Keith: September 2nd - September 8th

"My whole feeling in terms of racing is that you have to be very bold. You sometimes have to be aggressive and gamble." - Bill Rodgers

This week I raced for the first time since Berlin 2012. 49 weeks to be precise. More of that shortly, but let's do the training first.

I finished last week with a slight shin issue, but managed that successfully and a light day Monday saw me good to go for the rest of the week. As (per recent) always, the average pace for the run is at the end of each run.

Monday: am: 4.07m jog - (8:14m/m)
pm: 6.13m - 2m jog, 2m steady (6:55), 2m+ easy - (7:27m/m)

Tuesday: am: 10.16m - 4m easy, 6.16m brisk (6:31m/m) - (6:56m/m)
pm: 6.08m mildly progressive steady (6:58m/m)

Wednesday: 14.04m easy - (7:21m/m)

Thursday: am: 7.01m jog-easy - (7:41m/m)
pm: 5.5m very easy, 6 x ~420m hills - sprinting the last 100m of the last one flat out, then straight into almost 5m progressive averaging 6:35, but the last mile was 5:42. (Total: 13.47m @ 7:02m/m).

Friday: am: 10.63m - 4m easy, 3m tempo (5:35), 3.63m brisk (6:38) - (6:41m/m)
pm: 6.52m jog - (8:07m/m).

Saturday: 6.08m very slow jog with 6 x ~15s strides - (8:00m/m)

Sunday: 4m+ warm-up, then Maidenhead HM in 72:41 (3rd place and a 19s pb), 3m+ cool-down (Total: 20.55m @ 6:19m/m).

Total: 104.74m @ 7:07m/m.

This week was all about the race on Sunday. A decent (but lighter) hills session Thursday, and then a short tempo on Friday to try dial into the effort required.

Sunday came, and the plan was simple. Do the HM as part of a long run and run it hard. As I hadn't raced for such a long time it was hard to know exactly what shape I was in. Training can give you a good indication, but that's all it is. Throw in that my back, Achilles and asthma are not right and it really was down to how it went on the day.

Maidenhead Half Marathon - race report:

The gun went and I was straight off in a lead pack of 6, feeling surprisingly good (a new situation for me as I normally find the early miles a grind). I drifted to the front of the pack on and off, fighting the urge to push on.

3m came in 16:31. During the next 3m I couldn't fight the urge to push on and went to the front to see who was up for it and who wasn't. This, unfortunately, triggered some slight asthma issues and resulted in me watching as 3 of the group pulled away, leaving me in 4th place as 2 other runners drifted off the back.

6m came up in 33:23 (16:52 for the 2nd 3m) with the asthma having cost me a bit of time. It eased off though and I began to get back in the swing of it, covering the next 4m in 22:05, to move me through the 10m mark in 55:28 (average of just inside 5:33m/m).

At 9m I had caught up with 3rd place and tried to go past him hard with a hard surge. He initially held on, but I could feel him gradually slipping back, and soon I was on my own closing down on 2nd place.

Unfortunately it was really just a case of me roughly maintaining pace (I covered the last 5km in 17:13 - a 5:32m/m pace) as 2nd place slowed a little and the finish line came too soon.

The end result of 72:41 was a 19s pb, which though small, is significant for several reasons.

1) this is the best I have ever felt in a race shorter than a marathon (allowing for the things which are not quite right yet - i.e. the aforementioned back, Achilles and asthma).

2) mechanically this is the best I have felt at this pace.

3) I now know there is so much more to come after this race.

4) I could have used my current physical shortcomings, and the fact that I've not raced for nearly a year to play it safe, but I didn't. As per the quote, I was aggressive and gambled, and I got some reward for it.

The quote itself is particularly pertinent as Bill Rodgers was trained by Bill Squires, and it is Bill Squires' logic that I have been following over the last few weeks since I realised that I couldn't currently do the long tempos so important to the Renato Canova approach.

Having tried a variety of approaches over the years I had felt that the Squires stuff would really suit me for several reasons, but I had initially intended to stick with a Canova approach for this marathon to see how it went, before trying an alternate approach.

As they say though, everything happens for a reason, and this has shown me that my feelings on Squires' approach may well be right. 6 weeks time will tell a lot!