Better late than never

After my Christmas of multiple events and bike rides it was K's turn to get out today, which means shopping and Harrogate.  Maisie and Lily spent the day on their DS's, I mooched about the house checking work emails and generally wasting the day.

After K got home it was dark , and we'd just started Scrabble so I decided to ditch running for today, but then I logged onto the Runner's World Marathon Forum and one of my online chums was extolling the virtues of getting out when the weather's foul so I felt shamed in to it.

Got my kit on, and set off towards Halton East.  In direct contrast to yesterday this absolutely was going to be a 5 mile pootle, so with the easterly wind blowing in my face, off I pootled.  Entirely uneventful run - 5 miles at 8:13 pace, Halton East, round the loop twice and home, notable only for the pretty low average HR (124, which I reckon is less than 60% of max) and the slight stiffness in my right calf.  Ice on it tonight then nurse it round Auld Lang Syne tomorrow, which is back to the "traditional" fell runner's route because of the conditions.

Another long one in the bag

K was out running first thing, and when she came home after 35 minutes complaining about the arctic weather I was half hoping she'd cash in her shopping passout and disappear off to Harrogate to allow me an excuse not to go out.

In the end she decided that she really needs a full day at it so at 12 o'clock I was donning hat, gloves, jacket and buff to head out.  I'd no idea what I was going to do, other than the fact it wasn't going to be another 5 mile Halton East pootle, so I told K I'd turn round after either 45 mins or an hour.

Things had warmed up by Bolton Abbey, so I decided it was going to be the hour before I turned round.  As I ran through Beamsley and over towards Nesfield I was conducting an inner debate on where I should turn back.  The "plan" said an hour or 8 miles, but then I thought I've got Auld Lang Syne this weekend, then Garstang 10k the following weekend, so my next long run will be mid-Jan, and that's meant to be 18 miles - and after that it's Brass Monkey and then I'm onto 20 milers - gulp!  It was also by now a decent day for weather, I had a day off and would be running in daylight - so it had to be done...

So as I reached Nesfield I decided I'd go to 9 miles and turn.  I did actually contemplate going further, but the thing about these out and back runs is that you can easily do an extra mile going out when you're relatively fresh and then regret it at the end.  As it was, I felt ok at Ilkley golf club and turned with the watch showing 1:08:39.  I had one of my new Torq gels (not bad at all) and set off to chase the guy I'd seen going the other way a few minutes before.

I felt pretty good all the way back to Bolton Abbey, and was repeating my old long-run mantra that the last 2 miles is easy so really you've only got 2 hard miles to go once you're there.  The climb up to Halton East wasn't too bad, and I even felt frisky enough to throw in a couple of faster miles at the end to end up with a slightly negative split at 2:17:07 - an average pace of 7:37.

I was definitely working harder than the "easy effort" LSR suggests, and I'm not sure what to make of this approach.  Is it my route (that's pretty hilly, especially on the way home where you climb 330' in 2 miles), or am I just pushing too hard?  Come April I'm going to need to run 26 miles at a faster average pace than I did today, and whilst my average HR % was down at 67% it did hit 155ish at times near the end which is more like 80% of max.  I'm also flabbergasted at these people that run 20 milers and do the last hour at marathon pace - that's sub-7m pace for me (I'm still not sure whether the target's 3:15 or sub-3 - but that's for another entry!) and there's no way I could contemplate that just now.  I wonder if I need a flatter route for my long runs?  Toying with the idea of driving over to Ilkley on some of my Friday afternoons off and running down towards Pool and Arthington - busy, boring but flat!

Brrr and Bugger

First time the weather's impacted a planned activity today, and mightily pissed off about it too.

Got up early, collected The Herb and set off to Otley to meet the HLBS (or The Harrowgays as The Herb has named them).  Duly met up and set off in glorious sunshine but freezing tempratures, with the intention of taking back roads via Wetherby over to York and back via Tadcaster.

We spun along to Pool, with our hands losing all feeling despite in my case two pairs of gloves, then turned left towards Leathley.  Angry and Wood decided that the right turn indicated by my Garmin wasn't a metalled road, so we carried on up the big hill on the Otley 10 (and bugger me it IS big! I ran up that!) and eventually found a lane turning right with some of the correct places named on a sign.

This very quickly became slippy, and Wood took a tumble.  Things got worse the further we went, until we came to a bend with sheet ice right across the road.

This is Angry looking gingerly at the icefield.  Just after this we met a bloke out walking/skating his dogs, who told us it was even worse down in Huby, so we continued past Almscliff, spending more time sat on the crossbar with our feet down than we did pedalling.

Eventually we made the main road in Huby, with Wood having reacquainted himself with the tarmac, and had a brief recce of the road to Weeton.  This being equally icy we debated doing something on main roads, but in the end a return to Otley was the decision.  A very fast (and extraordinarily cold) 6 miles later we were back at the car, having travelled a magnificent 15 miles.  The Herb manfully decided to cycle back to Embsay, but the rest of us retired to Dunnies for a full English and a moan about the council gritters.

Toyed with the idea of a few miles running, but decided that I could gain more brownie points by doing the shopping, and also spend some more time on the logistics of my post-marathon pressie to myself, a trip to ride the Duva International Sportive in Mallorca.  Flights now sorted, hotel booked and bikes arranged - 4 days of top class cycling in (hopefully) spring-like weather for under £300.

A dribble round the Ribble

Not sure how the duathlon yesterday would affect me, I lined up with Henry and a few other Ilkley Harriers at the start of the Ribble Valley 10k in Clitheroe.  I'd been for a warm up in my Nike race shoes but they feel so un-padded and lightweight that a slightly niggle calf persuaded me to change into normal trainers.

Henry, Mark Iley and I ran the first mile or so together, then Henry started to pull away slightly, so I went with him, deciding to wait and see how I felt.  I've finished a few seconds ahead of him a few times this year, but he's been doing track sessions with Ilkley at Carnegie and posting some scarily quick reps on his blog.  Several times he seemed to be pulling away, then I'm not sure whether he slowed a bit or I speeded up, but we ended up together again.

Just after the 2m point the route goes sharp left and I glanced back to see Mark had dropped back by maybe 50m or so - just me and Henry now then...

At the 5k point the watch showed 18:45, so not quick enough for the sub-37 I've got on my shopping list, but a possible PB on what I still maintain isn't the quickest course (although it invariably produces some fast times).

We ran together until at about 8km I thought I'd maybe gained a decisive lead, but soon enough I could see Henry's red t-shirt to my right, and at 9km he started to pull away again.  This was one of those points in a race where you can think "oh bugger it" and let the other guy go, but I decided it's only 2 1/2 laps of the track and less than 4 mins to go so I'd stick with it.

The route goes down to cross the river with maybe 400m to go, and unlike me normally I pressed on as we went downhill instead of allowing inner-cyclist to make me take a rest!  I kept the effort up on the other side and then just held on for grim death to the finish.  I actually passed a young lad in the colours of Lancaster & Morecambe just before the line, so finished 124th in a new PB of 37:14.  Henry was just 5 seconds behind with 37:19, which will, I think, get him in the official UK M50 rankings for 2009!

That's it for fast 10ks now - I'll do Garstang in January just because I always do, and because it means I can have lunch with Rick, my brother, to continue plotting our Mallorca Sportive trip in April.  After that it's long runs and half marathons right until April 11th...

A boxing day duathlon

Having pretty much jacked in multi-sport events, one of the 3 or 4 that I'll probably continue to do is the Kildwick Duathlon.  Run by our near neighbours Keighley and Craven AC this is a low key, fun event that always runs on Boxing Day, but also at other times in the year.

Having eaten quite a lot but drunk very little yesterday I was on reasonable form when I woke up, so by 10.30 me and my bike were down at Kildwick waiting for someone else to show up.  I went for my normal "where does the run go" recce to the canal bridge to find it absolute sheet ice, and spent a very wobbly few minutes trying to get over it.

In the end the course was changed, with the bike leg being 5.5m instead of the usual 10m, and the run taking a slightly longer route to cross the canal before running up the fell to go round Farnhill Pinnacle.

I was (in my opinion) drawn rather higher than my ability deserves about 5 from the back (they go off in reverse order of expected finish time) and thoroughly expected to be passed somewhere on the ride by a speedy person.  As it was I passed a couple myself and held off my pursuers.  My transition was a bit ropey, but I set off on the run with a few people to chase.  My mate Steve was just doing the run section, so he gave me someone to follow who knew the way, and I caught a few folk on the run as well, and was just passed by the eventual winner half a mile before the finish.

Back tot he pub for a welcome pint of Landlord and a chinwag with a few folk, and when the results were passed round I was surprised to see I'd come 3rd - so a podium finish (albeit in a very small field) and a nice sharpener for the Ribble Valley 10k tomorrow.

No idea what to expect tomorrow - I'm definitely half a stone over fighting weight, and haven't done a huge amount of running recently, certainly no speed work.  We shall see...

More snowy action!

Decided to come home and put the Tesco order away, so whatever the state of the Seedhill track I wasn't going.  After a comedically early appraisal meeting, then a 3 hour Exco meeting it was gone 1pm when I was free to go out to run.  Thankfully, gloriously and beautifully that coincided with a fantastic spell of weather between the grey snowy bit this morning and the dark freezing bit later, so I set off for a quick 5 miles on the canal.  Gorgeous.  The snow was smooth and slightly soft, a bit like a recently bashed red-run, and the canal looked lovely.

I had to use Rubitrack on my iPhone again as I rushed out Garminless this morning, but apart from a slightly wonky track at the start where it appears I ran through Magnet Kitchens it was fine.  5m (Rubitrack reckoned 5.15 so 250yds out) in 35mins, so 7min mile pace, which was 1m of warmup/down and 4m at c6:30 pace which felt very comfy.

Probably a couple of days off now til Kildwick on Boxing Day and Ribble Valley on 27th.

Chilly at lunch...

After a day of inactivity yesterday the comeback of the Newmanator was scheduled for today.  Having broken a finger playing hockey he was passed fit to run the Abbey Dash (which was to be his first 10k) a month ago, and decided to warm up by playing a friendly hockey game the day before - and promptly broke the middle finger on the other hand quite badly.

So a month off for the little marketing lad, and me and Hinsley up for action, saw us debating hats/gloves/tights and eventually plumping for all three as the snow started again.  A longer version of our flat 5 miler on the canal, achieved by running down towards Bingley to start, gave us 6.7m total.  A few quicker bits left Newman panting a bit, but we eventually finished with an average pace of 8min miles, which given the conditions underfoot is fine.

Rang the track this afternoon, but as it's snowbound and on the wrong (well, the right side, but wrong if you're driving) side of the Pennines it looks unlikely we'll bother - so in all probability we'll do some kind of intervals session on the canal.  Wore my Innov-8 shoes today which were spot on, and certainly less slidy than the road shoes my chums were wearing.