'Silly' Sausage

Easy 1hr 40 + 8 uphill strides (JBR). Road, trails and grass.
15mi
WEEK: 70mi - I’m pretty pleased with this week. I knocked the mileage down a bit as was recommended by George and Barry last week and also kept it generally easy. I was always going to be happy this week if I could do all my runs properly and get a quality Saturday session in the bag.

I had my best night of sleep this week and felt pretty refreshed though a little groggy whilst eating my breakfast; consequently I spilt my tea and burned my leg! After a great night last night it was good to hook up with a big group for the 9.30 long run. After a slow start we picked up gradually but it always remained easy. It is so straightforward to run on days like this when the sun is shining and the company is so good; I can’t wait to lead these guys next year. We did one of our staple routes (‘Church Hill) slightly altered, which is mainly trails and grass with some road. It was an easy pace; I don’t see much point in running particularly quickly on a Sunday in the summer although I am a big advocate of 6-minute miles in winter. I felt a bit tired in the first 4mi or so but after that I felt fine and could have easily kept running for longer. We split into three groups that one could label ‘moderately-fast’, ‘moderate’ and ‘moderately-slow’ quite early on – I fell into the middle group. My hamstrings were a little tight all run but only for brief moments. I got tripped and kicked on my right Achilles towards the end and it was a bit stiff & sore afterwards. I finally felt decent on strides but in the couple of mins after the run I really didn’t feel like doing them as my legs were a bit heavy! I quickly watched the Great Manchester 10k in fast forward and biggest credit from a British perspective should go to Mark Warmby who had an excellent run in sub 29 mins. A traditional Selly Sausage post-long run breakfast followed and we had the pleasure of 1.50 800m man Michael 'Silly' Salter arriving as Bugs Bunny and BUCS Indoors silver medallist Andrew Stanton as Robin Hood. This is par for the course if you happen to live at 186 Dawlish Road as these boys are undertaking forfeits willy nilly! I think Salty genuinely enjoyed the experience whereas as Andy seemed totally unaffected; just eating his food as if he was in regular clothes. I got my stuff together and headed back up the M1 so Wilko could get on with some revision and I could spend most of the afternoon with my parents as my Dad arrived back from Portugal late last night. The evening consisted of a classic Sunday Roast, England giving the Aussies a deserved towelling and Tyson Gay breaking the world best for a straight 200m. I went to bed at 11pm to try and get myself back into a nice routine.