Sunday, Monday stuff

Out with the club on Sunday, in very cold conditions.  Plan was to again ride with the fast boys then cut off - our plan being to retire to the caff in Settle as the A-Team headed off to Feizor for long-tailed scampi and amazingly attractive waitresses.  In the event Tim, the strong man of the club, couldn't wait to show us all how feeble we are and sped off, taking two or three guys with him.

Herb and I, partly out of chivalry but more out of an inability to keep up, stayed with Fiona and Bob, as Skipton is starting to get a bit butch in its tendency to drop people.  I mentioned this a few rimes, as we'll have trouble attracting people to ride with us - I've been a new club member at both running and cycling clubs, and one of your worries is always "will I keep up?" - with Skipton CC of late the answer seems to be "you'd better, or you'll spend a lot of time on your own".

Anyway - our happy band made its way (via a "deflation incident" for Herb) along Littondale and up the climb from Halton Gill where we found Iain, who'd stayed with the fast lads until they announced "no cafe stop - haven't got time" - so he turned back and rode with us.

Up to five of us now, we wended our way to Settle where we had beans on toast and much tea.  The ride back through Wigglesworth and Gargrave was cold but those beans (and possibly some slight weight loss) made the ride home infinitely more pleasant than last week.  We stayed together pretty much all the way back to Embsay, as Fiona lives in the village too.

53m in the Bank of Fred (entries have closed but we don't know if we're in yet...).

Then yesterday I used my new psychological insight that running after work is much easier if you do it from work instead of when you get home - just 5m to carleton, but it's getting easier and I'm getting a tiny bit quicker.

I intended to get out after work tonight (track was a bit hopeless considering the snow), but I had several parcels arrive (including my new avalanche airbag - useful as it's going to hoss down in Chamonix this weekend) so needed to go home to play.

I'll try and get another lunchtime one in tomorrow then it's a few days off running, back on beer and hopefully knee deep in powder snow.  Chamonix awaits...

And I finally seem to have lost some weight - about 5lbs has gone - 23lbs to go...

Saturday dog walk...

We were out for a posh meal last night (Box Tree, Ilkley - not really us) so as the diary was more spread out than usual I nipped out for 4 at lunch - slightly quicker than of late where 8:30 miles seem to have become my pace of choice - through the park and out towards Carleton in daylight.  Pace crept under 8 min miling, so whilst not even brisk it's faster than normal.

Today I'd arranged to go for a long(ish) slow(very) one with The Herb.  Silsden again, but we took Izzy with us this time, as she's got a lot better off the lead.  She disgraced herself immediately after we set off by zooming around, but pretty quickly got into a rhythm of trotting and sniffing.

We were (I think) slightly slower than last week to the 3.5m point where we turned round, but there was a definite headwind today.  However we hit 4m in about 34 minutes and headed back.  It all felt a lot easier, and apart from expending a fair bit of energy shouting at the dog (road crossings mainly) it was a classic easy run - chatting with a mate, enjoying the movement and feeling pretty good.

Back at the car with just over 8 miles done at a tad over 8:30 pace.  Away skiing next weekend so I'll go back in a couple of weeks and try to do a 10 miler - which'll be good to get done less than a month after starting.

Weird lunchtime run

I'm working a mile and a half from home this week, so my lunchtime run consisted of running home, half a mile past home, turning round and running back past home to work.  All very steady, but another four miles and hopefully another couple of hundred calories burned.

Good news last night (apart from the increasing likelihood of snow in the Chamonix valley) is that one of Lily's friends has expressed an interest in going to the track for some training - so Lils has agreed to give it another go.

This is Good Stuff - it means I'll get to go down there and run a bit faster than i have of late.  Looking back at my blog from the Days When I Was Fit I was running steady runs at 7:30 pace.  Not busting a gut these days by any means, but I'm running a minute a mile slower than that, so it'll be good to do some faster stuff once a week.

Easier? Or just less unpleasant?

Didn't manage a run yesterday - went to get more aware of speed in harrogate then had some work to do at home before heading off to Bratfud for a naughty curry (no starters, mind) and a raucous evening at the football.  Everyone else was moderately tanked up, and blathered on excitement after the mighty Bantams put three past Aston Villa to go into the second leg with a two goal cushion (sounded like I knew what I was talking about there, eh?).  I was on coke, and the assumption at the Bradford City ground is the only people who drink coke are children and ladies, so I only got little glasses of it as well.  Surprised they didn't get me a bag of crisps and sit me outside.

So today I was determined to get out and do something.  I've decided that it's psychologically much easier to go out before going home - either at lunchtime or after work.  Even though work is a solid mile and a quarter from home - there's something difficult about getting in and then going out again.  So tonight I got changed at The Bailey, strapped on my headtorch and headed off towards Carleton again.

Headtorch makes it much easier on the road to Carleton, and (whisper it quietly) whilst i wouldn't say I was was enjoying myself, it definitely felt less onerous to be out running.  So I kept going for a bit - turned at 3 miles and so did my longest midweek run for...oooh...ages.

Don't think I've lost any weight - still look hugely fat, but if it feels easier I must be getting a tiny bit fitter.

I'm also getting rather excited - promise of some snow in the Chamonix valley, which is where I'll be off to next week.  That'll be five days of no running, but I've got a day out with a guide where there may well be uphill ski action, so something to burn the inevitable beer off.  Can't wait!

Woo hoo!

I am feeling triumphant.  Today I have passed a significant milestone in my running career.  I have, in the past six days run a total of twenty and one half miles.

Now that doesn't sound like much (well I suppose it would if I did it in one day.  Or two and a half hours) but for me to go out tonight, after work, at twenty past six, is.  Much.  Could be a false dawn (Lord knows we've had enough of those) but the easy option would be to go home and slonk - and 5 flat miles was in the diary, so 5 flay miles I did.

I was feeling yesterday's accidental 50 miler in my legs so it wasn't speedy by any means, indeed it got positively pedestrian by the time I was running in the pitch black on the road to Carleton (having cunningly left my headtorch in the car), but I felt if not good, just about ok.

I am pleased.  So I rewarded myself with oven chips for tea.  Which I weighed....

I might grab a short run tomorrow as I'm working from home in the afternoon before going out for curry and football at night.  Go Bratfud.  And go me.

Still going!

After my slippy sloppy fally-over run on the canal on Friday I decided that I quite like flat running - just not flat running in mud.  So I roped The Herb (reluctantly) into a Saturday morning "long" run.  Unwilling to do battle with the bogs of Broughton Rd stretch we drove down to my old stamping ground in Silsden and set off towards Bingley.  Very steady, very chatty and very not muddy.  Lovely.

We'd agreed to turn round at 30 minutes (well I did say "long" not a naked, un-inverted-comma-ed long), and I must say I'd thought we'd do well to get the Riddlesden swing bridge, but in the end we got a fair bit further and turned just about bang on 3.5 miles.

The run back was a wee bit slower, but we were pretty happy with 7 miles at a gloriously pootly pace of 8:40.  Still - that makes over 15 miles in my first 4 days (and I'm always hungry because I'm eating better too - this'd better be worth it, Fred...).

Then today, wanting to take advantage of a rare dry day (and a series of dry nights - I've given up beer as well) we went out with the Skipton club in our new long-sleeved tops.  After our exertions we''d decided that we'd go with the B group, so when we got down to Dave F's and found only five other blokes, all looking lean and speedy (apart from Bob, obviously) we realised we were now, reluctantly, "out with the A team".  Oh bugger.

"Still," we thought, "we can always cut it short.".  Unfortunately the chosen route didn't really give a lot of cutting short options, so in the end we stuck it out.  Gargrave, West Marton, Barlick, up onto Pendle then back via Downham (cup of tea, no cake - of which more later), Bolton-by-Bowland and Hellifield.

It was after Hellifield that two things happened; I realised I was utterly shagged out, and Iain V-T started getting punctures.  I can't imagine the two were connected, but I suspect my condition was caused by a lack of cake (and being very, very unfit) and Iain's by crap tyres.

Anyway - when he had his third I'm afraid a desperate need for food and Herb needing to get home meant we carried on.  The climb through Stirton was hideous - bottom gear, cramping up, so slow I was lucky to remain upright.

However we did it - just over 50 miles in the "Bank of Fred", to be withdrawn some time in May on Hardknott...

Onward and upwards, as they say...

Lunchtime!

First lunchtime run since I started here last May.  Wanted something flat so through the park, along the canal, flat on my arse.

Twice.  I hate mud.

Keighley road next time, I think. Still, 4.6m in 37:44.  Blistering.