Training Log Archive: AliMas

The initial plan had been that Tim and I would meet in Weymouth and we'd go for a nice long one along the coast there, but on Friday we realised that the trains were all messed up and it would take us a very long time to get there, so we settled for the South Downs Way instead. We found that the train station Amberley was right on the SDW and mid-way ish between the two of us, so we thought running from there to the coast would probably be do-able. I then measured the route to Eastbourne and it turned out to be rather long way. I think this is where something in our brains is fundamentally flawed and naive because despite it being considerably longer than we'd ever run before and considerably longer than we'd planned to do at Weymouth, we saw this as a perfectly reasonable challenge that had to be done.

Anyway, we met at Amberley in high spirits, looking forward to the day ahead and the first couple of hours completely breezed by. It was especially nice to chat to Jack and Kenny which seemed like somewhat of a surreal experience, Kenny saying "it's a long way to Eastbourne" was nicely ingrained in my brain for a lot of the run though. We had our first bigger stop and drink refill at the mighty fine Devil's Dyke, which had a load of para-gliders popping about, lovely. My food resources perhaps weren't ideal for the day (crackers, kendal mint cake, and chocolate/chocolate bars) so I was thankful for some water to help me consume the very chivey crackers. The next little bit was all good but after a while my hips and knees were getting a tad sore, nothing bad really but some doubts were creeping into my mind whether I wanted to go the full way, especially when looking ahead you could see a line of never ending bumps. It took a little while for me to spit it out but at around the 40km mark I said to Tim that I was feeling a little below par, to which he replied that he was having very similar feels..

Once we hit the marathon we started venting about the fact that we were only about half-way and questioned why on earth we were planning on doing an 80ish k training run. This was all quite funny really and think it helped get morale and feels back on track a bit, though we did decide that we'd have another big drink stop at the next tap and then re-access the situation at the 60k mark. The next section wasn't all that bad from what I remember and it was nice to have gotten over a bad batch and feel slightly better aches and pains wise. There was another slight drop in mood as it started to get dark and gloomy, but we went through the 60km mark without discussing bailing and for some reason I hadn't really thought about it anyway, despite us crossing over a train station. Whacking the head-torches on was a good change and we plodded on into Alfriston, hitting 70km. We discussed are options here, though I think we both knew we'd probably carry on, and in turned out that was our only option anyway.

So on-wards we went with legs still achy but pleased that we were most likely going to do the whole thing. Last hour or so wasn't so bad at all and we shuffled down the hill into Eastbourne with a healthy 35mins to grab some dirty scran before getting our trains back home. We'd had our hearts set on some fish and chips but it turned out there weren't any close to the station so we had to settle for some kebab. The kebab man managed to faff so much that we didn't even have time for sauce or salad on the kebab and we ended up running for the train, which we made with a minute to spare. Very happy to have made the train but I must have been close to simultaneously choking to death and having a heart attack on the vast amount of kebab meat that was consumed on that train.

Excellent day on the whole and pleased we were able to get through the bad patches and make it to the the end, also impressed that our chat didn't dry up at all considering it's a little limited at the best of times, cheers Tim.

Little morning plod up Short Box Hill with Dad.

Surrey XC Champs at Lloyd Park
Continuing the theme of all my recent xc races, started fairly steady, worked though a bit, settled in, lost a few places. Not especially noteworthy, but happy enough with it. Course was quite fun and fast, though I did have some unpleasant chest pain, and of course the whole xc racing was unpleasant too.

Easy Coach Road.

Easy High Ashurst loop, nippy out but nice and fresh. Feeling a little better today.

Army event at Ash Ranges
Feeling terrible and orienteering terribly, some of it was kind of fun though I suppose, maybe.

Regular Box, pleased to get a run out the way.

Dorking session of 6x (2 sides hard, 1 side easy) on the square at Denbies.
Oh boy, did not feel so good, legs ran out of juice mid-way through first rep. Still, good to see people.

Did some shuttles on the flat after, think there was 8 of them, I did not enjoy them. Then ran home.