Pre-half post

So I fired up the blog and noticed that I hadn't actually posted anything since the 1st January. That's kids for you!

Well, to summarise, I kept the engine ticking over through winter and more recently stepped back into the FIRST 3 plus 2 plan to train up for this weekend's Shakespeare Half in Stratford-upon-Avon, the first of 4 events over the course of the next 5 weeks. The other events consist of 2 sprint triathlons, Crystal Palace and Blenheim Palace and the Denbies 10, a beautiful but hilly cross-country jaunt in the North Downs.

By this time last year, I'd already set my 5km PB and broken my 10km PB twice in the space of 3 weeks. I'm feeling some way off of that over the shorter distances this year, due to lack of speedwork training and general lack of running at points, but I don't feel in too bad a shape for my first half marathon on Sunday.

The target time for Sunday is anything below 1:40, with an outside chance of breaking 1:35 if I'm feeling fighting fit and have managed to rack up a few good nights' sleep, something that's not all that common at present due to our monkey of a 15 month old waking us up every 2 hours!