Merry Christmas everyone! Week 1 of my training happened to fall in Christmas week which is quite tough really. Simon commented to me the other day that he didn’t know how I manage to train before Christmas. The only answer I can reflectively come up with for that is that its an 18 week plan and this is, by calendar, where that 18 weeks falls into. And I don’t want to skip the first 2 weeks – that would be like building a house but not digging the foundations!

It’s been a really positive week and managed to do all my planned sessions

They key sessions of the week were the Threshold Run and the Medium-Long run.

I was really pleased with how the Threshold run went. I really wasn’t up for it and had been struggling with a cold and a tight chest so it probably wasn’t a brilliant idea, but I managed it and hit my paces just about bang on.

The 14m medium-long run was more challenging than it should have been, thanks to the Christmas rescheduling. But I just about managed to squeeze all my miles as subs except for one – which was stupidly uphill! The challenge of running round Yeovil is the amount of elevation you accrue, it makes it really tough going. Legs were utterly dead by the time I finished and with hindsight I probably would have planned this differently – but I got through it unscathed and should have gained some good leg strength from it!

On Christmas eve we visited Seaton parkrun. All in all it was a pretty disappointing experience. We were aware that sections of the course were on pebbles, and that on the website it says buggies are ‘unsuitable’ – but given all this and that I wasn’t going for a time I thought it would be OK. Unfortunately the run director on the day told me, mid run brief, that buggies were not allowed as is clearly advertised on the website! It is definitely NOT clear! Jodie took one for the team and just ran up and down the promenade with Ivy for 5k whilst I trudged round in a recovery jog, my legs still in bits. I felt a bit picked on and singled out and feel the RD handled it very badly and quite rudely. I am an experienced and capable Buggy runner and whilst it would have been difficult, I could see no reasons from a safety point of view why the pebbles would have affected the Buggy. It would have been slow but there was plenty of passing space on the affected sections. It was a very disappointing parkrun.

In Christmas day we stayed at our home parkrun in Andover. The opposite of seaton we had loads of fun and we’re joined by family.  It was a terrific atmosphere and was a brilliant start to our Christmas.

Summary

A positive start to training! Getting through week one can be a tough mental hurdle and given the season adds an extra dimension to the word “dedication”! Onwards and upwards!

Next weeks plan: