So far so good. Having a lie in this morning helped and no running gear made the lunch time run difficult. I did run the lunchtime 10k in a pair of speedos once but that’s another story and was the result of a stupid comment alone the lines of ‘if Iceland beat England at football I’ll run in a pair of budgie smugglers !’ . There is evidence of said smugglers but I want to keep some resemblance of followers.

So not run today, (I am assuming I don’t break tonight and sneak out for a slow 10k?) which just leaves tomorrow pre-race. I’ve planned an early morning brekkie with my Wife, read the papers and spend some time on the internet researching blogs and ‘stuff’. Maybe even check out a few sites on the best way to run a half marathon. All the good advice normally goes out the window when the guns goes off. The first 1-2k’s is nearly always run way to fast and before you know it you’re in Threshold and VO2 territory. This is a place you cannot stay for too long, if you try tit will end in tears.

A half is a good distance as you have got time to work your way into it, and finish strong, without the need to redline it straight away; unlike a 5k or a 10k when really it’s on from the gun.  That being said you’ll always have your runners who you aspire to match or beat and when they go you normally follow. On Sunday I’ll be setting the pace around the 77-79 minute finish time; around the 3:40min/k pace. Depending on who turns up that may be enough for a top 5 finish. This will go out the window of course if any ‘real runners’ decided to pop along for a tempo run. If that happens it’ll be all about going under 1:17 and an age group win.

In any race you need a goal and a few alternatives if the first goal all of a sudden evaporates. For me on Sunday it’s a top 5 finish first (this could be a stretch goal!); then a sub 1:17, then an age group win and finally a sub 1:20. The last two years I achieved none of these with a 6th and 7th and both times running 1hour 20minutes and change. I may have won my age group last year but it was still a disappointing run.  You can normally predict your half time if you have done enough of them and your training has been respectable. A marathon is a different animal and can always throw up the odd curve ball to totally destroy your pre-race predictions.

Sunday will also be race two in my five race, 6 weekends series. Next weekend I have a week off before another half on Rottnest Island ( http://www.rottnestisland.com , a magical place and I’ll be spending a week there after the half with the family. This is a ‘Matthews’ tradition as I have done the Rottnest full 10 times and each time me and the tribe stay on the Island for a week afterwards) . After my week break on Rottnest I return for the World Masters 5k on the 29th October and finally the reason for this training block the World Masters on November 6th ( http://www.perth2016.com )

There is the opportunity to race the Rottnest half starting at 7:30am and then the 10k starting at 10:30am, but that would be silly, wouldn’t it….?