The weeks since I got back from holiday seem to have flown by in a blur of training plans and rainy runs. In fact I think one week I wrote more training plans that I ran miles – a combination of sensible marathon recovery and bad weather  coinciding with a lot of runners getting their Autumn race plans sorted.

Now that work is a bit calmer and my mileage is a bit higher, it was time to write a plan for myself. I’ve been asked a lot of times if I’m doing another marathon this autumn and I’m not. I gave it a lot of thought but I don’t really want to.

Training for Edinburgh was great, it went well (mostly) and I hit my goal in the marathon. But I don’t have the drive to do it all over again right now and taking a few more minutes off my marathon time doesn’t really motivate me right now. Not in the same way that running a Boston Qualifyer motivated me.

But I did need a target. Something to make me pull on my trainers on those days when the sky was grey. I’d had a lot of fun half marathon training at the start of this year, and I’d like to go a little bit faster than the 1:41 I ran in Cambridge. I’m just a couple of minutes off of running a 99 minute half, and that’s something that I can get excited about.

So today marks the start of a concerted effort to train for a 99 min half marathon. I’ll be heading back to Peterborough for my home town half marathon in October again. It’s fast and flat, I know every inch of the course and have my cheering crew ready. There’s no better place for me to have a crack at it.

The race is 12 weeks away. Originally I miscounted on the calendar and thought that last week was week one of training. I’d done an easy 6 miles on Tuesday before I noticed and it felt like when you wake up an hour before your alarm and realise you’ve got another hour in bed.

I ran just under 30 miles in total last week including 8 miles of beer running round Oxford with Katie on Friday and 10 hot, sticky miles up to Alexandra Palace and back yesterday.

I won’t be recapping every week of training here but if you’re interested in the miles, you can follow me on Strava. And most of the runs will be documented on Instagram (@lazygirlrunning). I’ve just started doing Snapchat too but that seems to be mainly food (surprise, it’s also: LazyGirlRunning).

So now I’ve said it out loud, I just need to go and do the training. And a couple of build races below. See you there?

Race diary

Pride 10k, 13 August

Ealing Half Marathon, 25 September

Great Eastern Run half marathon, 9 October