Better than a poke in the eye with a rusty nail...

I tried contact lenses for the first time today and stuck them in for tonight's training session on the Prom. Have to say that they weren't uncomfortable at all and really quite easy to shove in. Taking them out is going to take a bit of practice though. It took me several attempts to get the little devil's back out! After just one use I think they're going to work out great. Vision was much clearer than with the ol' glasses - didn't have any of the distortion I normally get when the gogs bounce around under the rush of great, huh, cough, speed that I'm traveling. So, my overall impression of contacts after my first time is a big thumbs up. And you know what? I might actually be able to see where I'm falling next time I come down a mountain in the pouring rain!

On to tonight's training. It was another quick one for me. We ran 2 large, 2 medium and 2 short reps with somewhere in the region of 90s to 150s recovery proportional to the length of the rep. My big ones, I'll rephrase that, the two large reps were both just outside 6 minutes in 6:03 and 6:01. That's 13s quicker than I've gone before. I ran the medium reps in 4:03 and 4:01 which again is a 14s improvement on my previous quickest. The short ones were slightly slower than my fastest but still pretty good, 2:26 and 2:29.

I'm beginning to get some consistency with my pacing on these sessions. I'm hitting the point of maximum effort without slipping over the edge and having to slow, thereby loosing some of the potential gain. The last rep proved I was just at that point of knackeration (nice made up word) on that last rep which is how it should be. On another positive note the knee's been fine again today. All that twisting and slipping on Sunday seems to have done the trick - excellent.

Finally, I've decided I will not be racing this weekend. Instead I shall be putting in a some mountain bike work in preparation for my upcoming duathlon in Feb. And I've decided I'm going to race the Long Mynd Valleys fell race up in sunny Shropshire the week after. It's 11.5 miles with 5000ft of ascent and last years winning time was in the region of 1:45 so it looks like a stroll in the park!!! - groovy. Well, you know what they say, when the going gets tough - get in your car and go home :)

Finally, finally, well done to Ben R and Nick T for 1st and 3rd in last Thursdays Weston Prom Run. It's great to see Ben getting back to form and Nick chasing him hard. I guess all that time they're spending studying my running form at the track on Wednesday night is beginning to pay off - they can see exactly how they shouldn't be doing it!