The start of my 10K journey.......

Well here I am at the start of my Women's 10K journey for 2012.  I've been running the race for many, many years and only had 2 off that I can remember - one when I was pregnant with my son 14 years ago and once with a broken toe, so I'm pretty dedicated as a runner and I'm pretty dedicated to this race - partly because I work for Glasgow Life and have the privilege of working on such a brilliant event.  As a female distance runner this race is the absolute highlight of my year - I love standing on the start line with thousands and thousands of women.  I admire the elites who run faster than me and I admire the women who are out there for nearly 3 hours walking the course - its just a great place to be on a Sunday on May! I'm really proud of the way my colleagues organise the race and in my opinion its one of the best races around.

In terms of running I've been doing it for 22 years, but only just decided after many years of thinking about it, and at the grand old age of 44, to join a club.  I live in Paisley so joined my local club Kilbarchan and now have a proper coach and wow, has this changed how I run and how I perform.  Last year I was just starting our with the club when my 10k training started and i probably launched myself into it a bit more than I should have as a beginner and got injured a month before the race, so had to cycle to stay fit but did ok and ran the race in just over 42 mins.  But the training soon kicked in and i got a PB in the GSR last year of 1:34:25.

This year is different.  I've trained steadily over winter and my goal for this year is to break 41 mins by the Women's 10K in May.

A week of training for me is reasonably full. Long run Saturday (12 miles), Steady run (6 miles) and weights Sunday, Fartlek with the Club Monday (10 miles) night Spin class Tuesday morning.  Wed is a fast 5K and weight and Thursday is Track night (6-7 miles) at the Club.  Friday is another spin day and a bit easier so I'm ready to go again. Being a bit older I find this works for me - the spin classes really help me tick over without too much pounding.

So that's all the background - I promise it will get more interesting from here!

I've also got a good friend that is a brilliant runner.  She is called Gemma Rankin and is an up and coming star I think!  Look out for her.  People think I'm her mum which is understandable since she is 20 years younger than me.  We both run for Kilbarchan and on Sunday we set out for our first race of the year - the Renfrewshire Road Race Championships down in Greenock.  We had a great day albeit we werent too enthusiastic about the cold!  Gemma won the race in 28:30 which is amazing and I hit my target for 41 minute 10K pace by running 33.20 for 5 miles - I now know I can do this and with a little bit more training will get my 41 min time in Glasgow - what a big boost to my training!   Downside - I ran into a bin on the explanade (despite it being 15 feet wide and having all this space!) and cut and bruised my arm.  This isnt a one off - I seem to have a problem with bins and poles - even on training runs. I probably need an eye test but I'm resisting!

On Monday night I headed down to the club for our Fartlek session which is run on the cycle track from Elderslie to Bridge of Weir.  Oh what a night!    Despite having a head torch on and umpteen layers I was still frozen and couldn't see a thing!  It was pitch black and visibility was virtually zero - what a scary experience.  A guy also jumped out on us and boy did we run fast  I'd never do this session on my own but there are lots of us close together so there's safety in numbers!  Our session consisted of 2 mins on (1 min recovery), 1 min on (1 min recovery) and 1 min on (2 mins recovery) x seven times with a mile of warm up and cool down. Its a really challenging session but boy does it get results!  Went home satisfied but frozen - a shower has never felt so good!

Well that's probably enough for my first blog - I'll check in again later in the week to report on my track session at Linwood on Thursday night I eits 5 x 1600 metres. Can't wait for that!!!