I got pretty good at keeping a training diary throughout January and into February, until I tripped over and smashed my knee in. Since then, nothing. I basically didn’t run at all for a month, and then eased myself back in. I’ve had a few spring sniffles that have set me back a little bit, but mostly I’ve been racing. The Somerset Series gets pretty hectic through April, May and early June, and so it has been hard to find a training rhythm.

But after the recent Piddle Wood Plod, which I’ve yet to write up, we enter a quieter period through the summer. I’ve still got a few races scheduled, namely the Quantock Beast and the Pawlett Plod, but my focus is switching more long-term. Specifically, I want to address my 10k PB.

I last ran a real 10k ‘PB effort’ at the 2015 Battle of Sedgemoor 10k. That’s right, four years ago this summer. At that race, I ran 42:19. Sixteen months later, I ran 42:06 at the 2017 Chard Flyer, a time that I never really counted as my 10k PB, as I was concerned that the course was short. I’ve since realised that GPS really can be quite bad, and it probably wasn’t short. So let’s call my 10k PB 42:06. It isn’t quite that simple though. Although 42:06 is my 10k race PB, I have actually run a quicker 10k time during a race. At the 2016 Great Bristol Half, I clocked 41:24 for my first 10k.

So, I have two 10k times to beat: my official 10k race PB of 42:06, and my quickest time over the 10k distance of 41:24. Except that, actually, as I first discussed in August 2017, what I actually want to achieve is a sub-40 minute time. As such, my three targets for the summer are pretty obvious:

• Gold: 39:59 (sub-40)
• Silver: 41:23 (distance PB)
• Bronze: 42:05 (race PB)

I’m not at my fittest at the moment, but I’m getting there. On the rather undulating Crewkerne 10k course, I ran a 43:48, and I should be able to improve on that fairly significantly on a flatter course. According to Strava, my grade-adjusted pace for that Crewkerne 10k was 6:46, which equates to a 10k time of 42:02. So in theory, without even needing to actually improve, I should be able to hit my bronze target. If I trust Strava, that is.

Of course, the crux of the matter is that there is a reason my 10k PB has got to stale. Yes, partly it is because I keep getting ill or injured. But it is also because I just haven’t run any flat, road 10k courses since that 2015 Battle of Sedgemoor race. This summer, I’m aiming to remedy that. The Chard Flyer has 474 feet of elevation, Crewkerne has 607 feet. The first of my ‘target’ races is the Wessex 10k, 215 feet, on 3 August. The second will be the Taunton 10k, 157 feet, on (provisionally) 29 September. If I don’t pull it off at either of them, I have my eye on some back-up races in November.

I have targets. I have races. All I need now is training. In the past, I’ve trusted to Pete Pfitzinger’s Faster Road Racing. But with an eight-week training window for the Wessex 10k, I simply don’t have the base mileage to be able to adapt his plans easily. So instead, I’m going to use a combination of his ideas, my knowledge, and some other stuff I’ve read, to come up with something suitable. Assuming that I’ve got my mileage up to a decent level during this first eight weeks, then I should be able to use an adaptation of Pfitzinger’s plan for the second eight weeks.

There we go. Sub-40 in either August, September or November. No worries.