Training Log Archive: ba-ba

30mins stretching the legs (7.2km) then chilled out a bit back home, still going at a good pace.

Round the white water park as I'd spent most of the afternoon watching one in action. Haven't seen the barrage one in use since October time though.

New shoes - had plans of recceing some of Borrowdale this morning, but decided to leave it due to tiredness and weather, so hit the NB factory store in Keswick for new road and trailies.

Feeling much better than last week, just in time as well!

Leg 5 Honister-Keswick with Sarah
Straight through changover as Sarah was losing time on descents. I didn't check actual times on the leg, just made sure we didn't veer outside of the times allowed between summits and we'd get in fine. We were 2.5mins up on the split to Dale head, then lost 3 mins over Hindscarth and Robinson. We then fannied about a bit too much on the descent - should have been out to have a look at the rock steps - but still didn't lose too much time on Wil's group ahead. Wil knew he was going to make it but Sarah kept on accusing us of lying to her about how OK we were for time and didn't believe we were going to make it until she was actually leaning against the Moot Hall door in 23:44.

Great SPOOKy weekend, great to get both around with a massive 15mins to spare although it also confirmed that I still can't deal with tired and emotional women!

Great to clap Nicky in at 10ish to chop 35mins off the previous women's record - 18:12/14 some going!

Wil and Sarah's BG Leg 2.
Set off 10 minutes up and pretty much kept to schedule.
Dropped a bit up Clough Head
4mins up to Great Dodd but then stopped and used all that up to gear up - claggy and rainy from then on.
Watson's Dodd fine, lost a min or 2 on Stybarrow in clagg, fine over Raise, WHite Side, Lower man and Helvellyn.
Lost a bit on Nethermost Pike then ditched the 10min cushion on Dollywagon. Thankfully we did actually hit it (the double-back on the GPS trace is a nubbin before Dollywaggon that we missed then decided to go back to - but we managed to convince ourselves that it was the correct summit - all 5 of us!)
Wil and Sarah then pulled away up the steep climb to the Fairfield ridge but I caught them back by the top - bags tougher on steep steep climbs than I anticipated.
Sarah had the bit between her teeth and we flew up Seat Sandal and finished the leg pretty much bang on schedule (5:01)

gettin' there

feeling RUBBISH! but dragged myself out. I blame the lab/office being at 29oC and 70% humidity - even taking a 5min rest seems like an effort. I also think it's impacting on the equipment, leading to some longer/more stressful hours.

C • Tropical office 2

tired all day so ditched last nigt's grand plans. Kip needed - can't let Wil and Sarah down this weekend!

WU. Bumped into Chris McKenzie on the front.

C • Chris 2

I wasn't expecting much after all the big weekends of late and Friday night. There was a strong headwind on the front which made things a bit more difficult.
Set off too quick (33min pace for first 2km) but thought I might as well take the pace on and see what happened as this was just a tester. Let the lead 5 get away and first lady (Rosie Smith, Durham) used me as a wind break. She then got away and I lost another 3 places before 8km. Took one back but was still beaten by Phil from my club. He's a very good v50, but have never lost to him yet.

twice chicked in 2 weeks. Need to get back on it. Still on for 35 in early Sep though I think.

http://www.new-marske-harriers.co.uk/images/storie...

short wd before hitting work

evening loosener with Won't Get Fooled Again going through my head. Allez Wiggo!

Some Naked running shenanigans. Jogged out along a pitch black road, fell into a verge whilst sorting out my watch. Then stopped at a random point and raced back: 1.01km in 3:29

feeling surprisingly good.

Sort of hit the buffers today. Sort of expected.

Felt really empty and had to have a sit down at 4km before cutting short. Pos due to long day at work (in early)

Possible 10k on Sunday depending on how I feel - dry run for later in the year. The Vdot I produced yesterday suggests I'm still in decent shape for the faster stuff, even after 2 heavy weekends and focusing on fell.

Warm ups and downs in Darlington

800m. Didn't get chicked.

C • nice time! 4

Mile. conservative in first 800m, bit too much to overhaul 2nd and 3rd at end (1st was miles away). Poor time but to be expected this week.

left knee a little sore. Nothing major, just all Saturday's impact! Hosing it down anyway.

Dragged myself out for some milk. Add the 4 steps over the railway to hideous climbs (though only with legs in this state)

actually not too bad.

Event: Wasdale
 

Winner - Ricky Lightfoot 3:44. 13th (123%). Great day out.

"Deepest Lake, highest mountain, biggest liar and hardest fell race, that's Wasdale. Wordsworth once said that every fellrunner should do Wasdale at least once, or something like that!"

With Daz not showing up it was up to myself and Wardy to battle it out for the win in the Club Champs race
Steady away up Illgill Head, a pack formed ahead including Wardy and Jasmin Paris, which I caught up to Whin Rigg. Easy into Greendale and Hulley comes flying down as I save my legs. cruise across the valley floor but I still drop Wardy. Squash at Greendale courtesy of the legend that is Joss Naylor and I'm feeling good.
Drop Hulley and a couple of others on the climb to Seatallan, hitting the summit with Jasmin and a Carnethy Vet. A few people go walkabout on SLMM trods from Pots of Ashness. Not sure of the line towards the Pillar path, I think we're alright but then Hulley and a few others come in from below. They've gained time but we drop down to them and don't gain enough height, ending up too close to Red Pike than we want - better recce this before next year! (champs race).
Take a mars-bar on up to Pillar and don't have a great time of it from here until Gable. Jasmin's shot off with Hulley - though he's only there to look at her arse I reckon.
Struggle with the runnable bits to Beck Headand expect to see Wardy come past but he doesn't. Manage to gain ground on the scramble up Gable. Nearly go wrong off the summit (Gable's in its usual claggy hat) but there's a couple of other guys around me. Down into Styhead and there's a group I met on the campsite who give me a cheer. Go straight through the Bowland guy who's having a bad day and reel in another guy on the drag up to Esk Hause. Try to break the elastic as I go past him but it doesn't really work, and we collect Hulley south of Great End.
We decide to take the contour round Ill Crag as Matt got it dead on at Great Lakes, but he stuffs it up in the daylight! The other bloke gets away and I try my best to take the direct route to Lingmell Beck by slipping on scree. Get to broad Crag to see that the big cushion we had has been eroded somewhat due to the dodgy line.
Scramble hard up Scafell Pike, trying to close the gap on the guy that got away and drop Hulley. Line off Scafell Pike is dead on and once below the clag line I can't see the bloke who was ahead so presume he's gone walkabout to Mickledore. Dodge the daytrippers (giving thumbs-up to the guys in Hawaiian shirts for dressing better for the conditions than all those in cold-weather gear!) and cruise around Lingmell, lovely and runnable. Then onto the nose I forgot how steep it gets! I have a brief glance to see Matt and CV guy are a good distance behind me, but not so much I can rest my screaming quads - breaking after 4.5hrs on your feet is murder on the quads.

Pleased to get in around 4.5hours, but would have been nice to get in under it. Jasmin did 4.5 and I wanted to stick with her but I had a bit of a bad patch after Pillar, fannying about between there and Gable. Maybe without SLMM in my legs I'd have done it. Anyway, a cracking day out.
http://www.cfra.co.uk/results/Wasdale2012.pdf

Well done to Jamie in his first proper fell race(!) - 5hr10 is a baptism of fire and a good performance!

Maybe should have done more this week to shake the weekend out of my system. Stuck in work last night. Quads a bit sore.

Shoulders fine again, legs OK but will need some attention before Wasdale.

Shoulders are the sorest part of my body after the tent. Rest of body has improved throughout the day. Managed to successfully dodge any work today, spending most of my time keeping up-to-date with le tour or visiting the toilet (I blame stream-water - seem to be OK now though).

updated my fantasy TdF team on phone on Fri evening, only it didn't work so I've had a load of sprinters in for the first 2 mountains. Lead lost, time to try and get it back (before the same happens when I'm back in Wasdale next weekend!)

After SLMM2010, when Ash and I overhauled 15mins on Lewis and Jonny, I was aware that there was a chance of us catching them, albeit slim. 3rd were 36mins back so we just had to plod around as in day 1 for a top 2.
1-3 we hit pretty much dead on, a bit of hunting on the feature for 2. It was quite hot but thankfully cooled nicely for the long valley-hopping leg to 4. Towards the end of this leg we saw a pair we thought were L&J (they weren't) so decided to up the pace a bit and have a little race. 5 went quite quickly then we were onto the last control. Picked a pretty rough route down but approached #6 just as L&J left it. Hooned it off after them and saw Lewis was carrying both bags. I caught them both up, but before Wil could we were back on flat and downhill and they took off. Punched 27secs behind. Won the day by 12 mins.

Really enjoyable weekend and 2 long days, which is what I was really after from this. Need to improve through terrain a bit. Bearings generally good, but vis was good anyway. Let Wil do most of the decision making and we got a few things wrong but not too fussed. Looking forward(?!) to racing OMM though!

Distances and climbs are guesses as no GPS recievers (even those without screens) allowed - not that Jonny and Lewis paid attention to that rule!

http://www.slmm.org.uk/2012/Results/Overall/bowfel...

Event: Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon
 

Saunders Bowfell with The Spaniard.

The day's entertainment included a couple having sex at an isolated tarn, racing a pig and Whiskey and a dog in the tent at overnight.

Starting in Mosedale we sauntered up the (waaarm) valley to Black Sail Pass. I started off at a bit of a jog but soon realised more sedate was the best option.
We then went south of Gable along the climbers path to #2, above Styhead pass. Windy Gap was probably the better option (Lewis and Jonny beat us by 4mins this way, I reckon it cost us 10ish mins)
#3 was Lingmell Way. Out of #2 we took a line so aggressive it has its own Asbo, over The Band before traversing into the corridor route nicely. 4 was no problem and we were on our own.
5 was long and interminable. Started and finished through bracken, only at the end we had Gorse as well, and it was uphill - we tried contouring round Whin Rigg but got caught in the crap and pushed downhill a bit. Should have got onto the ridge earlier - lost nearly 15mins to L&J
6 was only 3.5km but took over an hour - hot in the valley bottom and ascending Buckbarrow was really tough in the heat - only part of the day I really struggled. Also had circle slightly in wrong place so lost 5mins there maybe.
Then easy and flat into finish - not that it stopped Wil decking it!

First finishers. Both of us never really felt like we raced at any point, just enjoyed the day out. Ended up26mins behind L&J. Not too fussed, but thought we maybe should have tried a little harder.

new heckle: 'Giz us a kiss!' from a 2/10 Minkie.

Work. Lab and Office now both hotter than Alicante. Shame, looks like a lovely evening.

Turned into a 10km easy progress/tempo working down to 4:10ish average, then a jog back. Cruising. Saw a bus called Mark Schwarzer

spending my time with a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short prehensile snout. That's right, I'm Tapiering!

I would have gone out for a run but it's like, raining, and there's cycling to watch. Bought a lot of wine-gums and supernoodles.

half way through the year and all time/distance targets are green or nearly-green. Not bad after a shoddy jan-april, greatly helped by a biiig June!

Out from Ayton over Roseberry, little Roseberry, Hanging Stone, Highcliffe Nab, loop around make-out point, Captain Cook's then home. Feeling flat after the last 2 weeks and a bit roast yesterday evening, but managed t get my legs moving when on the flat and the climb up to Captain Cook's wasn't as bad as anticipated. Saw Cam out looking ridiculously fit compared to me - although he was going downhill as I staggered up.

Was looking forward to chips and lemonade in the Royal Oak, but a function was on so I settled for tailgating with crisps and a Frijj.

I can't quite believe this climb total, but contour-counting confirms it. Pleased to be cracking out around 4.30min/km (once corrected for height) on longish runs without really trying this week. Feeling good after the last few weeks, time to rest up a bit now.