Last night was an interesting session with Run Knutsford. In terms of high intensity training, it was the shortest session we’ve done, with a 1 mile effort followed by 18 reps of 130 metres with an average rest of 15 seconds in between each. However, it was amazing how tired I felt at the end of what was actually quite a short amount of running, and the main reason for my tiredness was the mile effort.
I set off at a decent pace, but I could hear footsteps close behind for most of the first kilometre. Those were the footsteps of a lad who is about 15 years old, and I decided that someone half my age would have to earn a victory over me. In this case however, I was the first over the line, having completed the route in 6 minutes 13 seconds. Given that the route is actually slightly more than 1 mile, I knew that I was close to my PB over 1 mile, but it was only when I got home that I realised that I had beaten my PB by 1 second.
Looking through my PB list on Garmin, this was my first PB time set since April 2016. Having felt like I haven’t been running particularly well recently, it was a nice confidence boost and confirmation that my top end speed is in good order at the very least.
However, I then decided it was worth investigating the PB’s which aren’t on my Garmin list. After all, Garmin only list 1km, 1 mile, 5km, 10km, Half Marathon and Marathon, but there are plenty of other distances you could look at too. Having told myself that this was my first PB since April 2016, I decided to look at my 30km split time for my second and third Marathons, and was quite shocked to see the results.
In 2016, when I set my Marathon PB, I went through 30km in 2:15:12. This year, I went through the same distance in 2:09:29. My time at 31km was 2:15:23, so essentially I was a full kilometre ahead at one point this year, yet still finished with a slower time. There should be an asterisk with that statistic, given that I stopped twice for natural breaks within the first Half in 2016, whilst my only stop in 2017 was in that 31st kilometre, but even so, it highlights just how much I checked out of this year’s Marathon towards the final phases.
All of this makes me question what I want to achieve for the rest of the year. Do I enter a few events over shorter distances to see what I’m currently capable of? Do I push ahead with my vague plan of completing the 1000 mile challenge in 2017? Or do I just keeping trying new things? It’s something I’ll have to think about, but if I want to achieve any of them, it will probably come at the cost of at least one of the other two, so I’ll have to make a decision sooner or later.
Scorpo Stories 