A Moyleman For All Seasons

[OutAlongTheRiver]

Moyleman prep update ... Tuesday 19 February

Just about to write up "another good week" (which it has been) when I spot on twitter that Seaford Strider runner Kristy Sherry (who joined in the twitten run on Sunday) has gone and bust her ankle falling off a dance floor. So risk of injury is never far away ...

But it was, any way, another good week ...

Tuesday required just a gentle 5km round the streets of Lewes. But Thurs was a set of 1.5km tempo runs. And due to choosing to run round Lincolns Inn Fields I ended up hitting c 4:30 per km for each rep. This was because my Garmin got confused with the buildings around and cut around 150m per run lap of the square. But though I was knackered and frustrated at apparently doing 5:10km ... reality dawned when I checked the map.

That then set me up for a crack at a Peacehaven parkrun PB (which had been set a year or so ago at a shade over 24 mins). The sub-24 time at East Brighton made me entirely confident I could repeat that. But I was keen to also apply the lesson from that run and pace myself. Arriving, we found that there was a bigger crowd than usual - with the numbers swelled by a phalanx of Portslade Hedgehoppers. I realised that might mean there was quite a few up ahead of me - helping with targets to aim for if I needed them. We set off and I settled into a 4:30-4:35 pace, resisting temptation to push faster in the opening km.

With Paula not running after falling ill with a flu/cold on her Thursday run, I had her to cheer me on each loop - and I was able to smile and wave as I passed, running just inside myself. A few folks passed me in the early stages, but I then hauled a few in on the closing section. And targetting another PR50 shirt, I passed one and nearly caught another small group of Hoppers.

My time not only turned out to be a Peacehaven PB - but an overall PB, beating my 22:45 (which I had a friend help pace me to achieve in Oct 2017) by 20s to reach 22:23. Amazingly this makes me think that the 22 mins benchmark may now be a beatable margin. Amusingly I finished only 5th in my age category since the Hedgehoppers clearly had their faster more experienced contingent out in force.

Sunday saw a happy return to the Twittens - with a crowd of 10 and 2 newbies, plus some returning familiar faces. A group from Seaford Striders - including the now injured Kristy Sherry - turned out, and then ran over the hills a further 10+ miles back to Seaford in impressive style.

My Asics training plan had 21km down for the Sunday - so we set out again shortly after finishing the twittens, and headed up the first 7 miles of the Moyleman in glorious sunshine. With the loop back via Kingston into Lewes, we put in a solid 17K extra on top of the extended 6km Twittens (1km warm up).

So another 40Km+ week done - with a new PB and a twittens/downs combo, plus solid quality weekday run. This was a good week achieved. Just avoid those dance floors ....