Training Log Archive: Mark3

1 min 7 slower than last year, despite everything being in my favour :'(
- trails rather than fell shoes; right choice
- vest and shorts rather than ls and 3/4s; right choice
- cooler day
- less effort yesterday since quicker rather than slower of the pair
- less travel etc yesterday since Peaks rather than Lakes

4 segment PRs / 10, it looks like I set off faster this year (and I did give it 100%) but then couldn't maintain it later on. It felt like it was going to be faster so really annoying to be so much worse. Hopefully just a bad day rather than an underlying trend.

Definitely more road in the middle than I remember there being, but otherwise a nice undulating trail race with some nice descents and good views.

30th place overall, which is excellent compared with last year's 61st - but our leg 3 performance was poor. Unlike last year - where I slowed Alistair down - this was a reversal where Chris was pretty rubbish in the terrain. We've been really well matched in the summer fell races often finishing within seconds of each other and so on paper we're a great pairing, but they are basically on trail and grass, not bog and tussucks.

Tom came back in an amazing 12th on leg 1, and Billy/N's 33rd on leg 2 left us setting off in about 23rd.

Started strongly and were 43th fastest at #3, had dropped a few places overall which was as expected, but not many. Still 43rd at #4 but the marshy long grass has taken everything out of Chris. Chose the steep descent route to the path rather than contouring back around towards 3 as had been my first plan, as wanted to avoid the terrain. After the steep down (where I was rubbish) and river crossing and steep up, gave Chris the option of path or terrain and he chose path - I think the right call as it played to his strengths.
But then he got cramp on the path and had to stop for a bit, and then he walked pretty much all the way up the hill and I had to wait for quite some time at the top :(. No one else coming this way so I had to navigate to 5 on my own, hit it perfectly but dropped 10 places on this leg due to all the walking. If we'd been 43rd on this leg we'd have been 3 mins faster - however I'm certain we lost more time than that and so I think this route choice is better than straight; at least for us.

Next leg 5-6 dropped another 11 places and another 3 minutes; marshy boggy long-grassy terrain again. I thought Chris had stopped to tie a shoelace but turns out he'd just fallen over. Had a lot of waiting to do on this leg too. Down the hill we would've done ok but he had to actually tie a shoelace this time. And I was still comfortably outpacing him. Finished 65th on the leg and in about 35th place overall. Alan brought us up to 30th on the last leg.

So really frustrating for me - we'd have been at least 26th and maybe even top 20 with a different pairing. Most frustrating thing is that I picked the team and so it was entirely my fault, arrrgh. Luckily - our strong start and good nav ensured we at least beat the other Macc teams. Lesson learned; bring on next year :)

Got massively wet at lunch and so spent the afternoon wet and couldn't bring myself to go out again.

Warm evening; superfluous gloves and ls. Felt good at the beginning but definitely flagging by the end; rest day tomorrow I think - pretty high volume last 6 days.

Easy with BollyH trail group, nice evening and feeling pretty good at the slow pace.

Working from home in order to do this run - turned out though conveniently at 11am the network broke anyway.
Boggy and slow, and chased by an angry dog, so first bit not great, but then some lovely moorland contouring just below the clag made it worth it.
Didn't go all the way to Shining Tor as had to get back for a meeting...which then didn't happen due to the network thing. But nm, still a tough run for a Tuesday lunchtime.
Hips aching a bit, might have to cool it with the exercises somewhat.

Nice evening. Reasonably fast group; few stops. Picked up the pace for some of the downhill and felt pretty good.
First run for about 18 months where I haven't felt my Achilles the whole way around! Think my exercises are working.