First of all, well done to those hardy souls who were at training on Thursday. We had a couple of sessions at Clairville last year in similar conditions and I think Paul McGough described it as “character building”. That applies to Thursday night too. The planned session was tough enough without the wind and rain. It could have been worse though. The wind could have been against us as we ran up Premier Road. I know I’m too old to run uphill AND into the wind!
As mentioned at recent sessions, the training is geared towards the Scarborough 10k, though it will also stand you in good stead for the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k. Many of you will be doing one or the other. Some like Eddie Meehan (no surprise there) and myself are doing both. The Scarborough 10k is now full and Leeds is filling up quickly. If you’re planning on doing the Leeds Abbey Dash, you will need to enter sooner rather than later.
The training is approaching its peak over the next week or two and as some will have noticed, we’ve had some quite intense sessions. It’s good to see so many people “putting a shift in”. For those doing Scarborough, the mileage will be reduced in the second half of October so that you can taper effectively. Whichever race you’re doing, you should be getting out at least once a week outside of club sessions, though ideally at least twice. A tempo run (which can be anything up to one hour) or a 5k Park Run on a Saturday, followed by a long run (at least 8 miles+ or 75 mins+) on a Sunday (though remember the golden rule about not increasing your weekly mileage by more than 10%). Cross training is also recommended and people should do at least a couple of sessions a week. This can either be on the bike, cardio (though not running) in the gym, strength work (e.g. upper body or lower body weights) or even an exercise class or two. Although ideally, cross-training shouldn’t replace running sessions, if your muscles are feeling stiff or sore from running, it’s better than doing nowt, so on such occasions is a decent replacement for a running session.
As the Spencer Davis Group sang, Keep On Running!
Kind regards,
Tom