Catch up - (Monday 28 July)

Too many blogs on the go that's what it is, too much sunshine, too much running, too many days away...

Where were we anyway ?

Just spent a great few days in Snowdonia running the International Mountain race - you think you've done every kind of race there is - track, road, fell, marathons etc and then you come up against a beast like this one all 3560 feet of it.

Five miles straight up Snowdon and five miles straight back down - I was fairly pleased with my time (1hr:41min) but as for race strategy the less said the better - suffice to say I will be racing this again next year and will be running sub 90 minutes for sure.

Only 9 days to go till the long summer break in the South of France and I cant wait !

Thinking... - (Tuesday 15 July)

Sometimes you have to take stock of what you are doing and why you are doing it - I'm involved with loads of stuff at the minute - Torrs Hydro, Bananathon, new job hunting, lots of running for example - now am I doing these to fill my time or are they just filling my time regardless - perhaps I've been thinking too much !

Running wise I've had two or three really good sessions in the last five days with my best medium length run for a while on Sunday and two good hill sessions in preparation for Snowdon in the last couple of days.

Rain rain go away... (Wednesday 9 July)

Its been a tough week this week - long run on Sunday felt dreadful, it was only 12 miles but after 6 I just felt like stopping - it was the result of the hills on Friday and then late Saturday evening so no major worries.

I swapped my session on Monday and ended up doing 8 road miles and finished strongly.

Tuesday was 1km reps and I did these out in Woodbank Park and ranged from 3:35 down to 3:30 which is the quickest I have ever done them.

The worst thing about the week is this bloody rain !

Climbing high for a pint- (Saturday 5 July)

With the Snowdon International Mountain race only a few weeks away my focus has been to try and get as much hard hill running (climbs and descents) in as possible - Friday and Saturday were no exception.

Friday saw me, Steve and Lee head up to Big Stone, down the other side and then around South Head and right to the top of Brown Knoll (at least that's where we thought we were) - it was a glorious day and after an hour we ended up in the middle of Hayfield about to set off on the 3 mile flat part of the run back to New Mills when I found a tenner in my pocket. I gave the guys three choices; carry on and finish our run there and then, an ice cream each or a pint !

Half an hour later and suitably refreshed in The Royal we headed back to New Mills amid gassy burps all round - this is running at its best.

The best laid plans... - (Thursday 3 July)

Tomorrow is New Mills 'prom' night where all the Y11 boys and girls will head off to Manchester Citys stadium (well actually it belongs to the council...) for a night of celebration - I'm not sure if I like the way this Americanism is taking over nor do I like the expense that goes with it - limo's, expensive dresses - but hey that's the society we are part of and I am sure Amber will have a great night - I think all I did when I left school was get pissed and throw eggs and flour !

Its been a great week of training - despite the torrential downpour the Stockport Harriers group got caught in on Tuesday. Wednesday was a planned rest day as it was also the Offerton 10K race and thankfully the weather was kind for the race, numbers were slightly lower than normal but we will blame the mens Wimbledon quarter final for that, I wouldn't mind but Andy Murray isn't even English !

The plan for Thursday and Friday was to travel down to Snowdon and do a recce of the course for the Snowdon International which is at the end of this month, unfortunately the travel plans fell through and despite looking at re-arranging it for Saturday/Sunday it was decided to sack it totally for this weekend as the weather is planned to be awful Saturday and Sunday - never mind we will see if we can sneak in a day up Snowdon before the race.

Instead we did a hard track session last night - 16 x 400m with alternate ones as efforts (fastest 78s, slowest 86s, the rest bang on 85s) with the recovery 400s round about 110s.

Friday I need to get out into the hills - so Kinder here I come.

Picking up speed - (Monday 30/06)

Well after a great weekend in the Cotswolds its back to basics again and the need for speed - Monday nights session should help with that with 300, 500, 700 x 3. I was pleasantly surprised with how it went as I tried to keep all the reps so they had 20s per 100m split - that is 300m in 60s - 500m in 100s.

Everyone I've spoken to enjoyed the relay weekend and want to go back for more next - we will see.

First of July around the corner so hopefully we will get a proper summer and only six weeks till the summer holidays in France - yes !