Running faster!

Before signing up to the Himalayan 100, I had always ran, but it was mainly the odd Sunday morning run or a day out in the Lakes, and i’d never really been one for training or club running as such.

This had to change when I signed up for the Himalayan 100, I had to started to take training more seriously, a lot more seriously!… after all 100 miles is a long way, and to do it in the Himalaya’s at an Altitude of 6,500-12,500 feet was going to make it an even greater challenge.

Its often been said that you become good at what you train to do, so with only around 20 weeks between signing up and the race, I really had to decide what it was i needed to concentrate my training on. I decided I only really  had time to concentrate on 2 things distance and hills.

What this boiled down to was running 40-50 miles a week, including something with some hills at the weekend, with a couple of trips over to the Lake District when i could fit it in.

You can imagine my surprise then, when I recently started looking at my times for the year, i’m running faster than i’ve ever ran, and at practically every distance. The strange thing is, still i haven’t done any speed work at all, no sprinting, no intervals, very few races this year.

Could this be down to simply being fitter, or could it be that my running style has improved with all the running i’ve put in, or possibly that i’ve picked it up from reading books like ‘born to run’. Whatever it is though, i’m definitely liking it.