27th November - Running goals for 2010

As we quickly move towards the official start of Summer, at least sub consciously, many of us are already thinking about the goals we wish to set ourselves for 2012. For the runners amongst us this may be taking on a new distance or setting a new PB.
Whatever your fitness goals, one thing which rings true time and time again in helping us achieve a goal is consistency.
This week, finally I "Felt it click". I guess if you look at it one way, its only been just over 6 weeks since I ran the Chicago Marathon, If you look at it another way though, I was conscious of my active recovery directly after my last major race for 2011 and fairly quickly got back into basic training and have been building it up ever since - but to date I hadn't really felt that good whenever I did a solid training session.
Especially over the last 2 weeks this had me second guessing myself, had I allowed enough recovery time, how long until I would start to feel good running again? Did I have enough time to prepare adequately for my next race at Lake Biwa in Japan? Well this week I can say that things just started to "Click".
On my Saturday session of 4*2km, I felt OK on my first effort but more importantly felt better with each rep thereafter and the times got faster. On top of this, my regular Sunday run was very satisfying. I averaged 4:15 for the run of just over 30km. Most of this wasn't on road, running my usual route with my training squad in Centennial Park. What was most satisfying was feeling Strong and fast running a strong block between 20-30km with an average pace at around 3:40. This didn't just happen, it was me making sure I turned up for all my planned sessions and training consistently, even though some days it felt pretty average. I'm excited about the coming months training leading up to lake Biwa!