Up to 30th January

Monday

Rest

Tuesday

Harriers training tonight. I’d had a busy day at work so I was a bit frazzled. Leading a training session wasn’t really at the top of the list of things that I wanted to do. But when I got there, it actually went well. My legs were missing, but I had a nice time. The program said a ’50 minute’ progression run on Racecourse Road. I can’t remember what the thinking was behind this when the program was written. Some sort of increasing pace thing. What won’t work is something like ’10k increasing pace every k’ as we’d get all strung out. So the idea I came up with is 8 x 4 mins, with 1 min rest/regroup. But then each batch of 4 mins you go faster. The trick being, of course, to start out slow enough that you don’t run out of talent. To my slight surprise the session went well, lots of happy faces. What also helped is the headwind on the way out, leading to a tail wind on the way back.

Thursday 27th

Harriers Training

Saturday 29th

8k from the in laws. Didn’t feel that great, but at least I got it done.

Sunday 30th

Today was a good day, as it was an Orienteering day. Cleveland Orienteering Klub were running an event in the delightful area of Hemlington in Teeside. It’s the kind of area where you need a special symbol for ‘burnt out car’. It’s a good place for orienteering though – landscaped parkland and intricate housing estates. I ran first with my son. He had an awesome time, as usual. Something about Orienteering really connects with him; being outdoors, maps, treasure hunt.

Then it was my course, I didn’t make the best route choice to control 1. Not terrible, not perfect. Then on the way to 20, I went to 21 by accident. At least it was easy to find 21 when I got back to where I started.