Training Log Archive: ColmM

Saunders Mountain Marathon Day 2
Nicer weather, we'd chosen to avoid the high fells in case it was bleak up there with the weather, generally meant we were running a bit better.
Slightly lighter pack probably helped.
Enjoyable.

More to come.

We were on the edge of having enough food due to the tough conditions of the weekend. We had even treated ourselves to a swiss roll, but I was still hungry going to bed.

We got up late with no alarm, as was to be expected from this team. Some food, quick wash & pack.
Missed our start by 1-2mins, straight through the chasing start and away. Climbed relatively hard up to 1, but were still almost caught by 2.

We took the low route to 3, another monster leg. Wide on the road. We were with the same team as yesterday. They moved ahead and climbed well, we could use them a little, but not too much.
Realised we had an extra control I'd forgotten to mark on route to 4. Got it done, and James got the pepsi + caffeine pill in to 5, the explosion was real. Suddenly we smelt blood & the hunt was on, as I tried to keep with James.

We climbed pretty well back towards the final fells. We smashed it past the other pair on the descent, and we split coming into the control to give James a head start to the next one. Stupid. He didn't know where he was going. We lost 1 minute looking for each other.

Still solid into the finish and my oh my the joy.
Felt much shorter, and the finish was much more satisfying.

Strong performance.

Saunders Day 1
Rough weather, long day, fairly brutal out there.

We started off messy. We weren't at the start with much to spare, set off marking on the move, but we were all over the shop doing it, so just stopped 100m up the fell to do it.
I marked the start wrong, and we wandered into no man's land in the marsh, off line to 1. We cracked it, and corrected on a left-hand line, got it, but we dropped min. 5mins between the start and error on this leg.

We'd picked our route to 2, and we were going to go wide right. Climb maybe a bit extra but run along the tops of the fells and get good running. We were feeling fresh and pushed the pace quite a bit. Despite water breaks at the stream before the control, we got there with a fastest split - just over 1hr for the monster leg.

We stayed high on 3, which was fine, but we messed it up coming in, and lost another 5mins. I had chosen right to 4, up high street. Brutal. The weather was turning and we were on a much higher and more climb route than others, this leg took a lot out of us and was a bad decision.

We linked up with another pair at 4, and ploughed through with them for a while. James was starting to struggle but I was feeling pretty good still so I did the extra in and outs and controls to keep pace with the boys.

We kicked hard to 7 I think it was to drop them, we were succesful, but climbing out of 8 we were maybe 25-30k in and it was the last brutal climb, but it was so steep, and we were struggling. We got passed here, only to split on different routes all of a sudden.

I knew our route was better and easier, I dragged Haynes through the next few controls, I was moving alright but still tiring a lot.

I didn't eat lots out on the course, and after a brutal day, where we had to tough out a section of grim weather on top of high street and battle on for another 15 - 20k, the finish had the depressing feeling of not being finished.

We got the tent up both napped before food, until the rain started, ideal...

w/ James around Penrith

Bailed on tibradden race after not feeling the best

Sprintervals in Parc Ticknock with jonnyq.
Poor from me. Jonny running well.

Pine forest & tibradden, over to fairy castle.
Basically a recce of the tibradden hill race this Wednesday.
Moving alright but not feeling the best on the way back so quite chilled