It's a funny time of year right now with many people ending their summer seasons and taking breaks, while others have different agendas and are continuing to train hard, in many cases preparing to peak.  Down at Wythenshawe Park where I train, it's predominantly track runners and the likes of James Bailey, Donna Jones and Matt Bond (before he went over to the states) have taken their end of season breaks.  Then you've got people like Matt Barnes who took his break earlier after the England Champs and is now building towards the Great North Run.  Gareth Raven shooting for the World Mountain Trophy this weekend.  I'm aiming towards a marathon in just over 3 weeks time.  And then theres Tom Lancashire and Niall Brooks still with a month until the Commonwealth Games.  Some weeks recently, it's been so much quieter than usual down at the track as some of these guys have been racing away.

The group has had a great year.  Two performances really pleased me this last week.  These were Michael Rimmer's PB of 1:43, and Tom Lancashire's 3:33 1500m, also a PB.  Both performances came under what you would say were far from ideal circumstances.  Michael had a picture of himself looking worse for wear all over the papers a couple of weeks ago and has been the subject of much debate about his "behaviour", while Tom had a nightmare trip over to his race culminating in his mobile phone being stolen on race day and him chasing the thief for an hour before being warned off by a gang of lads in a car.

Speaking to other athletes, we've all had good performances where we think "my preparation was so bad, how the hell did I do that".  And what often comes out is that you have gone into the race totally relaxed with no self imposed pressure whatsoever.  Tom must have been full of adrenaline after all that went on, but at the same time probably thinking it's not going to happen now and just took all the pressure of expectation off himself.  And Michael enjoyed a well documented and fully deserved bit of downtime after Crystal Palace thinking his season was over after being tripped and twisting his knee.  When you are happy in life, you are relaxed, and when you are relaxed you run well.  Michael is obviously enjoying life at the moment and that combined with the hard work he has put in all year has now taken him to 6th on the UK all time list.

So I thought I'd share a couple of my own performances from years gone by where I had no expectation whatsoever and exceeded expectations.


1. It's 2005, I've run a really pleasing marathon PB of 2:18:34 at London.  I am offered my first GB vest for the Kosice Marathon in October.  I train my arse off for the race, get myself into incredible shape with a 49:35 10 mile PB.  Go away to altitide and basically overdo it.  Come back, run a horrendous marathon and I decide I've had enough with the sport of running.  I don't run for 7 days but then have some running friends over to stay and have to take them out for a run.  I just enjoyed going back to the basics of enjoying the simplicity of running and started running again, but just once a day compare to my routine twice a day.  Six weeks after my marathon and I run the Euro Cross Trial at Liverpool.  I feel incredible and decide to try to outrun Mo Farah and co by dropping the whole field.  I'm caught on the second lap, miss out on the team by around 30secs and am so angry with myself for such appallingly bad tactics.  I was clearly in shape but blew it with a rush of blood to the head.  I need to get it out of my system and get a last minute entry to the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k.  No expectation, and I just did my own thing, sitting off the early pace of the large lead group, running alone and then reeling them in one by one, just enjoying feeling good, and eventually finishing 3rd behind McCormick and Dan Robinson in a new PB of 29:52 on a very cold morning.  I couldn't believe it but I had just gone out there as a man on a mission, fuelled by the anger of such bad tactics the previous day, and doing the complete opposite in the 10k.



2. We're going back to 2003 and I am working as an accountant in the NHS.  We're sent on a 2 day training course to a hotel in Wigan.  End of day 1, and theres a meal with wine flowing, and then it's announced we are all heading to Wigan for a few drinks.  Not wanting to be antisocial of course, we head out to Wigan and I have another couple of drinks but keeping it very low key as I've got the Inter Counties Cross Country on Saturday and we are now on Thursday night.  I get back, I have one at the hotel bar, and call it a night.  I wander up and the room starts spinning like mad, I spend the next 30mins over the toilet in a world of trouble.  I hadn't had a huge amount to drink and somebody had clearly done something to my "nightcap".  The next morning, I head down to breakfast looking like a complete zombie.  Colleagues laughing at me as I can't eat a thing.  "So what you doing this weekend Dave?".  "er, I've got the UK Cross Country championships, live on Sky TV if you don't believe me".  "i wouldnt bother if I were you mate!".  Race day comes and the first kilometres I'm not feeling good at all, I get to the bottom of the sweeping downhill at the far end of the course and we turn the corner onto the long flat straight.  I'm about 150th, and am running slightly wide and can see a huge train of people ahead.  Turning that corner with the wind behind me was like someone plugging me into a power socket.  By the time we headed through the woods 800m later, I had hit the front and it was the strangest feeling, one never since repeated.  I didn't feel anything at all, I was in a bit of a trance, just floating.  A lap later and there was a huge surge from Tromans.  Seven followed but I was in a position to respond and get involved in a second group behind including Chris Thompson, Chris Davies and Rob Denmark.  This was a top quality field and as we come into the final downhill with probably only 800m to go, I'm still in 8th spot, suddenly I think what the bloody hell is going on, I've never come close to a performance like this!  It's a shame I lost my head a bit over that last 800m because I slipped to 12th which in that company I would consider even now to be possibly my best ever race performance.  Whatever went into that drink, I want some more :).  In all seriousness, I expected absolutely zip all that day and the pressure was completely off, I just ran with such freedom and I think that's what did it!


I remember chatting to John Downes once about a good friend who was suffering a dip in form.  John responded by saying he knew the runner in question was not happy with his job and was just generally not happy at that point in time.  John encouraged this person to look for another job saying "if you are not happy in life, you have no chance of running well".  Wise words from a wise man. 

So...the moral of this blog is to bloody well enjoy your life and your running!  There will be times when shit happens in your life, but there are a lot of things that make people unhappy - like the job example above - that you can go and do something about.  We all know runners who have completely knocked drinking and nights out on the head in a bid to move on a level, and they've ended up running worse!  Got back to enjoying themselves and they start performing again!  If they're cutting out something they know they enjoy, they're going to resent the sport and be more tense about things.  I'm not suggesting everyone should become party animals and binge drink three times a week but if you enjoy going out and mixing with your friends and enjoy a few drinks in the process, then do it!  Just have some discipline and don't do it all the time.  I'll only go out if I know I will get a full quota of sleep and know that the training planned will not be affected in any way whatsoever.  Some more wise words from another wise man to finish and that's Ron Hill: "you need a blowout once a week when training hard, you need it to keep sane with that mileage".

Keep training hard (and enjoying yourselves!)

Cheers,
Dave