2022 in Review

Last run of the year in the books and a couple of beers deep. 2022 is a wrap.

I'd love to be posting about what an amazing year it was but seriously - it was one big meh !!

24 races in total. Best result was 16.49 for Parkrun. Won a 5k outright in 17.00. Track races were all pony. Actually looking back it's been a really disappointing year. Even rankings it's hard to see anything that is worth boasting about. Runbritain ranking handicap is at 1.6. 

The best thing was probably consistency. Least injuries of any year. Just the cold bug early December holding me back on the race front and 3 weeks in California at the end of July.

Did burnout a little in June and didn't go well until November. In spite of all that had 7 x 5ks between 16.49 and 17.07. Only 4 that I ran properly were slower and 17.29 was my slowest of those.

WAVA wise at age 47 I had 7 of my top 20 ever performances but that's a pretty weak way to look at it. In terms of points only 1 in the top 20.

Training wise, I found a good groove both early and late in the year. Looking back now I am actually the fittest I have ever been late December.

2023 - lots of big aims, obviously !!

1 - a return to steeplechase. That has to happen. Lessons learned from last time are to focus on strength EARLY and consistently. I'll start doing a hurdels session in January over low hurdles to start adapting the legs. 

2 - Sub 16 for 5km. Jesus how have I not done this already. Very simple here just bring the pace down on those volume intervals without pressing the loud button. Once these are in 5.19/mm avge and I'm closing at sub 5.10 then that will be ready to go. I actually think I can get close to this fairly quickly.

3 - Sub 4.20 for 1500m. This is a big ask. Need to get the speedwork flowing and feeling easy. Start with strength stuff which will not add speed but off the back of that start to build in real speed sessions. Sub 60 400m reps off long recovery, starting with sub 45 for 300m. Recovery needs to be huge as these are effectively races for each rep lol. Big ask but once it warms up I need to be at the races with speed. Strength work and consistent speedwork is the key.

If I can nail these I think I'll actually start to fly at everything.

First up, boring January. Big base, big strength and big consistency. Keep that focus and stay dialed in to the prize.

So that's the year that was 2022. I actually didn't realise how crap this blog was going to be until I started writing it up! I need to pull my finger out in 2023 !!!