Parkrun - 22:18, weight the same at 77.2kg

No surprises here. Same old weight. Good first km at Parkrun, 4:03, but faded badly to 4:41 in the fourth km. Need to get the weight down and get up earlier on the Sat morning (was up at 7am which is pushing it).

New PB at Parkrun - 22:13

Managed 22:13 at this weeks parkrun, weight no change from last week, 77.2kg. It was really warm too, in the high 20s at 8am. Poor week of training. I've managed to improve each week over the last month of Parkruns which is pretty pleasing. Just need to slowly improve my training and sort my diet out.

Missed Parkrun - damn!

But never mind, I went out for a "speed session" hehe, I kind of make it up as I go along. 3km warm up then I ran 1km in 4:15, followed by a walking recuperation for a good few minutes, 'cos that did take it out of me. Then another 500m-600m at 4:15 pace. Before heading home. Running the 4:15 showed me there was no way I could maintain that pace over 5km, although that is a goal I must aim for.

My weight on Sat morning (20/2/16) before breakfast was 77.2kg. This is a drop of 5.5kg (12lbs) since April last year. Goal is 72kg. Don't think I've been that light for 20 years!

2016 Goal - Sub 20 min 5k!

Time to get serious! At my local 5k Parkrun I can do it in around 22:30. That's 4:30/km pace. To achieve sub 20 I need to get to a fraction under 4:00/km pace. It's gonna be tough, no doubt about it. My current pace already kills me, so I'm going to need to get in some serious training.

First goal this weekend will be to see if I can hit 4:25 pace, which would give me a race time of about 22:05. That would be a big PB for me. I will use my old Garmin 405 which has a Virtual Partner function - you set the pace you want to achieve and it tells you how far ahead/behind you are.

As well as training I need to lose some weight. I'm currently 78kg, which is down from 82kg last year. That's still too heavy though. According to Runners World if I lose 5lbs my 5k time could improve by 30 secs. Lots of assumptions in that article though. I would like to achieve 75kg which is a 6.6lb loss.

I'll try and do the same Parkrun most weeks to gauge my progress. I'll also post my weight to see if there is any correlation.

By the way I am 48 this year...yikes!

218km in July

Highest total all year, pretty pleased!

About 4 weeks till C2S marathon, no injuries in training so far. Feeling unsure about the 4hr target, a consistent 5:40 per k over 42.2k feels slightly out of my reach at the moment. Only one more long run of 32k scheduled next Sun, then taper. Looking forward to it :-)

Decided to enter Perth C2S Marathon

One of those spur of the moment decisions, I have 62 days to train :-) Race is on Aug 25th.

This week was my first 40k+ training week of the year. Very pleased. Goal for the marathon is sub-4 hours. I have done marathons before, both in 2009, the Perth Marathon and the C2S. So I do know the C2S course and I know the second half is hilly. It's a tough nut to crack. My time in 2009 was 4:20, so I'm hoping for a 20 min PB this time round.

Trying to get to 40km per week

I think my running is finally coming together. If I can get to 40km a week I think I will be good enough to attempt some 10k races, maybe the Joondalup 10k in August. If I can do 4 x 5km in the week (5k lunchtime runs) then that leaves 20km to do split across Sat and Sun. Pretty much the only way I can do the Sat/Sun runs is first thing in the morning, which is hard in the winter when it is still dark at 6:30am.

The chart above shows my 30 day totals. Lots of peaks and troughs, if I get to 40k a week it should steady at the 160km line.