Personal Best at WCTT!

TFR has set a personal best at the Wimbledon Common Time Trial.

Okay, so he still didn't prepare particularly well for it. He had drinks with a client on Friday night, and then a few glasses of wine with his wife later on.

He felt a little shaky when he woke up, and if it weren't for his friend coming around to pick him up at 0815 that morning, he might have decided not to go.

But he did so anway. The first lap went actually rather well. Lots of people overtaking him, but he stuck to his pace and felt able to push a little in the second lap. In fact, in the last 400 metres he was able to pass four people. One girl he passed literally metres from the line. The picture on the WCTT website shows that she wasn't too happy...

So, his new PB for the WCTT is 29:14. And he is very happy that finally he has broken the time he set way back last year when he first ran the WCTT.

So why does he think he did well. He thinks that a lot of it is down to the Long Slow Run. That relatively monotonous run which seems to go for ever and seems to be so sloooooowww. But it's that which builds fitness, burns calories, improves technique, and gets the body ready to run shorter distances with more effort.

So from now on, TFR is making sure that he builds a LSR into every week - and he suggests that you do the same if you're not already doing it!

TFR may not run the WCTT next week as he is likely to be in France - he's seeing whether he can take the first flight back in the morning and still get there in time...

Running on alcohol

Stupid fat runner.

He once again ran the excellent Wimbledon Common Time Trial last Saturday.

The only problem was that Friday was a bit of a big night.

Drinks with his team - 4 bottles of Becks
Pre-dinner drinks at a work recruiting event - 3 glasses of champagne
Drinks with dinner - 4 glasses of wine

He went to bed, feeling fine, and woke up feeling equally fine.

He even woke up early (after having a dream that he had woken up late and missed the run!)

He set the virtual trainer on his Garmin Forerunner to match the pace he ran last time.

He set off, although very rapidly found that he was working very hard to keep up with the pace he ran last time, despite the fact that the last time he ran, the first lap was at a very slow and comfortable pace.

So he gave up.

And has promised he will never be drinking that much on the night before a race.

He was very annoyed, particularly since he had trained during the week as well as at the weekend and was feeling that he could have gone for a PB.

Oh well, there's always next week!