Oxford Half Marathon 2016 - New PB

Some of the awesome people from Falcon :-)

Yeah - New PB at Oxford Half Marathon - 1h25m44s :-D Pleased!!

In the last few months after finishing Race To The Stones (100km) I've been focusing on my upcoming half-marathon in Oxford (9th. Oct. 2016). It's local to me as I live in Oxford, so one I have to do. I wanted to beat my PB from 2015, which was 1h29m47s. To do that I've been slagging on my long runs and including a bit more speed-work as intervals, hill sprints and shorter tempo-runs. 

The Oxford Half-marathon was a great event, and the weather was perfect for running! As said I managed to improve my time from last year with just over 4 minutes! I came 170th of 7686 finishers in total, 160th of men of 4263 and 166th in my age category (2464). Some stats from the event can be seen here.

I haven't been doing any full-distance test-runs. I find it really difficult to compare a training/test-run with a race-run, as I wont have the same conditions as in a race anyway, so I simply trusted that my training would be sufficient to carry me through. For me, training is for improving and increasing my level of fitness, strength and speed in all it's aspects - And races are for testing if my training has been sufficient for that particular race and for achieving PBs :-)

3rd place at
Henley Hasler K2 Kayaking

I haven't been running as much as I could have in the last month, as I've had many kayaking races on my programme and wanted save a bit of energy and focus a bit on this as well, which did pay off by getting a 3rd place at Henley Hasler in a K2 :-) 

For now, I'm once again gonna focus more on distance/time on my feet instead of speed. I worked on increasing my speed for the Oxford Half-marathon, and did less long runs. However, I missed the longer slower runs where time doesn't matter and simply enjoying the scenery. So now it's time to slowly increase my week mileage again in preparation for next years long runs :-) 

As many others I was unsuccessful in the ballot for London Marathon 2017. But it's okay - I'll find some trail race instead :-) For next year I've got my eyes on some longer races/runs which I'll hopefully be able to find both time and money for :-) More on these later...!

It's getting dark out there in the mornings and evenings, so bring out your Hi-Vis vest and lights both to be able to see but also to be seen! Stay safe! :-)

See you out there! :-)

#YouVsTheYear #RunWithFight

Best. M.