Training Log: rcro

Another early one by virtue of the clocks going back. Despite being a Sunday and an hour “earlier” than yesterday - felt like more traffic. Passed by 37 cars and that’s with a KM that was away from any roads!

Tired so nothing spectacular and opted to keep it short and close to home. Went for the cycle path to give a change from the usual loop and ran it steadily to take the KOM by 4s. Not that it’s deserving of it - a decent effort by me *should* be about 40s faster, but I’m not chasing KOMs at the moment and am not going to commit to a serious effort until I know what pace I can start at and carry through to the top. The consistent runs I’ve done so far have still left me feeling like I’ve worked by the end and pace really isn’t anything spectacular for the first 500m.

Slow to top of the Ridgeway to work it out of me and back by a mostly downhill route, steady pace and easier along Risca Road than usual. Has been quite a hard week and weekend, although short, hasn’t been easy - may not put in a huge amount of effort through the rest of lockdown.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4240145560

And back to being housebound. Not raining at 9 am but the watch said it wasn’t going to be nicer later so got out earlier for the 7k loop in the wind (which is quite strong today).

Pace good, but felt I had to work a bit to make progress against the wind. Heart rate monitor looked to be behaving for once today so the readings could well be plausible. End time 30:16 is reasonably good on this route.

Roads very quite early on - 3 cars in the first mile, but Western Avenue and Risca Rd were quite busy so end count was 49, about half of which were vans. Suspect quite a lot of the cars were non essential travel but seems like there is some compliance at the moment.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4235660532

Planned to stop work promptly (no meetings 3-4 today!) so that I could get one last trip away from home in - do some bits of the coast path around Nash I’d not done yet. Started a little bit late as the Gary-lights at Pont Ebbw give so little time for non-SDR traffic as it seems they assumed most of the traffic is bypassing the M4...

Mostly damp fields with double gated bridges at each end, so lots of stops. Quite slippery, even before allowing for there being no tread on these shoes - so pace not overly quick heading north. Then onto the road and into the wind and seems I held about 4 min/ks for a long time without really trying. So the shoes still work on road. Long stop for cattle before I turned off the main road to head to the “coast”.

Got to the wetlands centre as it was being locked up and was advised to go right round the edge, but ignored and snuck into the car park a bit further round to do the bit of coast path through there. Last fields weren’t as wet and slippery as the early ones, and a lot of the bramble bridges could be avoided as the ground around wasn’t submerged - but there was one I had to go through that was more hedge than path. Some nice calves the other side though.

Back to the car just in time to cool off and drive home before the 6pm curfew kicked in. The 5 weeks of local lockdown hasn’t been all bad, but I’ll likely do less whilst confined to running from home. Day 221 done!

https://www.strava.com/activities/4233503272

Back to Parc Seymour. Wasn’t going to drive but the sun was still out when I stopped work and there’s plenty of time to come for running from home.

Lanes to the south with a few streets here and there. Tried and failed to identify which house is Rhys’s. Found the wind quite strong so made it feel like hard work for the 5k heading west. The climb also felt like a lot - probably tired from yesterday.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4229380512

Hope the weather is good tomorrow too, and that I can get away from work promptly at 4 if I need to be back home by 6!

Met up with Matt at Parc Seymour in the daylight for an enjoyable run in the delightful sunshine - definitely *no* rain here...

Mostly a road run as my battered trainers have now crossed over the 900 mile mark - but they still coped with the offroad bits maybe better than I did - but it was quite wet and slippery!

The road we wanted to go up was shut so had to divert around by the pub for a longer route. Still stuck with doing Mynydd Allttir Fach - and very close to taking Rhys's new KOM. Cautious down - but it was a bit rocky and brambly.

Flagging a bit towards the top - quite a lot of climb, down was nice though. We split up near the bottom with Matt doing a bit more off road and me ticking off the roads, ending up with quite a lot of distance for midweek. Reasonably dark by the time I got back to the car.

It's a lot easier running with someone to talk to! Probably wouldn't have done even half the distance on my own today.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4225204214

Somewhere different whilst I still can, and it's the car's birthday so a good excuse to drive.

To Rogerstone supermarket to go down a few more lanes that I've not done before, some quite forgotten, and reasonably hilly.

Gave another a runner a surprise by overtaking them - they had headphones on so were unaware. Also mis-remembered where the footpath I wanted came off from the river (turns out it was before I came on) so inadvertently popped into Caerphilly for a couple of minutes. Got some off-roading in and a bit of slippery slope (up) once on the intended path.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4220697898

Was nice to get an apology for being IDed when shopping - it happens so often to be quite annoying now. Apparently I'm looking good.