 hour ride at the weekend, with the odd 1 hour commute if I have the time. Just a bit of maintenance training while my running ramps up a little. It's a similar story with swimming. A couple of swims a week with one endurance focussed and one speed focussed. So far, all good.
