Training in earnest has begun now for November’s Cyprus international 4 day challenge. The race is in it’s 9th year and looks really cool. You run 4 different races on each of the days; day 1 is a 6km time trial, day 2 is an 11km hill race, day 3 is a half marathon and day 4 is a 10km city run.

I am looking forward to some bright weather there – the event seems to be blessed with sunshine historically and I’m pretty sure ill be sick of the mud and clouds in here by then!

Training is going well; I’m feeling pretty fit and just want to work on my speeds. I’ve got my eye on a sub 1hr 30min half marathon time, however as many of you who know me already are aware, despite running practically for a living I rarely race. What this means on race day is that I will need to be very careful my mental state isn’t affected too adversely by my nerves.

I have run a 1hr 47min half marathon without any training before so I don’t feel the goal is unrealistic, however the course was a flat road race and this one undulates with an overall climb of 400 metres.
Currently I am lifting weights using compound movements, running 4 x week mixing up intervals, hills and tempo runs with longer ones and am just building up some mileage to get into my stride a little. And I have been kickboxing again after nearly 10 years out of the ring for the past 6 months which is totally unrelated but muchous fun and partly attributing to my current fitness levels.

So im feeling good and aim to keep a log here of how things are going over the next couple of months until race day on the 21st Nov…..watch this space!