Still Got It

So I've been back training for two weeks after a four week enforced layoff and it's feeling pretty good. This last week in particular has felt great. A good night in group 10 at Petts Wood Runners (PWR) on Tuesday where we did about 6.5 miles and I had plenty to give at the end and another great track session from Mike Reeves on Thursday.
I finally managed to get a response out of the people from the Autumn Shakespeare Half and I do have a place next Saturday. In their defence they said they had responded several times before but I don't know what happened to their emails. I couldn't find anything in any of my in-boxes including the spam filter. The race is just over 4 laps of the Shakespeare County Raceway so it should be a good surface and the field will be considerably smaller than Copenhagen and Bristol. With this in mind I'm going to set myself a target of going sub 01:55:00.
I haven't been out running with the balls since Bristol but I figured it's more important to get my stamina back at this point. I know a half marathon is no trouble with the balls so today I went out to simply run the half marathon distance in a moderate time. I set off in glorious autumn sunshine thinking I'd run at just over 8 minute miles and make sure that didn't fall below 9 minute miles. Just past 3 miles I bumped into self-titled Old Scrote Tim Springett from PWR who was running my way. Rather annoyingly Tim is both older and faster than me so we ended up running closer to 7:30 minutes per mile for a couple of miles (I'm happy for Tim to be older than me but less happy with how much faster than me he is). Tim left me at about 5 miles and I slowed just a little.
It was a really nice day to be out running this morning and I even felt pretty good running up Farnborough Hill at about 10 miles. I finished the 13.1 miles in 01:48:56 which is an average of 8:19 minutes per mile.A good comfortable run to set me up for next weekend.
I did re-inflate my basketballs this week and managed to get out early one evening in the last of the daylight but from now on it's going to be dark by the time I finish work. So I had a chat with the headteacher at my son's school to see if she'd let me use the gym in the evenings. She seemed pretty positive about it as long as they don't have any bookings so I'm waiting to hear back from the office as to which days I can get in there. It keeps me sharp messing about with two ball tricks and drills so it's a good thing to do when I'm giving my legs a rest.
I will need to get the balls out again this week to get the pressures right as they're both a little flat and I'm off up to a friend's house in Burford on Friday night, ahead of the race on Saturday. I'll post again next Sunday to report back on the race and whether or not I managed to break 1:55:00.

Finished in Whitehall Rec. Sun still shining.