I had some good times and some bad times this week.  I think overall what’s happening is what I sort of guessed would happen – I’ve hit a plateau and the steady improvements I saw in the first few months have tailed off a bit.  It’s only to be expected, so I need to dig deep now and make sure I don’t lose focus or get disillusioned.

The biggest fear/doubt/worry I’ve got at the moment is the long runs.  Once I get past a certain distance I just fall apart mentally, rather than physically.  My long run this week went to pot in the last few miles so I need to make sure I have a good long run experience to get over that.  I wasn’t properly prepared so I finished hungry, thirsty and over-tired – all lessons to learn.

Here’s how week 13 panned out:

• Monday: 14 miles – I finished it, but had to do some walking and wasn’t pleased with my 11.04 minute/mile average pace
• Tuesday: fartlek fail – my chafing injury from last week turned 45 minutes into 20 minutes
• Wednesday: jog 20 – 10 minutes to the gym, 1 hour weights (legs), 10 minutes home
• Thursday: run 60, 1 hour climbing
• Friday: jog 20 – 10 minutes to the gym, 1 hour weights (back), 10 minutes home
• Saturday: rest
• Sunday: York 10k – race review coming later this week

My main lessons are:

• Don’t drift away from the training plan
• Don’t do a long run when I’m tired and badly prepared
• Focus on the positives and don’t let one crappy run destroy all the progress I’ve made

Onwards and upwards for week 14!