Fairweather Running

So finally we have some hot sunny weather. This is great in so many aspects. Everybody loves the sun, except maybe the unfortunate fairskinned among us, it makes everyone much happier and brings the world to life. For a fairweather runner like me its also lovely to see weather like this. Its so much easier to get out there and get the job done when its like this, no excuses of "Oh its raining, I'll go in an hour" and then 3 hours later "Oh its still raining, I'll give it a miss". Even with this weather I havent got much running in since my last blog, only 2 runs to be precise. One before an exam and than a very very hot one today. I'm going to kick on from this and start training properly now, with no excuses. Even more so when Im at home as my Dad will make me go out and get the training done, so no shying away. I have 2 "races" lined up in the next few months before the 1k (still no date set for this day of bant, sort it out lads). I will come to these races in a bit.

First things first, exams. Over the last 2 weeks I have had 6 exams. 3 in maths and 3 in sport. This year has been the first year I have ever worked for exams, and even then I didn't really do enough as I should really be doing, especially with not working hard throughout the whole year. I think I will pay for this come results and will be happy with an average of around 55% for the year, meaning that I'm still in reach of a 2:1 next year where hopefully I will finally work hard. Knuckling down to work is something I have always promised myself I will do "next year". Ever since being disapointed with my GCSE results, and then scraping into Uni its always been "next year". Well now is the time for it to be NEXT YEAR and not "next year". This is the business end of 15/16 years of education. The past matters no more, its the degree I come out with this time next year that does. I need to get out of cruise control and pull my finger out. The same can be said with running. No more "it's raining I'll go tomorow", its got to be "Yeh its raining but fuck it, I'm going out there and who knows, maybe I'll enjoy it"

So, the races I mentioned earlier. These are both 1 mile races on the road that seem to be starting in Leicester. There is one on both 4th June and then (I think) 6th July. I hope to do both of these and hopefully come the 2nd of the 2 races, after just over a month of good consistent training I can pull a new mile PB out the bag. I have done a fair few mile races on the road at an evening of "training races" in Derby. Its a fast flat course, with the only problem being its an out of back so you lose both a few valuable seconds and your momentum and flow when having to slow, and 180 round the cone and getting going again. My PB for the mile was set here probably a couple of years ago with it being 5:22. Not very fast at all and well due for being smashed. Incidently my brother ran around 5:22 for a mile a few weeks ago, and is currently knocking out 59/2:18s in 400/800m races. That 800m time is the sort of pace I would need to go through 800m in to break 3 mins for 1k. So this proves to me that I can get out there and do it if I can get back to the sort of mile times I used to run, and obviously I would hope to be going under 5:22.

Now exams are over I have a lot more time to do other things, such as run... However its also now tempting to go on big smash ups and consume a lot of alcohol and then the shite takeaways that usually follow. However I'm going to try and stay clear of that this summer, maybe just 1 big night out a month or so. Hopefully this will go a little way to shifting some of the excess weight I am currently (and have been for since I first discovered Beer...) carrying. I had a biggish night out on Saturday with it being the end of the exams. We started drinking at 2PM and didnt stop untill god knows when. Although this, coupled with being up at 6am to revise, left me absolutely knackered when I got to FAB so it wasnt such a good night, but was a good day none-the-less. Along with drinking too much, I also eat too much shit. I am a big lover of chocolate and eat far too much of it. This seems to have come to a head over the past few weeks with exams and the chocolate "helping me through revision". This needs to be sorted out and cut down on and I will hopefully manage to do so which will go along way to helping me run faster which at the end of the day is what I want to be doing.

Finally, I read a very long, but informative article last night on Lance Armstrong and his tests from the 1999 Tour De France. I'm not going to go into it at great detail, but I am gutted to say the least. He has always been a hero to me for what he did, so to find out that he was 99% on EPO during that tour was horrible. Obviously there is still some element of doubt, there always has to be. He himself has always been 100% adament he has been clean so hopefully this is the case, however the article didn't read that way at all and really looked very bad for him...

This leaves this blog on a bit of a downer but I couldnt not include something about it, I'll instead bring something positive to this and say I am looking forward to these 2 mile races, the 2nd one moreso, and with some good consistent training, there is a PB there waiting for me. However CONSISTENT TRAINING IS THE KEY.

Thats it for now, plans for this week are 3/4 runs and then hopefully a game of cricket on Saturday if I get back into the team after being in Birmingham for the last 4/5 weekends.

Mdog x