Training Log Archive: Frostbite

Butcher Hill, Newlay, Kirkstall. Set out at a steady pace, aiming for something like 66 minutes. I was on target at Kirkstall Bridge but on the climb through Kirkstall I got caught up with Kirkstall Harriers out for a Halloween jog - maybe 30 of them, some in fancy dress. I didn't consciously speed up but I didn't really want to be running in amongst them so I maybe pushed harder than I would have otherwise. They slowed down or stopped at every obstacle (road crossing, tunnel, bend, blade of grass) which allowed me to get to the front just as we reached Beckett Park, at which point my HR was 170. Oops. Eased off a bit up the last bit of the hill and cruised home.

Stable. I was a bit worried about how my heart would react afterwards but everything seems to be fine.

Stepping stones. Stable. Encouraging.

Shorts and T-shirt and I was still a bit on the warm side. Bonkers.

Midland Champs, Longshaw, Light Green course. Just took it very steady. The HR was still quite high, but stable. Competing against Evie, beat her by 9 minutes, which was nice. The only leg where I pushed the pace at all was the last one, a long drag uphill, and that was the only leg where Evie beat me.

Very easy, but looking at the proper courses they weren't much harder.

2nd on Light Green, 6 minutes down on Dave Murgatroyd, but from the splits it looks suspiciously like he started early. 1 second elapsed time to number 3 is good going. I think he still beat me, but by maybe 2 minutes instead of 6.

C • Easy 1

Adel Crag. Quite easy, trying to keep the HR down but it was higher than it should have been.

Easy round Rothwell on the way home from work, just a few sites to check.

Very slow and easy round stepping stones. nice evening.

Planning expedition to Rothwell Country Park. I just ran my courses one after the other - White, Green, Orange, Yellow. Some rethinking and diverting done on the way round which added to the distance. The green course was mostly quite good.

It's an old colliery tip with plenty of rough open and bits of nice woodland and bits of horrible woodland. I'm trying to keep my courses out of the horrible woodland. The rough open is very rough in places.

C • Rothwell 1

More walking, just to get out the house in the sunshine. Went places I would normally run but tried a few different paths and generally paid more attention to the surroundings. Completely dead on my feet towards the end.

Beckett Park - Queenswood - Cow Field - Vesper Road - Hawksworth Woods - Butcher Hill - West Park - Oxley - Hollies and finally dragged myself up the donkey steps. 6.5 miles, 2 hours.

Went for a walk - lovely day on the Wolds. From the car park on Callis Wold, Deepdale, avoided the descent into Bishop Wilton with a bit of trespassing, Givendale, Millington, Sylvan Dale, Nettle Dale, Frendal Dale, then a bit more trespassing to get out the top of Greenwick Dale. I was hoping to follow the track on the map but it came out to the south of the (still active) chalk pit, so then I had to walk the long way round it and do an extra half mile on the road. Should have exited Greenwick Dale to the north and gone along that side of the quarry.

Just strolling really, 12 miles in 4 hours, but I was feeling very tired by the end, and both calves locked up afterwards, then in the evening I had cramp in calves and feet. Definitely things wrong with me other than a defective heart.

http://gb.mapometer.com/walking/route_3954957.html

Modified stepping stones - because it has been raining a lot and the stepping stones themselves will be underwater. It is more or less the same distance.

There is something odd about this run. Heart rate is clearly too high and I was struggling to run as quickly as I was, but I did not feel like I was having palpitations. There was clearly some sort of rhythm problem, but by definition palpitations are when you can feel your heart beating oddly, which I couldn't, so I can't call it palpitations.

I felt pretty much the same yesterday - no palpitations, just stuck at low speed. A week ago I was 4.5 minutes quicker for this run with the same HR. Extrapolating from there I could have been about 9 minutes quicker yesterday, and I would also probably have made fewer mistakes so I can probably claim I should have been 11 minutes quicker yesterday - so I think I got a decent result, at least with a bit of wishful thinking. Only 3 minutes down on Chas.

Anyway I think it is time to stop for a bit. Next run sometime in November.

Formby, Short Brown. Not feeling great before I started, sore belly and just not very into it. Started slowly and kept going slowly, always struggling to keep moving, and still made heaps of mistakes.

#2, turned at the wrong path junction, 1 minute
#4, distracted by the unmapped path at the road crossing, ran right past the control and headed to the one on the next knoll, 1 minute
#9, went straight to the right place, looked in the first depression and decided I was wrong, headed on to the next hill then turned back and looked in the second depression. Doh. 2 minutes
#12, complete misinterpretation of the map - I thought the big depression before the control was a hill. I tried to go from one hill to the next hill and couldn't work out why I was in the wrong place. Soon relocated, but it cost me another minute.

Clean enough apart from those, but generally very hesitant and unsure in the circle. I was just finding the map very hard to interpret. I looked at the map from 4 years ago and it is all much clearer - paler colours and finer lines and much more readable. There is still a problem with overall land shapes though, areas of dunes marked as lots of individual hills and holes with no idea how they relate to each other.

Planning wasn't great either - on several legs the direct line was across out of bounds, which was bare sand and not clearly defined. Clearly from the footprints many runners were skirting the edge of the sand and it is not clear if this is in bounds or not.

15 minutes down on Charlie, who didn't have a great run either.

C • Land shapes 1

Very sedate Butcher Hill, Newlay, Kirkstall. Heart rate was a bit erratic for the firs 4 minutes (including the 156 peak) but I felt fine and carried on. It settled ok.