Week 1

"I took the toughness and the work ethic that I'd learnt as a child in Gebilay and Djibouti and carried it with me into competitive running. The pain was no big deal. I could handle the pain. If it hurt, it didn't really matter to me. I would keep on running, no matter what."

Mo Farah - excerpt from Twin Ambitions

"I'm in for a fun year then."

My Wife, Lyndsey, on realising the full extent of mission 16:xx last week. Bless her, she is very tolerant. And no, you're not :-)

WEEK 1
M - 6.23M (7:19mm) Treadmill
T - 7.4M inc 6 x 3mins @ 5:45mm average (90 secs rest)
W - R E S T
T - am 9M prog tempo (6:43mm) inc. 4 miles @ 6:26mm | pm 7.2M (8:25mm)
F - R E S T
S - 6M inc Eastbourne parkrun: 18:45, 2nd place, 5:55 / 6:05 / 6:07 / :37
S - 14.64M long run (7:48mm)

WEEKLY TOTAL = 50.8M | 81.7km

Well it's been a solid start. Six runs done, all planned sessions ticked off and a 50 mile week in the bag. But definitely just solid, nothing to get excited about in there. I've got to admit the target feels an awful long way off at the moment, but I guess at this stage that's to be expected. And at the start of the week I was treading carefully to see what energy levels I had as I was still finally getting over the hideous sore throat I had all christmas.

Also, as I'm already rolling out the excuses, the weather has at times been frankly impossible. We've basically had 25+mph winds here all week and as such its quite hard to read too much into the pace of Tuesdays session or of the parkrun - both of which on paper are quite rubbish.

One big positive from this week though; for probably the first time ever I did manage to do two 15-minute core workouts. That's right, two! It's one of those little things I've been thinking for a while I should add-in. The evidence nowadays that it's beneficial for your running is pretty incontrovertible so, good enough for Salazar and Farah et al, good enough for Kevin. It's also nicely highlighted how pathetically weak I am. Not being able to complete 3x 10 press-ups (I got to 8 on the last set. And then did the final 2 after a short rest. What a legend) isn't something I'll be boasting about in gym conversations anytime soon.

Parkrun no 64, Eastbourne - Started off slow because I thought I was being tactical. Finished slow because I couldn't go any faster into the ridiculous headwind. Got out sprinted for the win in the last 50 metres by a 15yr old. Lets leave it at that shall we?

Aims for this coming week are pretty modest, really just to repeat last week and hopefully see some improvement in the finishing pace on Thursday's run. And of course running a bit faster on Saturday would be a good thing. That will be a recurring 'aim' for every week this year I think.