"Brereton Heath"

It's been a packed last three weeks of running and racing including "pyramid " track sessions (3x300/6x600/3x33 off 60 seconds recovery), long runs (over two hours) in the hills and steady recovery runs across the Cheshire Plain discovering new lunchtime routes from my office in Sandbach.

All of this was held together by the annual club track & field championships held over two nights replacing the normal training sessions. In session one I ran the 400, 1500 and 3000m all in the space of an hour and a quarter! Not recommended if you want season's best times but that was what I got at least in the 400m, but more importantly I defeated one of the junior men who at the start of the race had complained that he had to compete against the "old timers". A quick shout of "is that all you have" coming off the last bend put him firmly in his place! On the second evening of the champs I concentrated purely on the 800m and whilst posting season's best of 2.36.4 was pipped on the line for the vet men's title by a guest from the local triathlon club!

It's always nice to run somewhere new and last weekend I visited Brereton Heath Local Nature Reserve for an interval session. This is one of a series of sites I am responsible for as part of my day job so it was great to see lots of visitors enjoying the country park particulalry the lake a former silica sand quarry pit On a scorching hot day & after a steady warm up I managed 3 x1500m sets using the path round the lake with a three minute recovery with progessive splits of 5.20/5.05/5.02. A short but very tough session.

The other highlight of the week, and again part of my job was a guided visit around the Olympic and Paralympic Park at Greenwich to see the incredible progress being made towards the 2012 Games. The scale of the construction work is astounishing and makes me want to attend more than ever (subject to getting tickets through the ballot of course!). It was certainly quite a contrast to the quiet of Brereton!

Weekly mileage 25. Annual mileage 704 (week 26)