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Sunday 6 February 2011

2011 Targets: Progress so far...

At the turn of the year, I made a list of my parkrun targets for 2011. These were as follows:
1) Get a new PB before the end of February.
2) Take my PB below 18 minutes before the end of April.
3) Take my PB below 17:45 before the end of 2011.
4) Finish in the top 5 of the male points table.
5) Finish in the top 10 in at least 75% of events attended.

Well, unsurprisingly, I haven't managed to achieve any of these targets as yet this year. But to be fair to myself, I have only run 3 parkrun events, missing the last two by marshaling the first and being sidelined with illness yesterday. I was very disappointed with my first two parkruns of the year, but the third, at 18:20 (only 6 seconds outside my PB), was pleasing and showed a lot of promise. For the first time it actually made me think that not only was my first target likely, but also that the second seemed within the realms of possibility. Its just a shame that I haven't been able to have another go since.

So I am left with time running out to achieve the first of my targets for the year. That being to get a new PB before the end of February. I am now left with just 3 more possible parkrun events to achieve this target. Its actually very likely that I may have to miss one of those events. This basically means I need to give it my best go each chance that I get. Fingers crossed that I am well and that the conditions are suitable for an attempt next weekend. I certainly don't want to fail so early on in the year with the challenge that I consider to be the easiest of the 5!

Just one week into the new parkrun "season" (as far as the points table goes), and I already find myself 90+ points behind many of the Coventry parkrun regulars. Those being the people most likely to turn up week after week and keep picking up the points. So target number 4 has already seen me left in the starting blocks!

One area where I have started the year very promisingly is in training. Last year I upped my training distance from 400 miles in 2009 to 600 miles in 2010. This year I am hoping for more like 800 miles or more. In January I managed my highest monthly mileage ever, recording 113 miles. That is at least 25 miles further than I have ever run in a month before. I managed to run 17 times during January, very close to 4 times a week and averaging well over 6.5 miles per run. I'm not sure how long I will be able to keep up this level of running, but I feel confident that I will see the benefits soon if I manage to keep it up.

My training so far this year has been concentrated on interval training and hills rather than attempting to beat my timed training targets. Those being:
- Single park lap: 9:30
- Three park laps: 31:00
- Freedom parkrun: 18:30

But I think that I may have a go at the timed freedom parkrun target sometime soon. At the very least I would like to beat my freedom parkrun PB of 18:54 in the next few weeks.

That's all for this update on my targets for 2011. Hopefully I will be able to post about achieving one of these targets sometime soon.

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