My last blog I talked about how I thought I was just about fit enough to race, I then went on to shock myself, massively! If someone had said to me I was going to come out 7th fastest from Mansfield I probably would have just laughed it off. I honestly thought I wouldn't have the pace in my legs to get going nevermind maintain a decent tempo for 15mins or so. I know this years course was longer than previous, but based on last time I ran I had an idea of what I thought I might have ran and that was about 25 seconds slower than what i've done previously on that course- that's 14:52 I think. I would have been happy to come away just dipping under 15:20, but when I heard it was longer I had more 15:30 in mind. 

I've come away from the race exactly how John wanted me to, filled with confidence as this transfers into training straight away. It's amazing how your training can be transformed mentally. Again for the Tuesday session that followed the relays it was all about getting my head around the session if I wanted to nail it. Thankfully I did, thanks to the race at the weekend and I got my 5x5mins in on the grass at a very good pace, faster than planned too. I proved to myself when I'm happy and confident things will go right, now it's just a case of keeping hold of that confidence. 

I'm now back into proper full volume training and I forgot how tough it actually was! This week with me not racing I'm looking at running a higher volume mileage week, hopefully get into the 80's with 2 hard sessions, Tuesday (which I've now done) and Saturdays which is the UK Athletics training day here in Loughborough.

I'm not sure if many of you know about this, it's open to anyone to turn up, go training in the morning then in the afternoon- mainly for the coaches listen to Alison Rose (GB Physio) speak along with Andy Jones, a physiologist. There's details here but I think you need to contact Spencer or Dave if you want to attend.

I'm looking forward to that anyway as it gives us a chance to train with people we wouldn't normally do so and hopefully i'll get a good solid session in when feeling pretty tired after running a few miles this week! This evening i've got a 20minute tempo to do mixed in with a 10mile run. I'm actually doing it with newly converted triathlete Adam Bowden as his tri coach asked if he join me today.

I've done a bit of training in the past with Will Clarke and i've been meeting with him for runs recently so hopefully them lads can get involved on the hard sessions as they're pretty handy runners themseleves when they don't have a swim and bike in the legs! Saying that they always put me to shame by telling me what training they've been doing for the 5 hours leading up to the run we do!

I'll get another blog up on the weekend/early next week updating you on how the sessions have gone over the next few days and how i'm feeling in the lead up the Gateshead xc.

Thanks for reading, Ryan.