Now where was I?

Seems a long time since I blogged, and just as long a time since I did anything active.  A couple of days in Newcastle (including a night on the beer with Thackray) felt a loooong time, but was in fact just Wednesday and Thursday.  But today is another day (Friday to be precise) and Friday is run home day.

I've not felt less like running home for ages - not sure if it's the vestiges of the hangover from Wednesday or just general lethargy, but I was not the most enthusiastic little bunny as I set off in my new Nike ridiculous compression socks. 

It's been a bit rainy and muddy towpaths aren't my thing so it was off the canal at Ridds and then up-tiddlyup-up at Silsden.  The big hill over to Kildwick is, I can report, only half a mile, but it feels long and quite gnarly.

My calves were a bit niggly all the way tonight, specially lefty, but it feels like tightness rather than tweakiness, and as I'll have an enforced fairly easy week this week, that might be the best prep for GNR next Sunday.  The 13.2m back to Herb's took 1:43, which is pretty much in line with the time I was taking last summer.

I've not really been thinking about GNR but when my pack arrived this week to tell me I've got a decent start position just behind the elites (and presumably the Slebs as well) I started to think about what might be realistic.

I've done very little speed work (well, "very little" as in "none"), but whilst I've not done a lot of miles I've run home a couple of times and done a few decent bike rides.  I'm a bit porky (but not as porky as I was three weeks ago), so I reckon I'll be satisfied with sub-90 and pleased as punch with sub-85.

There - I've said it...

Off to Winchester for a family wedding this weekend, so apart from a possible leg-stretcher on Sunday after we get back it'll be an unhealthy, lazy weekend of sitting about on trains and drinking beer.

Tired legs go to work and back

 Not a bad commute - pic from above Draughton tonight on the way home, Embsay Crag and Crookrise visible

Well, blogfans - I did it.  Woke up at 6:30 expecting to hear torrential rain battering the Velux window on our landing (I'd considerately moved into the spare room to allow K her beauty sleep as she's not working Tuesdays) but instead there was silence - no wind, no rain and therefore no reason not to get on my bike.

I'd assembled my biking stuff with an air of wintry resignation - proper waterproof jacket, roubaix arm warmers, long-fingered gloves and a cap to wear under my helmet.  But when I went out to get my bike it was not only pretty still, it was positively balmy!  So it was short sleeve order for the ride in (with a proper waterproof in my pocket in case things got nasty).

My legs weren't happy - HR was down, breathing felt easy but my legs just ached.  The climb up through Draughton was hard, and even the short undulations over to Cringles felt tough.  I was worried how Holden Lane was going to be.

In the end it was hard, long and felt like I was hardly moving - but in fact I was faster than last time I rode up it on my own - 7mins bottom to top.  Ironic that I'd always reckon to be able to run a mile in 7 minutes without too much effort - this hill is only 0.6m long and feels desperate!

A blast down to the valley, with another scare on a wet right hander in East Morton saw me at work in the fastest time yet over this route - 58mins door to door.

The ride home began with me being thankful I'd brought my jacket as it was proper raining.  This stoped as I got onto the top of the moor, but there was plenty of surface water to soak my arse.  No big-ring heroics tonight - easy gears all the way and a very scary descent of Holden Lane, with me convinced (but not worried) that this would be a very slow ride home.

In the end the sun came out and I was quicker than any of the rides home in this recent batch getting home in just over the hour.

My only question is - how the hell did I ever do this 10 minutes quicker?  I almost broke 50 minutes last summer - how???

Long bike, short run, all good

Manchester 100m bike ride yesterday with a brace of Harrowgays (Gym-Bunny and Angry), Gym-Bunny's mate Leigh, the Herb and Rick.  Stupidly early start from Embsay fuelled only by 2 crumpets and a peanut butter sarnie, then a HUGE queue to get into the parking in the park.  By the cunning ruse of missing the junction we parked on a road the other side of the park, saved ourselves a quid and got to the start without queueing.

Leigh and the Gym-Bunny were trying to out-Herb the Herb by steaming along at about 23mph on the flat, and both Angry and I expressed our concerns about what that would do to us later.  This received the expected lack of any serious consideration and the pressure stayed on...

The boys, flying at the start...

We hit 20 miles in a gnat's over an hour, and at about 30 miles the pressure started to show as Rick fell off the back for a while and took ages to catch up.  I stayed back with him (glad of the rest - no fraternal chivalry here!) but then we caught The Herb and we lost him again.  We assumed that he was having a bad day so set about catching the rest of the team, which we did as they were having a quick wee in Delamere Forest.

We kept going to the lunch stop at 56 miles, which we reached in just under 3 hours from the start.  A quick butty and a coffee and we were off again, and I was glad the stop was that crucial 6m beyond half way, so we were now into "counting down" territory.  At about 65m Angry hit his usual wall and dropped off with Gym-Bunny staying back with him, whereas me and The Herb managed to stay with Leigh, who was proving to be the strong man of the group.

Gym-Bunny eventually came back up, according to him he'd got sick of Tim whinging!  Shortly before this we'd come across Rick, who'd obviously been not having that bad a day and had only lost 10 minutes or so, had a short stop for lunch and got out again in front of us!  Leigh by this time had got sick of waiting for us and had buggered off into the distance - so now there were 4.

Once the mileage got into the 80's the wind that had been an irritant all day got stronger and ahead of us, and remarkably I found myself taking the lead quite a lot as Herb and Peter were feeling the pace.  We went past the last feed (well, "feed" is stretching it as you have to pay for anything you have) stop at 77m without pausing and here Rick dropped back again - so now there were 3.

The last couple of times I've done this ride the last 20 have been purgatory, but whilst I wouldn't say I felt fresh, I did feel ok this time.  The nasty little hill at Styal was conquered in the big ring (so big ring all the way for 100m!) and then it was the usual nonsense from Gym-Bunny and Herb as the lads with big thighs started to push the pace in the last couple of miles.  Fortunately there's quite a few sets of traffic lights to slow them down, so eventually we all finished together with 5:25 on the clock for an average speed of 18.6mph, which is very pleasing given my lack of mileage.

My legs were fine when I got up this morning, but there was no way I was getting up early enough to cycle in (although The Herb did, the loon).  However I decided I'd better get out so I set off at lunchtime for a 4 miler with a 3 mile effort.  It was clear as I set off on my effort that whilst my calves were fine my legs generally weren't, so it quickly became a mile effort which passed in 6:42, so respectable pace - however my legs weren't keen to keep going at that rate so I slowed to about 7:30 pace and ran to the 2.5m turn at Riddlesden.

From here I did another mile effort in 6:38 then ran back to work - 7:35 average pace, HR behaved, no calf pain but decidedly tired legs!

The plan is to bike in tomorrow despite the crap forecast - so hopefully I'll be back tomorrow to report that I stuck to my guns and did it!

Just a short one

I'm pretty sure that in last year's marathon campaign I didn't do enough slower running, so on the back of yesterday's longish run I decided to take advantage of a quiet day and do a slow recovery.  130bpm HR seems to be a pretty easy effort for me, so I set that as my target and ran to Halton East and back.

The HR did pop over the 130 a few times, but the average was 125 and that meant a fairly pedestrian, though very comfortable, pace of 8:15.

Unconvinced by my Nike Lunarglide shoes - I wore compression socks to be careful, but I still got a tiny tweak of so high up in my left calf - which hadn't been there at all yesterday, so I think they're now officially disco shoes.

Saw Neil Maloney whilst out - running along grinning cheerfully - wearing a woolly hat!!

Why, Neil, why????

A better week

After the joy of my fell run on Monday it was back to work and a couple of days with no running, then Thursday was the appointed bike-to-work day.  I was with Herb this week, and determined not to be quite so battered as I was last time.

The ride up through Draughton and past the stables felt easier with familiarity and we actually managed to chat most of the way up there, then a steady ride over to Silsden and the main event.  Robin Hood Hill, or Holden Lane or whatever it's called is still a challenge, but I reckon I was up it a minute and a half quicker than last time, and only 5 yards behind The Herb which is far better.

We were actually a tiny bit slower than last week, but I think chatting as you ride makes a fair difference.  The ride home was good, and I was back to my "big ring ride home" form which suggests my legs are getting stronger even if my belly isn't getting much smaller (though 4lbs off in a couple of weeks is ok).

Then yesterday (Friday) was the day I'd decided to see if my calves have really improved by running home from work.  This was a bit "shit or bust" as I'd lent Herb my car to go for his physio appointment so I wasn't really sure if I could bale out if I needed to.  I popped a twenty quid note in my bum bag in case of emergency taxi requrements...

I put my compression socks on as a back up, although left them rolled down, and set off to the canal.  Past Ridds I cut down onto the lane as I've decided I really don't like that stretch of towpath, but in Silsden I went back onto the canal, as hills seem to put a bit more strain on my calves.

 A pretty stretch of the canal near Kildwick

My socks were back up by this point as I could feel a slight tightness in my achilles, but no pain anywhere.  The miles were ticking past at a steady 7:50 which felt very comfortable indeed, even though it was hot, and I actually quite enjoyed the 2 1/2 miles along to Kildwick on the canal - so much so that I stayed on the canal all the way into Skipton, then cut up through Skipton Woods.  This was delightful - cool, quiet and peaceful, and it gave a really nice end to the run, depositing me as it did on the Embsay road just where it goes under the by-pass.

Half a mile of pavement and I was back at The Herbs to pick up my car - 14 miles in 1:51, so slightly slower than last year but possibly a bit longer, and a bit of nettle bashing at the top of the woods.

Park Life

Woke up to a sunny day and without the slight feeling of sluggishness and nausea I felt yesterday (beer and curry with the lads - not too messy but more than I usually drink these days), so decided a change was in order.

K nipped out for a quick couple of miles early doors, then I put my fell shoes on and set off Halton East-wards for some summer off-road action.  I've said before that whilst I claim to do "a bit" of fell running, that's usually just the Auld Lang Syne on New Years Eve, and that only so I can go and get squiffy with some old mates in Haworth.

However, my excursion up the lane from Halton East to Halton Heights had got me thinking that maybe I'd indulge in some mud 'n' grass fun, so I decided that today was the day.

The great thing about running off road is that you can basically forget about pace - this is "time on your feet" running, where you might just as easily have an 11 minute mile as a 6 minute one (unless you're Holmesy, of course).

The lane up from Halton East was, as usually happens when you've run something before, easier than last time, then at the top I turned right and popped out by the cattle grid on the Barden road.  Straight across it, then onto the main track across to Rylstone Cross.

The moor looked just fantastic today - the heather is purple, and with the late summer sun on it every fold of the landscape was visible - and of course I had no camera with me...

The pull up to the top of the moor felt really hard, and much more uphill than I remembered it, but as I normally walk this path rather than run it, and I'm usually distracted by having to encourage small girls to keep going maybe that's not surprising.

At the top I turned left to follow what's on the map as a bridleway - but I can't imagine a horse has been along it for decades.  There's the occasional bike track, but generally this path's hardly used.  That's a shame, as it's a brilliant run - gently downhill for just over a mile, as long as you watch where you're going you can fly down here.  The view changes every ten yards as more and more of Embsay and the Aire valley is revealed, until you cut right and up onto Embsay Crag for the spectacular vista stretching across to Pendle and Sharp Haw.

Said "how do" to a few walkers on the top of the Crag, then buggered up the descent line and ended up floundering around in head high bracken, whilst trying to look like that was where I'd meant to go all along.  Nob.

Anyway - once I'd regained the path it was a fast grassy blast down to the Eastby road and then half a mile on the road to home.  8.5 miles, an hour and a quarter and a feeling of enormous well-being (as that bloke said in the Blur song).

A windy blast

We've had a curry and a few beers in the diary for several weeks, so we decided to earn out beer with a few bike miles yesterday afternoon.  I'd originally thought it was just going to be me and The Herb, but in the end there was five of us, with Steve, Bob and Ian Ryder joining us.

Ian is a mountain biker and was on my winter bike - which as he's a good 2" taller than me looked like a TT bike with the saddle racked up.

We set off over Halton Heights with a blustery wind behind us, that brought in a sharp shower as we headed down towards Bolton Abbey and Langbar.  Ian was struggling a bit with my bike - the rear mech seems to be gummed up and the gearing is a lot higher than he's used to, but we managed to keep together with a few pauses.

Langbar was, for me, not as tough as usual, but Ian had a hard time up it, and was looking decidedly cheesed off with life!

We headed down into Ilkley on wet roads, and I had a very near miss coming down the last part of the hill when I went too fast into a corner, braked and locked both wheels.  I could see the rather deep and uneven gutter approaching but somehow managed to remain upright.

We then rode up over Addingham Moorside, with Ian again finding it tough, so we made an executive decision to go back via Bradley instead of the long climb up to Lothersdale, which given the wind direction would have been a toughie.

As we hit the top of the last hill before dropping into Skipton the sun made a welcome reappearance and we dried off nicely before the end.

Just 26 miles at a very moderate average speed, but my legs felt better on the hills than they have for some time, so things seem to be moving in the right direction.  I've even started to get some weight off at last, with 4lbs somehow disappearing in the last 10 days or so.