16 weeks focussed on the 25th September 2016! After February’s bizarre knee issue put me behind I quickly decided April’s London marathon was too soon & attention turned to getting into reasonable shape for Highgate 10,000m in May before properly knuckling down for a full 16 week block through to Berlin. As detailed in my weekly training blogs it was a pretty good block of training, based on consistency & building towards the race rather than any particularly impressive sessions.

Having struggled with the cold in London 2015 we felt I’d ran a couple of minutes down on my fitness at the time, & this was really about coping with the training looking towards anything from 2:15 to 2:19 depending how I adapted through the weeks.

Racing well at Wilne off a long day on the Saturday a few weeks previous thoughts turned towards 2:17 or faster. Speaking with Andy through the week leading up to the race we agreed it could be anything from 2:15 to 2:19, & although sticking with 2:17 as a plan we agreed I’d run to feel & roll with whatever pace I dropped onto after 4-5 miles (a necessity as it turned out!). Anything from 5:10 to 5:15 minute miles would be fine to start. Continue reading →