Training Log Archive: Frostbite

6 x Dunny Hill. With Evie. When we get to the steepest bit Evie just glides up it while I grind to a halt. It's not fair because she only weighs 40-odd kilos and I weigh considerably more. She dropped me on the 4th and didn't even pretend to wait for me on the 5th where I really suffered. She only did 5 and I rallied a little for the last one.
2:02, 2:09, 2:09, 2:07, 2:17, 2:12.

3 mins jog down between reps and a bit of warm up and warm down.

Each rep is 320m and 35m climb

easy Oxley, with a few burst down Otley Road to get the legs moving a bit.

Beamsley Beacon, Round Hill, Foldshaw Ridge, Badgers Gate, Beamsley Beacon again. Moving ok. Fell over quite heavily. Now I have a sore and bloody elbow, but I survived pretty well considering how hard I hit the floor. Late in the day with the sun sinking.

Back to normal, more or less. A bit tired but the bloated feeling has gone and legs feel fine. I weigh half a stone less than I did 2 days ago. Stupid body.

Howell Wood and West Haigh Wood. Lovely late afternoon sunshine. Pretty dark towards the end. Felt a bit better than yesterday.

Headingley Hill, Kirkstall Hill and the Normans.

Very very terrible. Everything wrong. Legs sore, breathing laboured, but worst of all feeling incredibly fat. Like I had a sack of potatoes strapped to my front squeezing my torso.

Slow at the start, slow in the middle, slow at the end. It's not like I wasn't trying - this was as fast as I could go.

Walking in the Rhinogs. Bontddu, Diffwys, Y Lethr, Rhinog Fach, Rhinog Fawr, Roman Steps, Cwm Bychan, Llanbedr. It was supposed to dry out from 10am but it didn't, so the whole 8 hours was in wet wet rain, and everything everywhere was very wet. Not too bad as far as Y Llethr, from there on it is very rough, and every step was slippy so I slipped a lot. I've not been up Rhinog Fawr before. I was knackered, I could barely stand up, it is a ridiculously steep climb and then a dodgy descent. Visibility was never more than a couple of hundred metres and I had a bit of trouble finding the right way down via Llyn Du. Eventually I found my way to the Roman Steps and they weren't much better. The Romans should have made them less slippy. After Cwm Bychan I had been planning to find my way to Llanbedr by way of footpaths, but tarmac seemed like the much better option. It was so nice not slipping every step I took. Sod the Romans, McAdam new what he was doing. I also needed to step on it to catch the bus back to Barmouth.

18 mile, 7.75 hours, 1500m of climb. Rough.

Ouch. Clwydian Hills fell race. My first fell race in 9 years (not counting Malham) and I struggled big time. The writing was on the wall on the first climb which wasn't particularly steep (not like the Chevin anyway) and I was reduced to walking somewhere near the back of the field. I perked up a bit when I realised I could still make up a few places going down, particularly where it was steep or rough (preferably both) but every uphill was a long drawn out groan. There was a fence about half way round that the RO had told us not to climb. Everybody in my group stayed on the uphill side of it rather than going through a gate part way up. The uphill side turned into a bit of a spiky gorse-fest, so all but 2 of the group proceeded to climb the fence anyway for easier running. I was one of the two that didn't and now I have pincushion knees. It didn't really save them much time as they all queued for a stile to get back on my side and I ended up pretty much where I had been, but I guess their way was less painful. The last 2 climbs are the hardest, then there is a steady 2 miles or so down to the finish. I should have had a gel on the way up because as soon as I started going down I went all wobbly. I had to stop to take a gel going down which is not very efficient and I lost a couple of places, but felt much better for it.

1:55 is a bit disappointing. I thought I might do 1:50. The winner did about 80. However I wasn't feeling great and I have a number of plausible excuses.

1. Flu jab.
2. A touch of doms from this week's speed session.
3. I was up at 5:30 to drop Tasha and Evie off at Liverpool Airport at 7:30. By the time the rave started I was ready for bed.
4. Tasha had the bright idea of having Chinese takeaway last night to make life easier. We both had indigestion and slept really badly.

Anyway, really enjoyed it. It was windy but the sun was out and it's a pretty good course. I'm keen to do more.

C • Rave?! 3

Easy. Feeling much better. Pleasant autumn morning ahead of the coming storm.

A bit off the pace today. I don't think a flu jab helps.

C • A flu jab? 3

More better

Including more of a proper warm up round Clarendon, which might have helped.

Headingley Hill, Kirkstall Hill and the Normans. Felt ok to start but the pace wasn't very quick and I couldn't go any quicker. By the time I reached the Normans I was struggling a bit and very slow home from there. I wasn't particularly wanting to go fast, but 5 minutes slower than last winter felt much too hard.

off day, off colour, off form, or just off

The sky is weird.

C • wierd sky 3

Coaching course assessment day, Hesley Wood. Mostly easy running around doing various exercises planned by the other aspiring coaches. And putting out/collecting my controls. And stressing while standing up and talking at the same time. It went OK I think.

3x West Chevin, down and up like last week. A bit less slippy, a bit quicker.

Seven Arches. Started off feeling quite easy but still reasonably quick. Started to struggle a bit coming back into Meanwood, straining up the steps.

Huffing and puffing and wheezing - I thought I had dodged the cold but I was suffering here. Or maybe I am just slow.

Home again

Potternewton, Gledhow Park and Chapel Allerton with Evie. Nice steady pace.

From Surprise View, down to West Chevin Road and back up again 3 times. 180m climb each time, I wasn't as slow as I thought I would be. Heavy going in places. Minced down the hill the first time. Got a bit braver as it went on.

Suffering a bit from a cold now, stuffed up head but breathing not too bad.

Seven Arches, almost dark by the time I finished

No steps this week.

Warm up
12 minutes of long loop (250m ish) fast, short loop (130m ish) slow
Strength exercises - plank, legs waving, squats etc
10 minutes of long loop (200m ish) fast, short loop (130m ish) slow
Warm down and stretching

We were outside the Student Union this week, which means lots more student traffic. Some of the fast runs were a bit difficult, and we were doing our exercises with an audience.

C • Strength and condioning 3

Spen Lane, Adel, Weetwood. Trying a bit but steady,

British Middle Distance champs, Wendover Woods.

On a positive note, I felt I was running pretty well here. Physically this was as good as I have run this year, particularly getting up the hills. On a negative note, a careless mistake at the end of the course lost me a couple of minutes.

#21 - I was intending to continue up the path until I was just about above the control, but I was tempted by the nice bit of forest before I got there. I thought I had climbed enough but I hadn't, but spotted the control on the yew tree and thought I was ok. I managed to run through the "distinct" green area without seeing the control, ran across the slope to another control then ran back again. None of this slope made much sense to me in terms of the mapped vegetation, but I should have been aware of that being likely and stuck to the path as planned.

Also lost half a minute at #13 - for some reason I decided to go back into the yellow fields. It made the control easy I guess, but it wouldn't have been much harder going straight and I assume there was a nice elephant track to follow.

I struggled reading the map here more than I have ever done before. I am struggling even under a bright light back at home, particularly the shape of the ground at #20. Is it badly drawn, or badly printed, or is it me? I didn't have any problems last week in Inshriach.

8th M45, 5.5 minutes behind Andy Monro. My 2 minutes lost at #21 would not have gained me any places anyway. The fastest M50 (Dave Peel) was a minute quicker than Andy.

C • #20 1