A Day on the Fells

A great deal has happened since my last post. I have been working, trying to get as much running in as I can (not a lot!!) and have some sort of home life – hence not being able to keep my blog as up-to-date as I would like. However, I do intend to remedy that and post regular updates from now on.

Alison and I have just come back from a break in Wenslydale. We have stayed at this particular cottage a few times before but keep going back as it has good access to the whole of the Dales. We managed to get in quite a bit of walking and chilling time. While we were there, I even managed a Fell Race! Bingley Harriers (www.bingleyharriers.co.uk) organise three races over a long weekend in Kettlewell and I would thoroughly recommend it. I was only able to get to one race but having spoken to the runners who were there for the whole weekend, I will definitely try to get back next year for all three races. I did the final race of the weekend which was a 3km race to the top of the hill behind the campsite and back again. I am not known as a good climber but I can hold my own on descents so I was interested to see how I would do. I set off at a good tempo pace but could not keep with the ‘racing snakes’, so I just tried to keep the pace at 85% MHR, ie - not too hard. When I reached the top, three people had overtaken me including the first lady (who I knew was a seasoned fell runner), but I was intending to try to target them for the down hill run. They had about a 100m lead on me as I started my descent so I just went for it, hoping for the best and that my feet would keep up! It took a further 400m to catch and pass them all, then it was just head down and push as hard as I could to the finish. Thankfully no one caught me and I came in in a time 16:39 which put me in 9th place out of 32 runners – a result I was very happy with especially as I have not been managing to put the miles in I would like to have been doing.

Its back to work tomorrow and Alison and I are looking forward already to the week we have booked off in September.

Colm and I have now entered the OMM and await confirmation in August as to whether we have a place in A Class. Fingers crossed!

A lot to tell you AGAIN

As Julie Andrews said “let’s start at the beginning”.

On the 13 March was Wuthering Hike, a 32 mile run around the Yorkshire Moors. I have done this a couple of times before and like the route and challenge. I wanted to try to finish in five hours and was fairly confident that I could give it a good bash. I had loaded up with beetroot juice again and hoped that this would give me the endurance I felt it had on the Coastal Marathon. I set of at a steady pace and making sure I did not get sucked into racing with the ‘go fasters’ (unlike last year). I kept to my plan throughout the race and only felt like I was fading with five miles to go – so perhaps the beetroot did work. My finish time was just outside my goal at 05:06:23, but seeing as this was my first race since the Coastal Marathon in September, I wasn’t too unhappy. I was 8th Vet 45 and 41st overall.

Over Easter I set myself a mini-epic challenge and decided to run the Oxfordshire Green Belt Way (http://www.greenbeltway.org.uk/) on Saturday with a full pack weighing about 15 lbs. This is a 50 m mile circular route around Oxford. Alison was working on an essay over the weekend, so it was going to be a completely unsupported run with me having to take the bus from Witney to the start at Swinley Toll Bridge (and back again at the end of the run). Unlike this weekend, the weather wasn’t great from the off (cold and windy) and for most of the run I was moving through ankle deep mud or waterlogged fields. Although I managed to get to 40 miles before the heavens opened, the temperature plummeted even further then and I got cold quite quickly. It didn’t help that by this time I was tired and moving fairly slowly. Luckily when I got back to Swinley Toll Bridge I didn’t have to wait too long for a bus home to a very welcome hot bath and a big mug of chocolate. Next time I am going to aim to cut at least an hour of my 10.5 hour time - dropping to a bum bag might help!
Pilates is still going well. I am up to intermediate classes now (much harder) and I am still really enjoying it.

A lot to tell you

It been almost a month since my last posting, Due to other commitments I will not be able to run the Fellsman and the Lakeland 100. Therefore I will be finding some local races in the South to help prepare for the OMM in October, which I am planning to do come hell or high water having been asked by my mate Colm to form a partnership for an assault on A Class!!

On the training front, my training is going well and I have managed to have some good runs in the wet, the snow, and finally in the mud, so my resistance training is on overload. I am looking forward to the lighter nights to pick up my speed work, as my base fitness is good and I am ready to start the next stage of my preparation for Wuthering Hike.