"Riverside Running"

This week should have started on Monday with a steady/quick six miler but as happens more and more as I get older it is not the day after a tough race that I feel the effects but two days so Monday was a rest day, followed on Tuesday with a hard 4 mile tempo run and a steady six on Wednesday. Work got in the way for the next two days which left plenty of energy for the week's key speed session, of 5x4 minutes hard with 90 seconds recovery over a rolling road course. There's still nothing like pushing it to the max!! The week finished with a very slow six miler along the local "Riverside park" a wonderful country park that runs virtually past the end of my garden and provides endless trails and routes to run.

Running will probably be taking more of a back seat for the next week as Christmas and family start to make their demands, but if it all gets too much hopefully Father Christmas will have left a few new running items that i can escape and try!

"Leek's Killer Hill"

This is the first of what I hope will be a weekly update on my training and races as I move through the winter of cross country, building up again to some road racing in the spring and onto another summer of track & field.
The week started with a couple of recovery runs including a great six mile run in the hills over crisp and frozen fields.
Tuesday should have been a track session but my son's christmas music concert meant a solo interval session in the local park in the lunchtime.
Thursday saw a steady seven miler with some hill sprinting to sharpen things up.
Friday was a rest day as I prepared for what should have been a race at the Manchester & District Cross Country League for my club Macclesfield Harriers & Athletics club. Instead I opted for a trip to another league in Staffordshire (near to Nigel from Running from the Reaper) where my daughter Sarah (9) was running in the Under 11's race with her team ending up as League runner's Up and a trophy for everyone! I ran in the senior men's race over a very hilly six miles including three ascents of what is known locally as "killer climb"! My daughter having already raced up there decided to take up a position right at the top (with camera) and shout "come on dad" which is great but on the final climb I probably would have walked (as were most other athletes) due to its severity but her encouragement of "hurry up or you will get passed" really drove me on to a mid pack finish in what is a very competitive league containing some of the UK's top clubs.
Today (Sunday) my legs felt dead so I went out for a very easy seven miler just to loosten up and complete what has been a great week of running. Let's hope the next few weeks over Christmas are just as good as I start to build to a series of cross country championships which start early in the New Year with the County Championships and culminate in late February with the English National Cross Country Championships at Parliament Hill Fields in London. The worlds most famous cross country race once again being held on the home of cross country running running.