Bloody snow!!!!

Having bimbled around wide-eyed and awestruck by the beauty of the snow, I'm now thoroughly pissed off with it - Garstang 10k, which I've done every January for about 7 years, has been postponed to 31 Jan.  That puts it on one of my long run weekends so won't be able to do it.

Bumholes.

More snowy silliness

Big (for here) dump of snow again and no sign of any form of road clearing from NYCC, so mindful of rear wheel drive and hills I decided to stay at home.  Maisie and Lily's school was closed too, so they were at home as well.  I managed to get some work done but decided to get some air this afternoon, so I got togged up in what now feels like normal running gear of tights, lifa top, jacket, gloves, buff and hat and set off towards Halton East.

The road was ungritted, unploughed and had only had a couple of tractors along it, but finding somewhere with enough grip to run on was a bit tricky at times.

I'm sure this sort of thing is doing me some good (beats working anyway) but like Henry I'm feeling the need to do some faster sessions now.  The weather forecast isn't great, though, with no sign of a thaw this side of the weekend.  I guess we may manage a track session next week, but I'd hope to get some sort of tempo or efforts session done this week if possible.  Not sure if Garstang 10k will be on Sunday or not - it's certainly warmer over there but "warmer" is of course a relative term!

Whatever - I still enjoyed the run today in a slightly silly way, and took my camera along to grab a few snaps of Embsay Crag looking pretty as it usually does.  My HR was bonkers - but from the readout it's had some kind of funny spike on the way home, with it bimbling along at about 135bpm on the way up to Halton East and then shot up to 175+bpm coming back.

Back to work, back to the canal...

First day back after the Christmas break saw more ferociously low temperatures overnight, but after a lengthy defrost (thank goodness for heated windscreens!) I slithered off our road and onto something with grit on, collected The Herb and drove off to reacquaint myself with the world of banking.

Very quiet day in the diary today, so after a morning of catching up with emails Rich (with his poorly leg) and I set off out into the cold to run.  After my big week I wanted a very steady session today, as did Rich who by contrast had done very little over the break.

In the end we did our standard 5 miler towards Riddlesden and back, chatting all the way at an average pace of 8min miles, with the last 2 at about 7:45.  The canal bank was snow covered but not slippy apart from a couple of patches, but my Salomon trail shoes gave me plenty of confidence.

Musing on yesterday's run I spent a bit of time today "advertising" my Friday afternoon long runs - doing them with company's so much easier.  I also had some time debating the merits or otherwise of racing, particularly a 20m race, during marathon build up.  I'd always assumed it was a good thing to do, but some of my RW chums, many of whom have run sub-3, feel that you wouldn't recover from a full-on 20m race and be able to continue training properly.  I'm still doing the Trimpell 20 (which I now find is a week earlier on 14/3) but may treat it as a progressive long run and only run the second half hard.  But I bet I don't...

Virgin (snow) on the ridiculous...

A Paul O inspired long run from Ilkley this morning, which started with a snow covered car and a temperature gauge showing -4º.  Met half a dozen Harriers, including three marathon hopefuls, and set off up the Nesfield road.

Over on my arse once, but generally not too bad underfoot if you stayed on the snow, we were soon at Bolton Abbey and heading off down towards the Cav Pav.  Felt odd to be getting here towards the beginning of a run rather than towards the end, but once we went off road in the woods it became softer and just fantastic, making the first tracks in the snow, the trees weighed down with the fresh stuff and the river running quietly by.  Gorgeous.

By this time we were down to four, the others having turned back at the Cavendish memorial, and we bimbled along all the way to Barden, with the fields nice and soft underfoot.  The pace was slowish, but I'm determined to do my long runs at the right effort level (ie <80% HR), and this was perfect.

At Barden we turned for home with the watch reading 8.6m, and stuck to the left bank of the river all the way back to Bolton Abbey.  The priory was looking stunning as usual, and a number of photo stops seemed in order!

We ran home along the Dalesway, which is a bit up and down with various gates and stiles (a classic Harriers' run in other words!), and by Addingham my legs were letting me know they'd had a 50m week.  I felt ok though, which I'm sure is a result of the pace/effort being reasonable.  Paul and I chatted about the theory of long slow runs, and whilst I like the idea of putting in a few MP miles towards the end I'm still convinced that long and slow is the way to go.  I'm going to try and get some 12-15 milers in later with maybe the middle 10m at MP, but most of my long ones are going to be easy on the effort and long on the mileage.

In the end we just hit 18 miles in 2:36, so a sedate 8:40 average pace, but a good week in the bag and one of those runs you're really glad you bothered to get out of bed for!

A cracking little trip

K decided that there was a high enough tarmac to snow ratio for her to drive the kids to their nag bouncing lesson at Draughton, so I was able to get out early afternoon for a run.  It had been really cold, but the easterly wind had stopped blowing and conditions were really quite pleasant.  I decided I was going to run for an hour, so headed off through Halton East and down to Bolton Abbey.

I need to start getting a bit more effort and variety onto my running, as with no track sessions for a week or two I'm in danger of getting into the habit of running about 7:40 pace every time, just different distances.  With this in mind once I turned round at 4 miles outside the village hall in Bolton Abbey I put in some effort on the hills.  My usual timing points for the climb back up to Halton East are the big tree at the bottom to the gateway at the top, and I was pleased to see I was well under 12 minutes for the 1 1/2 miles and 300' of climb.

In the end I was just over the hour (1:00:25) for 8 miles, so an average of 7:32 pace, but with some good efforts included.  Also pleased my HR stayed fairly low:

The orange sections are where my HR was over 80%, which were fairly short, and most of the run is in the 70-80% range, with a fair bit below 70% - the average is 133bpm, which is well below the 140bpm I target for slowish runs.

All in all a good session.  Hopefully out with Paul O and a few other Harriers for a long one tomorrow, from Ilkley up to Barden and back.  Their 7:30 pace might be a bit quick for me, but at least it's flat.

We'll see...

2009 - a year in review...

Thought I'd pop down a few thoughts and numbers on the year just gone, which began with me at something around 15 1/2 stone and hideously unfit, with a resolution to do an Olympic tri.

I started with the target of swimming twice a week, running three times a week and cycling twice a week, with at least one bike commute a week.  It started well, and I kept up the swimming until about April, when the boredom of grinding up and down first thing in the morning finally got too much.  By this time I'd lost the best part of two stone and was running reasonably well, and did my first race for a long while, the Bradford 10k when I was surprised to break 40mins.

Things were going well on the cycling front too, and in March I finally started to get a little quicker than my cycling mates from Harrogate, and eventually got a Gold standard in the White Rose Challenge, which was a stark contrast to the year before when I had a horrendous time over the same route.

Did two Olympic Tris, Ripon and Bassenthwaite, and was pleased to get well inside my target of 2:30 for Bassenthwaite - and had a good race at Ilkley to get in the top 20 with 63:30.  Probably won't be doing any more big triathlons as it all seems a bit of a faff, but will probably enter Ilkley again.

So - the statistics:

1159 miles run (22 a week) at 7:32 average pace (compared to 305 in 2008)
3021 miles cycled (58 a week) at 15.3mph (compared to 613 in 2008)
Weight bottomed out at about 13st, but I've put on the best part of 10lbs over the last few weeks - need to put in some effort to get that off before April
9 PBs - 3x5k (best 17:54), 3x10k (best 37:14), 2x10m (best 62:27), 1xHM (82:03).

Ambitions for the year -

3:15 at Blackpool, with a BHAG of sub-3, which should be achievable
A 36:xx 10k
A sub-80 HM
Gold in the Etape du Dales (v tough)
Do some more fell races - maybe some Lakes ones

Right now the focus is marathon training.  I've got a reasonable base, with a run of 18m this week and a couple of 16milers under my belt.  Need to get that long one to 20m before the end of the month then keep my motivation and get 5 decent long runs in before Trimpell in mid-March.  I've got several Friday afternoons booked off to do long runs, which means I should be able to get a few bike rides in as well, given that I'm off to Mallorca with my brother Rick 2 weeks after Blackpool.

I'm a fell runner, me!

My annual jaunt off-road yesterday, and the first time I've run off road since I've been taking this running thing a bit more seriously.  The Auld Lang Syne race at Haworth, which since 2003 has been disparagingly referred to as a "road runner's course", is a brilliant event, organised by Dave and Eileen Woodhead or The Woodentops.  Due to the conditions underfoot, this year it was run over the old course which is very definitely not a road runner's course!

I set off respectfully near the back, but realised fairly early on this was a mistake as the pace was a little slow, and unlike a road race there's limited opportunities for overtaking.  I'd decided that my ambition was to finish ahead of a proper fell runner, and soon spotted Sally Malir from Ilkley, who's won the ladies 3 Peaks race in her time.  "She'll do", I thought, and followed her up to the turn left where the course goes across the hillside (Photo below by David Brett).

On this flatter section you can run more easily, and I managed to pass a few folk, including Sally, and picked off some more as the route turns right and climbs again.  When we started to head back across the moor to the Stoop the snow became thicker and the going became very hard, especially for a slightly stout gentleman such as myself, and I had a very hard time breaking through the soft snow, losing several places.

After what felt like miles I saw the line of runners filing to the stoop and back, where I saw several Ilkley runners going the other way, including Paul O and Richard Reeve.  Once we'd rounded the stoop the route heads downwards, with fast running interspersed with leg eating bogs - a guy I was running alongside had a couple of spectacular falls, one right in front of me where I narrowly avoided standing on his head!

Once we reached the road I could see a couple of Ilkley vests up ahead, including Richard R, so made it my mission to catch them - which I did shortly before the finish.  102nd out of 380-odd in 51:57 - and I beat Sally!

Few beers with some old friends in the Sun afterwards, including Holmesy (beaten into 2nd by world triathlon champ Alistair Brownlee), Colin and Fergy.  Great day, and (for a fell race) very enjoyable!

Happy new year - new year's post to follow with lots of dull statistics...