Best week of the year....so far

  I really wish that the ubiquitous Parkruns started a bit later.  It was 9 o'clock on Saturday morning when I woke up.  Just the time when thousands of early risers were setting out on, for many, their weekly 5K effort.  
 I'm pretty convinced even if I made the effort of going to bed that bit earlier and making that early start time I wouldn't perform any where near to 100%.
 Not that the start time is the only handicap,  as the nearest venues of Hyde Park Leeds and Lister Park Bradford are hardly on the door step. 
 I was keen to record a tempo 5K on Saturday so a convenient Parkrun would have been ideal as it was , what with the dreadful weather and athletics  on the tele,  I ended up at Nelson track late afternoon.  Interestingly 2 others had much the same idea.  I passed through torrential rain on the way over but the 12 and a half laps were completed in dry albeit breezy conditions but still hard work.
 As I was warming up, one of the others on the track asked with I suspect just a hint of sarcasm, "Have you started yet?" (Cheek!)  So  perhaps determined to demonstrate that there was a distinct difference between my warm up pace and my tempo 5K pace I went through 4 laps in 7.13, slowed on the next 4 to 7.17 and with the year's fastest previous effort  for this training exercise of 22.35 in mimnd had to work very hard to record 7.13 for a final time of 22.33.

Meanwhile ,at much the same time I think Lancashire's finest HELEN CLITHEROE was completing her 5K on the Crystal Palace track in the AVIVA LONDON GRAND PRIX.  Pleasing to see the 37 year old   received the award for the best UK performance of the day finishing 2nd to US runner Lauren Fleshman, running a 15.06.7 and booking her seat on the plane for the World Champs in Daegu.  Not only  an improvement on her PB  by over  23 seconds  but now faster than my 15.18 !  But would expect nothing less from someone who shares my birthday. Her running this year shows that sometimes we have to just re-evaluate the training we are doing, the races we are competing in and not be afraid to make significant changes.
Well done to her.   

Many would suggest that 5K on the track is hard enough in a race with others let alone doing it solo but at least there are no impediments that we face on the roads or even the canal towpath.
  With 2 track sessions then "in the bank"  for the week I was interested to see how I would cope with another 12 miler yesterday with Jon W.   and again a touch apprehensive  as he is younger and faster.   But it went pretty well again; just a few seconds per mile down on the previous Sunday
when both of us were just that little bit fresher.   Customary 2 mile jog intro. then 10 miles in 82.13.
   So 53 miles for week 31.   I've been over 50 a couple of times this year but as we all know quantity is not the only factor.   So for the week to include 12 miler, 8 x 1K rep session and a 5K
tempo solo track effort was particularly pleasing. 
Needless to say, today's Monday outing was a short 4 mile jog at 9.45 pace.   My "rest" day!

And ,finally,  congrats must go to 2 other local athletes, brothers Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee  (Bingley Harriers) who were first and 3rd in the Hyde Park, London World series triathlon.
Nice if they could repeat that in a year's time at the Olympics but would the younger, developing Jonny be taking the gold? Time will tell.