13 weeks to go to Cork and I have to say I’m running as well as I’ve ever done. Long may it continue. I do however have a history of my body just closing down as regards running, for no apparent reason. This has happened twice in the past and I’ve had periods of several months where I could barely run at all. Thankfully I’ve always managed to come back.

I’m now at a much better weight for running however and hopefully I’ll hit no such problems this time around.

I’m following the Hal Higdon Intermediate 1 programme as a framework, but tweaking as I think necessary. Notably I’m trying to fit in one ‘session’ a week to work specifically on speed endurance.

A couple of weeks back I set a PB of 47.52 for 10k over the far-from-flat St Catherine’s circuit. Not bad setting PBs a week before one’s 57th birthday!

Yesterday I rolled up for the Jersey Spartan club race over 20k, out from Les Quennevais to Les Laveurs and back. A bright day but an icy north-easterly blowing off the sand dunes making hat, gloves and long sleeves necessary. It was soon evident as well that there were absolutely no ‘slowpokes’ registered – in other words everyone there was a competent runner so I was battling at the back from the outset.

In fact I ran the length of the Five Mile Road and back (six miles, yeah I know) passing no one or being passed. At the turn I saw that here were just three runners behind me. In front was a green T-shirt that never got closer or further away. However within the last three miles I managed to close the gap and picked off Green T-Shirt and three others for some respectability. The last of these was a sponsor’s representative which was probably a bad idea.

Time was 1:42.35 which was 8.22 min/miling. Very pleased indeed with that effort.