The past 8 months have seen me train for a couple of ultras, a trail marathon, and a few longer distance fell races. I did this while continuing to race in most of the local midweek and weekend fell races. This has been the norm, but as the racing season closes out and my last, and biggest, goal for the year looms large (3×3000 Ultra Trail), I think I need to train more and race less!

The fell season stops for no man, and I certainly attribute the Thursday night ‘Hill & Dale’ series as a major distraction from my weekly training plans. To be honest when you race weekly, you really have to tailor your training around each individual week, rather than concentrate on a block of X weeks. The upshot is that you never get a weekly routine going, as it never quite suits to do a track session on a Monday if there was a race on Saturday, or hills on Wednesday if there’s a race the next evening! On reflection I think this will be the last year I complete the series. I just need the consistent base building and weekly speed work to make significant improvements. Most of my running chums would be sad to see the end of another fell season, but me, I’m kinda glad. On with the training…