Wednesday 31 December 2008

Great way to end the year...



Finally, I've managed to put a few decent runs together. It's been great, and today was the cherry on the icing on the cake - a lovely temperture invresion on my local hill Moel Famau.

This follows a Christmas period where I;ve managed to get out quite a bit. I've done a 4500' reps session at Moel Famau, a windy and wild run around Helvellyn et al (bagging another 4500'), 6 railways at Tattenhall (there's 2000 more feet) and today's lovely run which had 2200'. Add a couple of shortish road runs into the mix and it finally feels like I'm in training.

I'm not yet seeing the results, but i know they'll come soon. There's always a period where you start something like this when you put in the effort and the results don't show - a sort of early training lag. All you feel is tired. I'm there now, but the BGR taught me that once you get past that, you can train more and more and feel less tired - once you get into the grove that is.

That groove is the first aim for 2009 - here's to that!

Happy new year

Mark

Monday 22 December 2008

w/c 15 December - So much to do, so little time

Christmas is offically a pain in the arse. I don't wish it could be Christmas everyday because if it were, I'd never get any training in and would a fat bastard, not to mention a skint one.

Shopping, finishing my job (2 weeks off until the new job - yesssss!), stuff at home, seeing friends.....do these people not realise i've got an obsession to feed?

I managed some training last week, but not training every day as was planned. I did circuits on monday and learned that squat thrusts are just killers. Tuesday saw mw do some 1km reps at the club, which was cagey as my chest was still a bit not quite right. Then a combination of christmas parties and shopping got in the way until i did 4 of the Tattenhall Closed XC loops on Saturday (7:30, 7:00, 7:07, 6:55 - very muddy, ran well tho) and the 4.06 mile Tattenhall Christmas Handicap on Sunday (25:18, over a minute slower than last year). So i did get out, but nothing of consequencem, other than a reminder that i was not as fit as I was last year.

Still, the chest is improved and i do feel like i'm back.

Let's hope so. Starting with making the most of the 2 weeks i now have off work...

Sunday 14 December 2008

14 December 2008 - right, that's IT

Went for a little run this morning. The run itself was not remarkable - a 90 min saunter up and down MF - about 8 miles and 2500' ascent and descent. But what was lovely was that the hunger is back. I ran slow and was careful after this chest infection but the run has many of the non-running ingredients that i;ve missed - getting up early, coping with not great weather, plodding up at a metronomic pace, sipping coffee from a flask afterwards, the rhythm, the cold, the satisfaction of finishing.....

I feel like I can start training properly. I;ve had a setback, it was nothing major and now I'm back.

So this week's paltry 4000' ascent is just nothing to worry about. I'm now going to train every day.....

Saturday 13 December 2008

w/c 8 December - Frankly, crap

I'm not sure I've been in such appalling form ever since I started running. Life, the universe and everything are conspiring to make any attempt to train consistently and well virtually impossible. Visiting in-laws, a chest infection, changing jobs, coaching meetings and bloody christmas have made this week a non starter.

Chief culprit has been the chest infection. I woke on Monday to feel dreadful. I went to the Doc who provided antibiotics. He said i could run but not to expect much in the way of performance. He wasn't wrong!

I rested until Thursday and felt a little better. I then ran with Trevor's group (the slower group) at Tattenhall and felt ok, but a short run with Dave on Friday afternoon up Moel Famau showed me up. I was very weak. Dave just bounced ahead of me. I was pathetic. I managed to run up MF and asked Dave if we could abandon the longer run we'd planned and we took a steady run down. Just 1400' ascent and it felt like hell.

JUst feel like i'm unfit, unwell and just too busy and preoccupied for all this. Need a change in fortune.

In order to run tomorrow in the hills i[m going to have to get up at 6:00 and avoid family stuff. Surely it doesn't have to be this hard...Let's hope it saves my week.....

Sunday 7 December 2008

w/c 1 December - Toughing it out, already!

It's been a funny week and despite feeling like things aren't going so well, I hit my week one PBR training target of climbing 5000'. Not a huge amount but really good considering....

...considering that my chest feels raw, i feel a bit poorly and my legs are rediscovering the joys of fellrunning.

I've trained six days this week for the first time in ages, which is satisfying but i don't feel as fulfilled as i might because i seem to be very off colour.

This morning I ran the Cardington Cracker, but so very nearly didn't. The closer I got to the village, the worse i felt. My chest was raw and tight and i had a horrible sense of forboding that racing was a bad idea. Race today and i could be out for weeks....

But it was a stunning morning, a clear sky, perishingly cold and as clear as clear can be. I decided to run, not race, and see how i fared. After all, this is what it's all about isn't it? Getting out on the hills on days like this? It's a curse of fellrunning the the competitive side of things can make you forget that what it was like up there is more of a measure of your day that how fast the scenery moved past you. You can live a hundred years without really living a second if you're not careful - so all thoughts of canning it were gone and I lined up on the start.

I went out easy and picked people off. I let my usual sparring partners race off into the distance and enjoyed being at the back. I didn't wear a watch, I didn't have a target. I just ran easy. It was fantastic. Took it all in - the view south off Caer Caradoc was amazing, with patches of fog forming a patchwork along with the fields around Church and Little Stretton far below us. I felt better as the race went on and ended up crusing home in about 1:40 or so and I couldn't have been happier!

My chest was ok, got no worse, but boy did i cough up some interesting coloured phlegm! Let's hope that i don;t get any worse...

This week:

Monday - 7M, brisk on a very hilly route up to Llay from Rossett. 7.17 min/mile average, about 400' ascent on that route. Really really cold.

Tuesday - 6 * 850m - a series of hard efforts around a good fast and flat loop in Rossett. About 5M all told, really cold also.

Weds - Circuit training - bloody hell it was hard. First time i;ve done that for years! My girly arms and shoulders sore after that. Great fun though - and such joy to see the lovely Claire again!

Thurs - 11.5M, brisk hilly circuit around Brown Knoll, Tattenhall, Burwardsley. Great!

Friday - Not sure how far - but 2 * 1150' climbing with Dave Sykes on the fabled Moel y Gamelin reps. These have got Simon and Dave into great shape in the past and it was good to see where this secret little gem actually was. I was tired and didn't run that well. BUT, it was toughed out and i did it, even in a cold, sleety wind. Dave was far stronger but this was about mental training. I was tired and obviously this chest infection was brewing without my realising it at the time. Glad to have done it, and the reps each took about 23 mins. So, there's a baseline...



Sat - Rest, well Christmas shopping,,,

Sun - Cardington Cracker - 8M, 2700'.

Total - 5600', about 42 miles-ish

Tunes in head - Radiohead, Jigsaw Falling into Place