Three months into this now, and nothing's replaced actually training together face to face - so Andy came up to Preston for a weekend. This is what it actually looked like.
Friday
Andy arrived Friday afternoon after I'd finished work. Easy 6km with a few strides to loosen up, and he talked me through some new run drills - the posterior chain work that's been on the list since the gait analysis. Dinner was a slow-cooked bean chilli I'd put together with what felt like twenty different ingredients thrown in, brown rice, avocado, a lot of vegetables. Early night after that.
Saturday - parkrun, differently
Up around 5:30, a bit of mobility work, then down to parkrun for 9am. I hadn't done anything hard since my own solo parkrun back in January, which I'd run in about 21 minutes. This time we actually strategised beforehand - walked the loop together first and planned it by heart rate rather than just going out and guarding a pace like I normally would. There's a steep hill repeated three times on that course, so the plan was: push it hard up the climb for 30-40 seconds, but back off before I went fully into the red, then use the recovery on the way back down to bring my heart rate back under control before the next climb.
It worked. 440 finishers, I came 7th, just under 19:30 - a big jump from January, and I didn't even look at the pace until after I'd finished. Running to heart rate instead of chasing a number the whole way round changed how the effort actually felt.
After that: food, an easy mountain bike ride just to explore the area and spin the legs out, then a pool session in the afternoon where we adjusted things in real time - some proper drafting for the first time, holding a pace quicker than my own threshold pace sitting on someone's feet, playing around with a pool buoy and a snorkel. That evening, we sat and talked through the year ahead, including a training camp planned for July with proper hill riding and sea swimming.
Sunday - off-road
Grey and damp to start, but we headed out to Gisburn Forest for something different - my first time on mountain bike trails. We rode the blue route with a bit of the red mixed in, maybe an hour, enough to properly flush the legs out on the climbs and corners. A short brick run off the bike on the gravel and mud straight after, then home for a well-earned nap.
Genuinely the best part of this whole project so far is just getting to spend real time with someone who's fully invested in it. If you're following along, I'd love to hear from you.
