The two weeks before the week before Liverpool.

9/11/09-15/11/09

Monday- am: 30 mins easy plus S&C resistance.

            pm: 40 mins steady with the Garmin on. Splits were 6:25, 6:11, 5:54, 5:55, 6:00, 6:02 and 5:43 for the last 3 mins. Felt strong.

Tuesday- am: 30 mins easy then prehab exercises.

             pm: Track session with Steve. A sharpening session of 800, 600 jog, then 400, 300 x3 off 50 seconds. Times were 2:12, 65, 49, 64, 48, 63, 49. Felt quick but I was comfortable.

Wednesday- 45 mins. Felt fine.

Thursday- 36 mins with Wilko, Townsend and Ziff. Then went on the track and did 5x200m strides with Wilko. Felt good on the run and comfortable on the strides, got drenched by the rain.

Friday- Travel to Gateshead with Wilko and then 16 min jog from the hotel.

Saturday- Gateshead International. See race report.

Sunday- 75 mins. Felt good and not that tired from the race.

56 mile week

16/11/09- 22/11/09

Monday- am: 30 mins easy and S&C resistance work.

            pm: 40 min run with the Garmin on. Splits were 6:40, 6:28, 6:15, 6:28, 6:16, 6:15 and 6:04 for the last minute. Felt very good on this run and didn't feel like I was running that fast.

Tuesday- am: 30 mins easy.

             pm: Session in with the uni group as Steve wasn't coming down. I did 5x400m off 100 jog, 3x1k off 200 jog, and then 5x200m off 200 jog by myself. The plan was to run the 2nd and 4th 400 hard and the others with the group, then on the 1k's run the first one with the group, the 2nd one hard and the 3rd one however I wanted. Times were 66, 64, 67, 63, 68, 2:57, 2:46, 2:44, 30, 29, 28, 27, 26. Felt awesome on this session, even though there was a strong wind on one of the straights. Very happy to see those times on my watch.

Wednesday- 65 mins and core. No Garmin today as Steve wanted me going easy because of the track session. A good shout because my legs felt pretty mashed after that session.

Thursday- am: 7 mile run of 1 mile easy, 5 mile steady and then 1 mile easy. Times were 6:17, 27:03 (5:24 average), 6:10. Did the 5 miles as an out and back run. The wind was sooooo strong and had the wind behind me going out, and averaged 5:28 there. Coming in I somehow picked the pace up despite the wind but it was such hard work, chest was very tight afterwards.

              pm: 30 mins easy.

Friday- 45 mins with core and prehab. Felt a bit tired on the run.

Saturday- Session with Steve and Nicholls over Metchley. Session was 5 mins, 4 mins, 3 mins and then 2x90s. Lap splits were 2:43, 5:32 (we decided to do 2 laps instead of 5 mins), 2:38 for the 4 mins and then 2:37 for the 3 mins. Wind was strong again but I felt great and like I was moving pretty quick.

Sunday- 75 mins. Felt good again even though there was wind and rain. What's with the wind this week?

71 mile week.