am i not running or racing enough?

away for the weekend, so only managed to fit in a 3mile jog on Sunday morning.. but that was better than nothing. and with this mild weather and some quaint and pretty autumnal Warwickshire countryside, i quite enjoyed myself.. apart from some goon beeping their horn without reason as they passed. yeah.. thanks for that..

Tuesday club training: pyramid. and quite a pyramid it was too: 400-800-1200-1600-1200-800-400 with 200m walking recoveries between the first and last three and 300m recoveries between the middle three. i actually managed a good pace throughout and was pleased with my performance. no timing, so i don't know what speeds we were hitting. but i'd say we were still sub-7min/mile during the 1600m, and that was definitely the slowest. i'm guessing the 400s were around 75s.. maybe?

meant to run at lunchtime yesterday: a slowish 5mile recovery, but i forgot my towel, and found out i needed to go buy a few things out up town. instead i ran today - and tackled the full 6miler for the first time in quite a while. it was actually my intention to run 8miles nice and steadily as a mid-week long(ish) run, but my leg speed picked up after the warm-up mile, and i didn't really control it too well. felt pretty good building up a sweat in this mild weathe,r and the tracks in Hyde Park weren't too busy. ended up coming down the east side of the park at a fair lick - probably approaching 6min/mile pace. [not wearing the watch at the moment, as i need a new battery.] it was one of those pace-sessions that occur quite rarely: your breathing goes all relaxed and the leg speed continues to increase - and you end up flying, feeling a bit like you're floating on air.. didn't really want to get to the bottom it felt so.. right.

will go out again tomorrow, probably a 5miler - maybe speed up it a bit in the middle.. will have to see how the legs and the Achilles feel. no problems as yet. the intention is to run a 7miler on Sunday morning too. there's a great run from my house that takes me through Lewisham, over Blackheath and down and round Greenwich Park, before returning up and over the other side - through the Cator Estate. hope i get the time and feel in the right place to do it. will hopefully swim with the kids too..

the question in the title of this post comes from what i'm overhearing at the club sessions. one guy there had run a 10k that previous Sunday, another had run 12miles the night before, and another hadn't had a day off running for three weeks! no wonder i looked and felt so fresh-legged in comparison.. felt a bit of a fake running round near the head of the group - with just 3miles under my belt in the previous 4 days.

the lack of miles in my week can't really be avoided - and i'm building back up quite well now. i had a great deal of hesitation about overstressing the Achilles after i started back - but i think i can get more relaxed now.

one of the guys there - Steve - asked for what i'm training at the moment. i mentioned London in the spring and perhaps the Tunbridge Wells half in February, but i got the feeling that he was looking for something more immediate. even the less speedy guys there are picking up 10ks here and there - or turning up to be a club rep at a 5k x-country meet if they can. leads me to think that either i'm less committed to racing - or even running - than these more seasoned club members or i'm not organized enough about racing - and i'm perhaps missing out on a good thing by not racing regularly - or maybe it's just that i don't have the time these guys might. the latter seems highly unlikely, so maybe i need to ask around a bit and gauge opinion. my feeling is that i don't commit to races so easily. i like to always do as well as absolutely possible. so the idea of showing up regularly but only rarely getting a PB seems quite alien. maybe it's just me - maybe i've still not done enough racing to feel more relaxed about 'taking part'. it's whether racing would benefit my training - and i think it might - that's the clincher..