Easy Run on the Mynd - 08/04/2011

Yesterday I took the afternoon off and headed over to Church Stretton to get a medium length run in and see how the calf reacts. It was very warm and sunny, so I decided just to head off onto the Long Mynd and run at an easy pace until I started to tire, thinking aroung 10-12 miles would be the target. That way I'd have increased the mileage from Tuesday's run, still have something in my legs for a decent outing on Sunday, and hopefully not overwork the calf / ankle injury recovery.

I set off along Madeira Walk and across the Cwmdale road, through the fields to All Stretton, then started up the Batch (as we'd done on Tuesday on the club run). Here's the view as you drop into the Batch:

Instead of turning into Jonathan's Hollow I continued on directly up the main valley. There are sketchy paths up either side of the stream most of the way: it's runnable, but not as easy running as many of the Batches and Hollows on the Mynd.

Phone camera fighting with the contrast. Should have sun-screened up given all that sun!

At the top I came out onto the High Park - Portway path, followed that briefly and then turned left up to the west top of Haddon Hill. I dropped down to the col below the east top and then doubled back along a nice singletrack line which contours back round the west top. From the end of this I picked up the grassy line of to the left which leads over Mott's Road to the top of Calf Ridge.

I continued in reverse along the line of my Gill Harris round to Wild Moor and the Shooting Box, then headed up to Pole Bank.

Forced underexposure but hopefully you can see Cader Idris faintly on the skyline

I was pretty warm by now, so I finished my drink (High5 with carbs and caffeine and not too disgusting apart from the way you get loads of foam on the top!) and had a little snooze on the grass near the view marker.

Strangely still sunny when I woke up!

I needed to top up the water and didn't want to do more than about another five miles, so I jogged off down to Pole Cottage and picked up the path that leads down across Barrister's Plaiun and round Callow to Little Stretton. On the way down I practiced some of the descending drills I'd been shown at the England U16 coaching day a couple of weeks ago: pushing hips through, not leading with straight legs, looking up.

Callow looked nice but I was really in need of water so I went straight down without diverting via the summit.

Callow from the side of Grindle.

Down in Little Stretton the Ragleth was closed so I refilled my bottle at the campsite and then went up Ashes Hollow and into the side valley between Yearlet and Ashlet. I climbed this at a walk, feeling quite tired - I'm not sure whether this was the heat and slight dehydration or just not having much running in my legs because of the injury?

Looking back down the valley between Ashlet (L) and Yearlet (R)

However looking down it's pretty steep and maybe I was just a bit tired. I ran off down the green path, and was pretty slow down there too....

Church Stretton and Caer Caradoc from the Ashlet-Yearlet col

A jog through the rectory wood and I was back at the car. I had a nice chat with Terry Davies from Mercia walking through town to get a bit of shopping after my run.

Stats for today: 11.2 miles; around 2,400' of climbing; running time about 2 hours 27 minutes.

Gym and Athletic Support - 07/04/2010

Stepson and bike in perfect harmony - get that seat up, lad!

Went to the gym with James last night again.

Laddo is coming on well and ran for ten minutes at 13kph. I don't think I'm going to persuade him to come out on a hill though... but I'll keep trying.

I rowed 2,400m in 10 minutes on moderate resistance as a warm up, then did some work on the upper body to try to build core strength and endurance - three sets of 12-20 reps on upper back, ab crunch, chest and shoulder presses, arm curls and arm extension. I'm trying to do each rep at a steady pace rather than explosively to maximise the benefit - it's surprising how quickly you reach overload that way...

I then did 10 minutes of hill specific work on the stepper at high resistance (1.5km), and cooled down on the recumbent bike for 10 minutes - why does the seat alway wobble about so much on the recumbents? It's annoying.

Re: athletic support. It's not what you think - I'm not posting about underwear. More like financial support.

Hopefully easier to get money out of the Mr Osbourne

I'm putting a grant application together for our fledgling development programme at Mercia. Why does it have to be so difficult? I've spent hours and hours tweaking project plans, copying building society pass books, ringing people etc... It's the classic clash between the simple fellrunning ethos (ably demonstrated by one of our members on Tuesday - jump out of your car, run up a hill) and the unbelievable bureaucracy involved when any kind of quango or governmental body get involved. If this country was run like our races, we'd have colonised other planets by now.

Rant over.

Over and out.

UPDATE: nearly four hours later I have pretty much finished off the application form. Jeez!

Tuesday Night Run - 05/04/2011

Elevation profile and view down into New Pool Hollow from GoogleEarth

Way-hey! Running again. The physio said I could run tonight, so I was pleased to give it a go.

I'd been to Romford and London yesterday and had felt a niggle in the calf for a good part of the day walking round town. I was worried I might not be in shape to run today, but there was no more than a slight ache by 5pm; I was more bothered by having a headache than anything else.

So I got myself over to Church Stretton for the 7pm start, and we set off towards the Batch and Jonathan's Hollow, heading out via Madeira Walk and then the path around the bottom of the east face of Nover's Hill. I felt fairly comfortable, chatting to a few of the guys and girls as we turned into the Batch. Now it's daylight for most of the run I managed to avoid falling at either of the little footbridges on the way up the valley. I must remember I can take pictures now!!!

In Jonathan's Hollow, the ground steepens and so I climbed fairly steadily, with a bit of an ache in the calf but no more trouble than that. Reaching the top we came out into a strong headwind and a bit of mist, so carried on after a brief regrouping up to High Park and then on to the Portway.

We ran south west along the Portway to the Ratlinghope Road and then on south to meet Burway Road; then headed down that briefly before coming off down into New Pool Hollow - I never run down this way and it was a good descent, if a bit boggy. From the reservoir we headed along the pipe path which contours under Cow Ridge, crossed the nose of the ridge and went partway up towards to Mott's Road / Lightspout Hollow junction, then finished the descent into CMV with a good gallop down steep grass - may as well enjoy the absence of any bracken while it lasts - this slope won't be runnable in another month's time.

A quick jog up the ramp to the Burway Cattle Grid and down through the Rectory Wood got us back to the car park.

I didn't go too hard tonight but I was pleased to be able to run steadily up onto the Mynd and to descend fairly rapidly. I put a bit of effort in at the end and felt good. The calf was ok apart from the JH ascent where it was a little sore...

The stats for tonight were about 7.6 miles, 1,250' of ascent, and 1 hour 29 minutes.

Road Biking - to 03/04/2011

Vintage bike at Chatwell Ponds, both transport and location unaltered by the march of "progress"

I forgot to say in the last post that I got my road bike, a beautiful 1984 vintage Holdsworth Mistral, out of winter storage and had a 5.1 mile shake down ride on Thursday night before I went to the physio.

On Friday I rode to and from work, a total of 7.5 hilly miles.

Saturday was spent decorating with no real reaction to the physio or the injury - it was nice to have a fairly pain free day leg-wise. I was also pleased not to be so tired or have such a bad back as I usually do when I've been decorating - the training must be building my core strength!

On Sunday I got out on the bike again for a two hour ride round the lanes east of Telford. I headed out up through Muxton and Abbey Lane (a good sustained climb of about 250') to cross the Sheriffhales to Newport Road.

Gateway near the Sheriffhales road - you can see Cannock Chase from here!

Next I headed towards Great Chatwell (the Red Lion used to be good for food, but haven't been there for a while), stopping to take another photo (at the start of this entry) by the ponds on the way down into the village.

From Church Eaton I headed towards Brineton and then picked up the line of the watershed between the Trent and Severn catchments - it's not obvious here, but it's an important dividing line - rain falling to the east ends up in the North Sea at the Humber Estuary, to the west in the Atlantic at the Bristol Channel.

Junction on the watershed - not as impressive here as in the Pennines!

I turned off the watershed after a couple of miles and rode downhill to the Shropshire Union Canal at High Onn Wharf. It's pleasing to see that after about 15 years' work by British Waterways to get moorings at the wharf, finally the landowner has either relented or changed and there are now boats at the wharf by the characteristic small warehouse again.

High Onn Wharf - the building is a fairly typical Shropshire Union Canal Co Warehouse

I rode on down to the Royal Oak pub at Church Eaton. They were doing breakfasts, but I wasn't that hungry, so I started back. On the return journey I used a more direct route, via Moreton and Pave Lane, coming back into Church Aston by Pitchcroft Lane and then climbing through Lilleshall Village to get back. I moved a bit quicker on the way back, with no photo stops - rain was looking fairly imminent.

Proof of my (or at least the bike's) arrival at Church Eaton

I had a good ride at a reasonable pace with no mechanical problems, although I hope the Kool Stop brake pads I've ordered are a bit better than the 1980s era Weinmann cartridges which are on the bike at the moment. It's a pleasure to ride though, very comfortable because of the 531 tubeset and the generous 27 x 1.25" wheels and tyres.

My ride was 24 miles and about 1400' of climbing, in 2:05 (including a few photo and snack stops). When I got home, it was back to the decorating, which we finally finished around 7 o'clock...

Physio, gym and more physio - 31/03/2011

After my break down at Edale, I rang Lilleshall Sports Injury Rehab and made an appointment. Rob Sharp, who'd previously helped me with a shoulder problem, had an appointment that evening, so after work I changed and drove up to see him.

After a chat about the symptoms and some diagnostic work, Rob reckoned I'd put my fibula out of alignment. I think this was when I had the first problem on the BG Recce, nine days before Edale. The misalignment can apparently reduce the amount of blood reaching the calf muscle and also disrupt the nerves in the muscle. I think this is why I felt I had cramp and dead leg type symptoms in the calf. Rob showed me some stretches I could do to help the healing process and advised me on exercise while the damage was healing. I made another appointment for Thursday 31st.

I did very little on the Tuesday apart from the stretches, and hobbled around a bit at work. By Wednesday, the leg was feeling much better, almost right, so I went to the gym with James. I stuck to non-impact CV exercise, doing a half hour row of 7.5km, and then sessions on the upright and recumbent bikes, pushing my HR up to 156 on the upright doing some hard efforts. I'm impressed with how quickly I can recover back to a much lower HR nowadays - this is a useful adaptation for fell racing, particularly the longer events.

On Thursday my leg felt almost OK. In the evening I went up to Lilleshall again, and Rob did some pretty heavy duty physio stuff to the calf, looking to flush it, and work the muscle a bit.

Edale Skyline Race - 27/03/2011

I arrived in Edale just after nine, having had a nice drive down to the Derwent Valley from Leeds. I registered, bought a bottle of "Rescue Ale" (named for the Woodhead MRT, and excellent), and went to prepare with plenty of time.

After a nice calm pre-race I wandered up to the start, arriving about five minutes before the "off". My calf was still sore, although not as bad as on the previous day, and I was doubtful I'd get round, but I felt I needed to try.

The start was fairly fast and frenzied but as the gradient increased on the zig-zags up to Ringing Roger, I found myself climbing past people and feeling quite good. I reached the checkpoint in 17 minutes and got moving along the path, keeping up with those around me but taking it fairly steady. Jagger's Clough came and went, and I was running well, albeit with a bit of soreness in the bad calf. I did jar it jumping off a rock and that hurt, but I managed to run it off and was moving really well at Crookstone Barn.

I crossed the col and started the long steady climb up towards Win Hill, then on the first steep grassy rise something just went wrong in my calf and all I could do was hop to a halt. Bugger!

I knew straight away that I wasn't making it anywhere quickly, and I couldn't get running again despite a couple of tries. I hobbled back to the marshall on the gate at the col, and let him know I was retiring. I managed a kind of jog / hobble down the path to the Youth Hostel and back to registration, where I had a welcome cuppa, and then headed up to the start / finish in time to see the leaders finishing.

Lloyd Taggert was in sight first followed fairly closely by Ollie Johnson and then Mercia's Pete Vale. Tim Werrett came a very creditable eighth. I've a couple of video clips of the lead guys coming in that I'll try to add to this post later.

There were some positives: I was comfortably inside my 4 hour splits, and was well up on the speed I needed to do to avoid being timed out (this would be about a 4¼ hour time if I kept to the 2:20 timing for Mam Nick all the way round). I felt strong in myself and very in control - it was just the injury which found me out. I was pretty disappointed stewing over my first DNF on the way back to Shropshire, but probably more worried about how much damage I'd done and how long it might be before I'm running again.

Update and Coaching Session 26/03/2011

Apologies for the lack of posts recently - I've been busy and injured. For the full story on the injury, read on!

On Wednesday (23rd March), I took James to the gym again, and had a pretty good session, with a 3000m rowing warm up, then three sets of 12-20 reps on upper body/core weights, finishing off with 3.5km on the crossramp machine.

On the Thursday and Friday I had increasing problems with my left calf, after the "cramp" I'd had in there on the Bob Graham recce the previous Friday. I didn't bother too much about it, being busy at work, and I'd planned a rest prior to the Edale Skyline Race on Sunday 27th.

I spent an interesting day on the Saturday, oberving and assisting with a coaching day at Mytholmroyd for the England U16 fell running squad. I arrived just as the icebreaker session was ending, but in time to sit in on an interesting sports psychology session delivered by Duncan Richards of Helm Hill, who was the psych for the GB swimming team leading up to and at their very successful Beijing Olympics.

Initially we looked at how we'd like to feel at the start of a race, and how we actually feel. Being nervous is a natural reaction to an impending challenge, but how can we channel and control our fight/flight/freeze response to get a good performance? Some positive reinforcement in the form of noting previous times we've felt really good or done something well helps here - Duncan suggested keeping a list of all these occasions in our training diaries - I guess the blog's a bit like that.

We then each wrote down a few goals for the season. In my case this was:

• 75%+ scores in the summer series counters;
• Completing sufficient races to score in the Lakeland Classics Trophy series;
• Running the Stretton Skyline in less than 03:50;
• Completing the Long Mynd Hike.

Most people's goals were similar - some looking to win things or place well. Duncan told us how these goals can break down to different levels. These headlines are "outcome goals" - things we can influence but can't control. Looking at what I would need to do to be able to, say, complete the Long Mynd hike, would give me some "performance goals": e.g. train for at least 3-4 hours each weekend, build stamina, practice running at night, increase hill strength. We have some control over performance goals. For each performance goal there will be a number of components we have total control over, for example getting up early on a Sunday morning, ensuring the weekend calendar is clear enough for a long run, etc... These are "process goals". By executing the plan defined by the process goals we can achieve many of our performance goals and this will allow us to influence our outcomes.

The next session, uphill and downhill runnning, was led by Nick Harris from Rossendale Harriers. We had a short theory session in the classroom.

Key pointers for uphill running are looking straight ahead, maintaining an upright posture, and driving with hands and arms in a similar manner to sprinting. If you speed your arms up, your legs will follow. A helpful insight was that uphill running is effectively a jumping exercise - think about how a high jumper approaches the bar. We also discussed foot plants, here we should be aiming to get the whole foot on the ground, pointing forward to maximise traction, although it's accepted that on steeper slopes we may end up on our toes. Running uphill on a 6% gradient (not steep) uses a quarter more energy than running on the flat, so other keys to uphill performance are pacing and conserving energy.

For downhills, we need to remember that most of the bodyweight is above hip level, so if we can keep our bodies in front of our hips on the downhills, gravity will help. Again foot plants should be with the slope of the ground and feet need to point down the fall line to maximise traction. Looking a little ahead will help - it's suprising that the brain will remember the ground immediately in front of you and sort out your foot placements.

The practical session started with a warm up with a few drills thrown in, and then we looked at downhill technique. One good exercise was to get the athletes to run downhill (grassy surface) with their arms outstretched behind them - like flying down - to build confidence. Whilst they did this Nick had them look at his gloved hand as he ran back in front of them; making them keep their heads up. After a couple of goes the athletes descending became more confident.

We then split into groups and used a hi speed video camera to video each athlete on a short descending run. The coaches checked running form on each run and advised the kids where they could improve and what they were doing well. The final exercise was to repeat these runs, but with another runner "chasing" a pace or so behind, to try to ensure that the kids maintained their form even under race type pressure.

I worked with Phil Bolton of Rossendale, an enthusiastic and knowledgable young coach who's studying sports science (I think) at Leeds Metropolitan University.

In the afternoon, Denise Parks (who writes in Fellrunner), gave an introductory session on sports physiotherapy, outlining her work both treating injuries and preparing fit athletes for the England Mountain Running squad amongst others.

We then moved into the gym for a session on drills and pliometrics. Phil demonstrated a series of drills starting with simple lunges and working up to box jumps. We also did some measurement work on the young athletes jumping skills.

My leg was giving me serious trouble (like a dead leg, only in my calf) now after the morning's practical when I'd been scooting up and down videoing the kids, so I asked Denise to take a look and it did feel a bit better after a quick massage.

We completed the gym session with some more jumping, and I had a nice chat with Jackie Wynn of Ellenborough, who had an interesting take on the procedings.

I then had a chat with Graeme Woodward about the FRA's fell leadership in running fitness course (LiRF), which Mercia will be hosting, probably in July.