Here I am, just over 3 months into the gait-change exercise, and a bit of a milestone reached.


A bit of background: the group I train with here at Southampton AC is an 800m through to 10k group.  We follow a periodised schedule (base training in the winter, speed in the summer) and in general, the same sessions come up on the same days each year.  For example, the session for the first Tue evening in December is 16x300m with 100m jog recovery.


And, I log all my sessions and times.  Of course I do. I'm the kind of person who keeps a blog!


So the milestone?  I ran 16x300m faster this Tuesday, than I did a year ago.  Ta da!


Okay, so there are some mitigating factors:

• last year I claimed that I was still tired from the Saturday "sand dunes" session 3 days previous
• I also complained about a mere 10 minute warm up (and in fact the times reflect that)

However, this year I am a lot less fit generally (due to the drastically reduced volume I've been describing in this blog), and, as coach Tilt would be able to tell you, my head was elsewhere for the first 4 reps. But it all came together nicely last Tuesday, and I felt good enough to run the last 3 reps with no shoes at all.


I won't be cracking open the champagne just yet - Keith talks about interim peaks.  Also I do ache quite a bit 2 days later, so not quite there yet on the base strength side.  But certainly a massive boost to the morale, and a great reassurance that the process is coming on quite nicely, thank you!