Training to 02/05/2012

Just a few brief training notes to bring things a bit more up to date:

17/04/2012 - Tuesday Night Run

Up via Snatchfield Farm, then traversing under Hazler Hill to Gaerstones. Ran along the spine of the Bowdler Hills to Battle Stones, then skirted the head of the valley, running over instead of around pt 334m for an extra hundred feet of climbing. From the Old Cardington Lane, we went up the steep side of the Caradoc and then came down the Three Fingers Ridge

6.3mi; 1,351ft; 1:15:49 (moving)

18/04/2012 - Burway Hill

Met up with Pauline, Charlie and Em on club business for a bit, then I decided to go for a jog up Burway Hill. Ran up the Burway from town to the cattle grid and then managed to climb to the top of Burway Hill and on to Devil's Mouth at a steady slow run. I then traversed round into the top of the southern arm of New Pool Hollow (I was really aiming for the western arm which has a nice path in it). Anyway the southern one is well gnarly and I had my oldest pair of fell shoes on so I had to take it easy at the top. Nice run back to the car via Rectory Wood.

3.6mi; 809ft; 0:45:55 (moving)

20/04/2012 - Bluebell Run Reccie

Ran round the Bluebell Run race route with Em, Roger, and Mark B. Nice night for it, but a cold wind on top. Stopped for a comfort break at the bottom of the valley between Yearlet and Ashlet (usually referred to around here as "The Ramp") and then ran steady all the way to the top trying to catch back up to Em. I had a grand time down Townbrook trying to keep up with Mark, who's astonishingly fast.

4.9mi; 1,180'; 0:54:26 (moving)

23/04/2012 - Corndon and Stiperstones

Finished work nice and promptly so I headed over to Shelve (via the excellent shop at the Stiperstones - they now sell a few bits of Torq gels and bars). I ran the Hike route from Shelve over Corndon to Nind, then used the track which skirts east of Black Rhadley to reach the shooting centre driveway and climb on up to the Bridges - Bog road. I crossed straight over here and the mixed weather turned quite nasty as I headed up the Stiperstones. It hailed the whole time I was on top, and in the end I was getting pretty cold so I headed back down on the lane which comes out pretty much where the Hike leaves the road at Tankerville to go to Shelve. I followed the Hike route back to the car, just about getting warm again by the time I got there.

12.5mi; 1,885'; 2:25:28 (moving)

24/04/2012 - Big Climbs for a Tuesday Night

This week the group went for a big climbing night to keep the Newporters happy! We went up Townbrook Valley and then turned left to climb the steep east face of Yearlet. From the top we went straight on down steeply into Ashes Hollow and then used the sheep track traversing along the south side of the valley to reach the Grindle spur. 10 minutes of effort got us up to the top, and we descended by Nills to the footbridge. We climbed the Ashlet fence to the corner and then used another new bit of route, traversing the east face of Ashlet above Hopes Wood to reach the top of the Hundred Steps and return to Stretton through the Rectory Field.

4.8mi; 1,838'; 1:11:02 (moving)

25/04/2012 - Wrekin Streak Marshalling

Not really a run but I did do a fair bit of running around, marking out the juniors race and then marshalling it.

About 3 miles and 700'; not timed

26/04/2012 - SyTri Track - Sqauts Session

Another murderous session from Sam, the master of pain! This time it was a series of efforts and squats. We did a series of 1 min easy, 1 min hard, 1 min easy, then squats! It was a bit grim really, especially when I realised the squats were a pyramid: think we did 8-10-12-15-15-12-10-8. Good fun though, very well coached and a good stretching session after. I had pretty heavy calves for a few days afterwards though, and once again didn't run at the weekend.

01/04/2012 - Tuesday Night from Little Stretton

We've decided to mix it up over summer a little with the first Tuesday night run of each month being from Little Stretton not Church Stretton. This should enable us to get over into Callow Hollow and Minton Batch, places we rarely go on a normal Tuesday because it either means long routes or huge amounts of climbing.

We started off with almost an Ashes skyline, mostly sticking to paths as it was pretty misty up top. The route was up the valley for a couple of miles warm up, then using the Valleys ascent ramp to Barrister's Plain (Cross Dykes). From there it was good paths round Round Hill and along the ridge to Pole Cottage and Pole Bank. The return was via Boiling Well, the col at the top of Townbrook Valley and the summits of Yearlet and Ashlet, then a headlong plunge down to the footbridge in Ashes and back to the cars. I felt ok and had no problems with the calf.

6.9mi; 1,338'; 1:18:07 (moving)

02/04/2012 - Hilly Tempo Road Run

First time out on tarmac since the Regency 10k! Nice little run up to Dinchope and then down to the B road from Wenlock to Bridgnorth. I took a right there and ran down to the Halford turn, and came back through Halford and up the climb to Ireland Cottage. I concentrated on a nice fast turnover and ran a decent time considering the hills.

6.4mi; 606'; 0:51:44 - average pace 8:05/mile

Regency 10K at Leamington - 15/04/2012

The day after Coldeale I headed to Leamington with Zoe for her final tune up before the London Marathon. Chris Penny had suggested racing the week before as a confidence boost and to get into the midset of running through a big crowd (he should know about preparation for marathons having done 2:17 in his prime) and when Zoe and I talked it over we thought it might be a good idea.

We got parked up and headed to the start field with (we thought) plenty of time left, joining the queue for the loos about 30 minutes before the start. With five minute to go we were still in the queue with only eight portaloos for 2,000 runners. We eventually did manage to use the facilities in the nick of time, and only had a minute or so to get on the start. As a result we started about half way back through the field.

The first four miles were on narrow-ish bridleways around a park and golf course, and I found I was stuck in traffic a lot with slower runners, so adopted a burst - easy - burst -easy approach to passing, using the verges and edges of the fields as much as I could. After four kilometers or so things started to thin out a bit just as I got onto the wider road section. I grabbed a cup of water at 4.5 kilometers and had a couple of sips.

From here on it was just a case of trying to maintain a good pace and form for the remainder of the race, which was routed through the picturesque Regency streets of Leamington town centre (actually I wasn't looking much and found that out from the programme). I had a rough spell from 6 to 8 kilometers but kept the pace up and ran through it with a fairly strong finish, concentrating on form and nice short strides at a high cadence.

It seemed to work - I ran a new PB, finishing in 44:25 (old best was Ellesmere in 48:00). This was a slightly easier course, but I negated that by having to run through half the field. Note to self for next time. Zoe also did very nicely, finishing well up the ladies rankings (7th V35 I think) at a race distance which doesn't suit her.

My splits (per mile) were 7:08, 7:26, 7:26, 6:48, 7:17, 6:52 and 1:28 in from there. The first 5k was 22:47 and the second 5k 21:38 (average 6:58/mile or 4:20/km) - I'm really pleased with a big negative split here even recognising that it was helped by the crowding in the first half of the race. My best 5 mile split was roughly 35:49 (average 7:10/mile).

All in all it was a pretty good morning's work, topped off by a lovely post-race cooked breakfast provided at short notice by Zoe's friends Jo and Graham.

Training to 31/03/2012

After the Edale Skyline, I ran with the group on Tuesday night, feeling strangely very strong. I've noticed this has happened once or twice after big recess, but I don't know why. Anyway we did a recce of the Mynd Mac race, adding on a run through the Rectory Wood in each direction. I climbed very strongly and did the final descent down the gully to the bungalow strongly too. 6.7 miles and 1,950' in 1:20.

I felt a bit tired the rest of the week and was very busy with work, so it was Saturday 31st before I ran again. The plan was to go out with Zoe and do 24 miles on the roads around Corvedale and Apedale. I started quite well and we maintained our target pace of middle 8 minute miles for the first seven miles until I started to feel a bit sore in my psoas area again. I kept at it and felt better dropping down into and climbing out of Beambridge. Another mile and a half though and I knew I was struggling. Zoe and I decided to cut the route a little shorter, and to slow down, so we jogged up the bridleway to the head of Hopedale at Wetmore Farm. I managed to jog down the road to Middlehope, and then we walk / jogged to Westhope. We walked the last two and three quarter miles home. 18.8 miles, 1,500' in 3:14.

Training update to 23/02/2012

Right! So the week after the Pilgrims' Challenge was pretty much a write off, I really tried hard to stay off running as I didn't think it'd be a great idea after 2 x 33 mile ultra marathons...

Finally on Saturday 11th I managed to get up for doing something. I needed to get my coaching supervised practise sheets signed off, so I volunteered to help Colin with the Saturday training session for his kids' groups. We did a good warm up (1.5 miles), then the kids did two one mile efforts at 5k pace. I joined in the next element, which was four 100 second hard efforts with 150 second recoveries. I ran about 520m on each effort. We finished off with another mile round the field to warm down. (approx 5 miles in 43 minutes moving time)

On Sunday 12th I ran on the Mynd with Tom, Naomi, James, Noel, Paul and Dave W. We did a variant of Andros' route from a fortnight earlier, popping in and out of Ashes Hollow and Small Batch before crossing Callow Hollow and running up Minton Hill. We turned towards Pole Bank and I left the group at Pole Cottage running down to Medlicott and Bridges and then doing a loop out to Ratlinghope as I was a little early to meet my friends for lunch. Found it hard going today... (11.2 miles and 2,420' in 2hr 20mins).

On the Tuesday night (14th) I ran in Birmingham with Zoe, doing a good steady run of 5 miles with about 200' of climbing in just under 40 minutes. I felt quite tired still but wasn't moving too badly according to the Garmin track.

The following day, I had a real head cold, but managed a run home from work. This is around 4 miles with again about 200' of climbing. I felt pretty bad but pushed on and got my reward when I checked the watch and had made it back in just over 30 minutes, so 4 x 7:34 miles which is a really good pace for me.

On Thursday 16th I had a gentle jog around the Ercall with James and Em by way of recovery from all the fast hard miles on the tarmac. We did a very easy 3.6 miles and 630' of climbing in 42 minutes.

After all the relatively flat runs I needed something hilly at the weekend, and I had to get out early, so I was pleased when Gareth posted on Shropshire Fell Running that he and Nathan were planning a run over the Valleys route (but in reverse) starting on Sunday morning at 7am. I set the alarm and woke at 5:30 to a blanket of snow. I'm glad I decided to get moving and go anyway, the snow was worse in Donnington than anywhere else and when I got over to Stretton we had a great run in lovely snowy conditions that didn't really last into the afternoon. Again I didn't feel tip top, but who could not enjoy being out on such a fantastic morning with bright sunshine and soft trails in the snow. We saw Noel and JT out on their Mistletoe Meander run off in the distance, and evidence of David on his dawn Canter recce, but no one else was out until we'd pretty much finished. 12.5 miles and 3,680' (more probably, that's the Garmin) in a nice steady 3hrs 5mins.

21/2 Grindle and Yearlet Tues night

23/2 SyTri Track sesh

Newport Wednesday - 12/10/2011

Ran with Newport & District's 6.45pm group tonight, mostly on road. John and Lisa chivvied me on and I did a few quicker efforts, mostly chasing John at the front of the group.

7.5 miles and an astounding 320' of ascent in 1hr 12mins.

Had a coupla beers and chip buttes with the guys afterwards. Nice.

Ellesmere 10k - 28/08/2011

Top two thirds of me (473) with new streamlined hair in the charge at the start
Pic from http://www.racephotos.org.uk/

I feel dirty. Today I committed un-natural acts with tarmac. Instead of driving or riding my bike on it, I used it as a surface to run on. OK I used my trail shoes and I tried to run on the grass where I could, but it's still a horrible thing to have to admit. Also, where were the hills? Someone told me there was 91 feet of ascent. I just thought that must have been a misprint, and there should have been 910', but no, they were probably right. I did manage to overtake people on the two short uphill sections though!

I entered almost on the spur of the moment having come really to support friends. I had no idea how quickly to go or anything like that, having only done one 10k before (and that was advertised as a trail 10k and had climbing in it). I guessed I'd be pretty happy with around 8 minute miles (i.e. anything under 50 minutes).

The registration and set-up was very efficient, with loads of marshalls and all the traffic stopped, and timing was electronic, with chips on our shoes - a change from dibbers, although there might have been a queue if there had been 500 runners with dibbers...

I started way too fast, doing the first kilometre in 4:02, and gradually backed down to a more suitable speed.

Nice to find myself in friendly company, a few hundred metres in

By 4km my achilles was hurting and I thought I'd probably just run to the 5km marker and then retire. It eased a little though, and I kept on going. I took splits at 5km and 8km (5 miles near enough).

Running around the Mere - strangely concrete setts were easier to run on than
the loose gravel on the path. It was getting quite hard at this point (7.5km)

The sections round the Mere and along the canal towards the end were quite hard going - I was wearing my old trail shoes and they were slipping on the loose fine surface gravel a lot. I think I was also getting tired.. I tried to keep going with a bit of the old Chi Running technique, mobilising my core muscles, but I was getting cramp in my left glute and had to back off a little (I think that's the hangover of overusing it to compensate for the ankle I injured at Sedbergh).

Coming in to the finish funnel.

I did find the whole thing a bit boring too, all there was to look at was the km markers (crumbs 4 to 5 minutes seems a long time between them) and my watch.

Nonetheless I think it's probably pretty good training, although I might do a 5k rather than a 10k if I was looking for flat speed for fellrunning.

I obviously have new PBs as below:

• 5km : 23:34 [4:43 per km or 7:35 per mile]
• 10km : 48:00 (chip time) [4:48 per km or 7:43 per mile]
• 5 miles : 37:53 [7:33 per mile]

The PB splits are quite interesting - I think that I had a real struggle from 8km to 9.5km into the wind along the canal, but managed to pick it up at the end. I finished 171st of 427, and 23rd of 41 MV40s. A good morning's run really. Perhaps I should have a nice recovery run tomorrow!