Confidence

What a difference a bit of confidence makes to my running. Beating Peter on Sunday will prove to be significant in the long run I think.

Let me explain. He is the main organiser of club training nights and various other stuff. He usually takes the middle group. So there goes any argument that I'm not faster for the middle group.

Even better, usually at about the half way point of a run, he has an option for a slightly longer detour and takes a group of faster runners. I had always kind of assumed that even though I was keeping up with the middle group on the first leg, once they set off on the longer run they speeded up a bit. But if I can beat him in a race, and he leads that group, then I'm sure that I have no excuse for thinking that I wouldn't be able to do it.

So, on Wednesday, I did. And of the five of us who took the longer route, I was the one trying to slow down to make sure I didn't get too far ahead. OK, so some of the faster people who sometimes run didn't turn up (possibly because it was snowing?), but that's blown out of the water any argument that I should just take the short route home.

I feel really good about my running at the moment. Even though I'm working off a self written training plan rather than following something tried and tested and recommended, I'm feeling like it's working. Basically, it's 2 club runs, 1 long run (pretty much following the progression in distance from one of the more well known plans), and 1 extra run which can be speedwork, cross country or anything I feel like I've been lacking. Or later on it could be more of an easy run to help me recover. Plus two swims and two weight sessions, and yoga if I feel like a good stretch. It has been working pretty well since Christmas, and I'm really enjoying it again.

One other thing I've noticed recently is how good I'm getting at hills. I used to hate hills, and tried to avoid them at all costs in my marathon training last year. But since I started running with Kirkstall (where hills are a necessary part of life, it being at the bottom of a valley with a hill on either side), I've really felt myself improving. I notice on club runs that I can get up the hills a lot easier than some other runners - they might beat me on the flat, but I power past them on the hills. You never know, if I do the Guy Fawkes 10 again this year I might actually run more of it!

(And the official half results are out, putting me at 1:49:30. There was a bit of confusion earlier in the week with the provisional results being a minute or so out for most people, but I'm quite happy with the new revised version).