Thoughs on September, October and the rest of the year

Well, that's September out of the way. I feel that I have made a gentle, but positive return to running and training over the last three and a weeks, and laid a reasonable foundation for the remaining three months of 2005.

October's theme will be training. On top of this, I've set some things to focus on in the coming three months:
- ensure I do all prescribed training miles, particularly the speed sessions
- continue to work on core stability exercises
- try to finish each session positively, even if I've had a poor session. Thinking on it, at the start of 2000 I was 94kg and very unfit - that I run at all is of itself a minor miracle. A simple 'well done' at the end of each session, even an insignificant 30 minute recovery jog, is in order
- continue to work on diet
- boring though it is, do my 30-40 minute recovery sessions on the grass at Bedlam Bay. More miles on grass can only help
- resume use of the Garmin and HRM, but don't read too much into the data

I lost quite a bit of fitness and condition with the flu - I estimate I am probably in 38 minute 10k shape at the moment, so as mentioned yesterday I think I've lost 9-12 seconds per kilometre in outright pace - but the advantage for me now is that I'm stronger and lighter. I'd like to think of the next three months as a marathon training program without a marathon at the end, building a base for an assault on 2006. I think taking the mental intensity out of training over the last three weeks was a good move. It enabled me to just run, rather than worry about the numbers so much.