Running to stand still

In advance of Saturday’s upcoming 10k I looked back at my training diary around the time I last ran this race in 2006 (my first full year in the US) so that I could get some perspective for this year’s race. I came 5th in 33:41. Based on my 33:01 that I ran on a flat and fast course with competition a couple of weeks ago and the fact that I am ‘training through’ this race, that time would seem to be a pretty reasonable reflection of what I should be able to run this year considering the relative difficulty of Saturday’s course.

However, reading my training leading up to the 2006 race brought it home to me how much my training has changed over the years! The week before the race I commented after my ‘long run’ of 11 miles “good 40 mile week!” Yes that’s right folks, 40 miles was pushing the envelope for me back in the day!

The year I was probably my fastest and fittest ever was 2005, just before I moved over to the US. As you can see in the side bar on the left, most of my‘shorter’ PRs were set at this time. A brief glance at my training during that time reveals an average weekly mileage of around 30, with 9 miles considered a long run. I was running 6 days a week but literally every other day was a hard workout! On top of this my ‘easy’ days in between were usually 6 minute miling.

This, of course, was in the days when I had just given up playing soccer competitively and I was new to all this running lark but still I think it makes interesting reading. I wonder what I would have been capable of running then if I was doing the same training as I do now. Would I have been faster then and faster now? Who knows? All I do know is that I spend a lot more darn time running now than I did then and I’m basically running the same times! Oh the joys of ageing.