Training Block Complete - Bring on Beachy Head

Beachy Head Half Marathon 2026 Training Block - Week 11/11

And just like that, the final scheduled run of the training block is done. Today's session was Race Pace Practice K's. Nothing too complicated, and certainly a lot shorter than some of the sessions I've been tackling over the past few months.

• 2km warm-up at conversational pace, including 4 × 100m fast strides
• 60 seconds walking recovery
• 3 × 1km at 5:30/km, with 120 seconds of walking recovery between reps
• 1.5km cool-down at conversational pace

With Storm Austen on the horizon and the wind really picking up along the seafront, I thought this might be a much tougher session than it turned out to be. Thankfully, the legs felt noticeably fresher today, with a bit more bounce than they had on Tuesday. The three kilometre reps at 5:30/km felt manageable, and the session went well without any drama.

That was particularly reassuring because I'd started to wonder whether I was coming down with a cold, or whatever bug seems to be doing the rounds at the moment. Nothing felt quite right earlier in the week, and I wasn't sure how I'd feel today. As it turns out, there were no issues to report. Perhaps yesterday's tactical Lemsips worked their magic after all.

More importantly, I finished feeling good, with the session completed and no obvious problems to worry about heading into the weekend.

Training block complete.

After twelve weeks of training, the long runs, hill reps, tempo sessions, easy Zone 2 miles and all the early starts have brought me to this point. Now there's very little left to do apart from recover, keep the legs ticking over and get myself to the start line on Sunday. I might squeeze in a gentle parkrun on Saturday, now that Worthing is back on after being cancelled for the last few weeks.

Twelve weeks of training in sunshine and temperatures of 20°C or more, only to potentially turn up on race day to cold, wet, windy and stormy conditions. It's not exactly something you can plan for, and I'm hoping Storm Austen clears through in time to leave us with something approaching decent running weather on Sunday. Beachy Head is already going to be a challenge without having to battle the elements as well.

Fingers crossed for Sunday!