Back on the BG

Monday - Will Horsley's race - Boxing day burn off, 4th place, Fiona 6th, I took it easy because of the plans for Tuesday! 3.5 miles and 150m of ascent.

Tue - 1am start doing BG support for Jim Mann, 17 miles, 2000m of ascent.

Wednesday - 6 miles, 200m of ascent on Bowes Moore.

Thursday – 6 miles, 250m of ascent, Cockfield fell with Jim, Duncan, Pippa and Fiona – cracking run out, tired but fun to be out in decent weather for the first time in ages.

Friday – skiing in Chamonix for friends stag night – great day out!

Saturday (new year's eve) – Missed flight home – bugger. Expensive mistake, got home intime for new year scheninigans after much expense.

Sunday (new year's day) – 10 Miles and 650m of ascent with Fiona in Peak District from Glossop, lovely run.

Total of 42.5 miles and 3250m of ascent.

Monday was a nice race, good to get out, full results here.

http://northumberlandfellrunners.co.uk/html/raceresults/2011/ForestBurnBoxingDay.html

Tuesday saw a 1am start in Keswick doing L1 and L2 support for Jim Mann's second attempt at the Midwinter Bob Graham.  Things didn't look good setting off in strong winds and heavy drizzle from the Moot Hall and the wild weather on the way up Skiddaw nearly caused us to turn around.  The forecast weather window opened as planned at 3am and by the top of Great Calva there was hardly a breath of wind and perfect vis - lovely to be out.  Jim had to stop on the way up Clough Head (start of L2) with a sore knee, real shame as things were going along at a good pace and if you subtract the nav blunders caused by me not paying attention he was on to smash the MW record.

Skiddaw - 1:09 (19 hour pace)

Great Calva - 0:38 (20 hour pace)

Blencathra - 1:04 (21 hour pace)

Threlkeld - 0:35 (slow)

The above splits are after subtracting 7 minutes wandering around looking for the top of Skiddaw, 2 minutes faffing with gloves on the way to GC, and 4 minutes looking for the Doddick fell descent of Blencathra.  Next year Jim!  Including all the faff he was just up on 22 hour pace.

My legs felt as bad as I ever remember on Wednesday, which made me realise how long it is since I did such big descents and how much I still have to do to get BG ready.

First week where I managed the magic 3000m of ascent and felt strong at the end of it, despite all the partyings and skiings, things are going well.

Just wish the f***ing wind would let up!

Windy this Christmas

Monday - Rest

Tuesday – 2 miles and 70m of ascent – more about this later!

Wednesday – 10 miles, 400m Cockfield Fell

Thursday – 23 miles, 1300m, Hardians Wall, 4 miles, 100m DFROT

Friday - Rest

Saturday – 6 miles, 500m, Simonside Hills

Sunday – Turkey

Total of 45 miles and 2370m of ascent.

Not a bad week, considering Christmas got in the way of doing training on Sunday.

Tuesday was a farce, I wanted something to inspire me to do a long run in a new area, so took a look at a section of Stu Fergusons, Durham Hewitts Round. http://www.gofar.org.uk/DurhamHewitts.html

There being too much snow in the Lake District for proper running I thought I would run the section from Killhope Cross to Three Pikes and back to give a 20 mile run out. After an hours drive I got out of the car and immediately realised it was going to be tough. Every step I would alternate between running on top of the snow, falling through the crust of the snow or falling through the crust of a frozen bog. Torture. Gave up after a mile, crawled back and drove home feeling throughly beaten up.

Wednesday, 2 hours of steady hill reps on Cockfield Fell, felt strong.

Looking for more inspiration on Thursday I drove to run a section of Hadrians wall and spent 11.5 miles running through mostly flooded farm fields into a brutal headwind, even the downhill was tough going. The run back was 12 minutes quicker than the way out.

Saturday steady run on Simonside Hills, with a couple of hill reps thrown in, good to go out with Fiona, might have been more use to do something longer, but the stuffing won't make itself!

Typical going on Hadrians Wall Path, Stiles, farmland and bogs.

Rough Going

Getting my strength back.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 11miles and 700m of ascent, Hamsterley
Wednesday - climbing wall
Thursday - 7 miles, 200m of ascent, Cockfield Fell
Friday - rest
Saturday - 17 miles, 750m of ascent, Pennine Way, Langdon beck to High Cup Nick and back.
Sunday -  12 miles 350m of ascent, Hamsterley.

A much quieter week, 47 miles and 2000m of ascent.

I felt tired all week, which I guess is as a result of last weekends efforts.  Decided to do less than I had planned in order to get my strength back and also because there is too much snow to run in the Lake District, so no point going out to learn my 30@30 route.

Tuesday, I had planned to do about 18 -20 miles but ended up going out later than planned and running the Mike, Brian and Liam who went home when I had only done 11, as I didn't feel good I went home to refuel.  Wednesday I felt terrible at the climbing wall, climbed worse than I can remember.  Thursday felt ok, but not too far.

Saturday I was running with Duncan Archer on a tough section of the Pennine Way, the snow was deep in places which was energy sapping.  Duncan was much stronger than me and it was frustrating to be spending so much time working hard to keep up.

Sunday I woke up and felt strong again, despite spending Saturday night drinking quince brandy, bramble brandy and brandy followed by a few glasses of port with Duncan, ran quite hard with a big DFR group to the Elephant Trees above Hamsterley Forest.

Not got any plans for next week, but finished work for Christmas now, so will do as much as I can and hopefully be fit for 2 races over christmas.
http://northumberlandfellrunners.co.uk/html/races/notices/2011/rescheduled_ForestBurn.html
http://www.eskvalleyfellclub.org/fixtures/fell/winter_series.pdf

Couldron Snout, looking lovely

Duncan Archer at the end of Saturdays run

A rather poor attempt at a stitch of High Cup Nick!

Thanks for reading.

Taking a swim up Seat Sandal

A good training week.

Monday - resting my Hobble legs.
Tuesday - 14 miles at Hamsterley (600m of ascent), the moon was so bright reflected off the snow I didn't even need a head torch. Lovely.
Wednesday - climbing wall.
Thursday - 8 miles (500m) hill session at Hamsterley.
Friday - out for dinner.
Saturday - Leg 1 of my 30@30 route, 21 miles (1500m) in 5:45 from Pooley Bridge, cold and snowy.
Sunday - Leg 2 of my 30@30 route, 22.5 miles in 6:50 (2500m)from Kirkstone Pass to Clough Head. Cold feet.

Total of 65 miles and 5000m of ascent.

Not much else to say about Tuesday or Thursday, Saturday was very cold, running with 2 base layers, fleece and waterproof and was very cold.  Wished I had my goggles with me as the snow was blowing up into my eyes, struggled to keep moving fast enough to stay warm.  Saw a red deer stag at the top of Arthur's Pike and as I have never seen a deer in the Lakes before thought I had been lucky, until on the way down Rampsgill Beck into martindale I saw over 30 deer hanging out, what a cracking end to the run.

Sunday started with the climb up to Red Screes from Kirkstone into the clag, the snow was all melting and running through slush made my feet colder than I have ever experienced before.  Managed to keep the rest of me warm but got tired on the climb of Seat Sandal, slogging through waist deep snow was very tough, I ended up crawling and swimming up the climb at one point to stop sinking.  Climbing Dollywaggon from Grisedale Tarn put me off the idea of doing the BG anti clockwise - what a slog!  I ended by running north from Great Dodd down Rowantree and Mosedale Beck back to the car, a brilliant fast descent to end the day.

A couple more weeks like this and I will be ready for 21st January and my 30th, then I have to step it up for the BG!

Thanks for reading - same again next week?

Hobbling home.

The end of my first blogged training week, how am I getting on.

Mon - writing blog rather than training.
Tue - 1hour on Cockfield fell - the North East's premier off-road running venue.
Wed - 50 miles on the bike with no food for first 4 hours, 1800m of ascent and blown head first off my bike into a ditch riding over the joint highest road pass in England.
Thursday - Pyramid training session, 25 minutes of intermittent hard sprinting up hill.
Friday - Gin
Saturday - 90 minutes and 9 miles around Goldsborough Carr 400m of ascent with Fiona.
Sunday - Hexhamshire Hobble, 10.6 miles, 450m of ascent at 6:45/mile pace, 1st place - definitely my best ever result - this blogging must be doing my some good.  3rd was Philip Sanderson (won last years Blakey Blitz by 10 minutes) and 2nd Duncan Archer (won this years OMM by a few seconds).

Really enjoyed the run in the Hobble, running from the front after the first 3 miles or so felt like a training session really pushing on the climbs and also pushing on the descents in a way I haven't done before.  I chatted with Fiona yesterday about how I push myself harder in training than in races and I hope that didn't happen today.  The conditions were wild, with snow and ice all over the course apparently classic Hobble conditions!  I don't understand why this race is so popular being a road run and a yomp through muddy tracks, but I guess I will have to do it again next year.

So not a great number of miles or ascent this week if you don't include the bike ride, but Thursday's training and Sunday's race shows that I am fit and all I have to do now is get BG fit, which is a totally different type of fit, but being fit can't be a bad starting point!

"It's not being fit that's hard.  It's being hard that's hard" - I can't remember who said that about the BG.

Next week I will do more miles and more ascent - if not then chase me up hills kicking me with a big metal trainer!

Just incase you didn't notice me mention the Hobble result take a look here.....

http://www.allenvalleystriders.co.uk/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/resultsforall.pdf

Getting my head in shape.

I'm writing this so that I can keep myself motivated to train through the winter for next summers Bob Graham Round.  The more people who are watching over my shoulder, the more likely I am to do things properly and tick off all 42 of those hills early next summer.

Perhaps I should start by putting down a list of things that didn't go so well last time out.

*  Not enough long training days, I didn't get out for over 8 hours enough times, so when I did, it was a shock to my system.  I figured if I could do 55 miles and feel fine, then I could get around the BGR, I was wrong.  More long days this time.
* Not being prepared for running out of energy.  Sounds silly, but when I hit empty on the way to Bow Fell I collapsed so spectacularly that I must have done something wrong.  More days training on little or no food to get me used to it this time.
* Eating wrong, I didn't eat enough on L3, eat more next time.
*Eating wrong 2, I didn't like setting off up the climbs full of food, eat at the tops or on route next time - soup/sandwich?
* Bad weather - don't set off in shit weather next time.  Have a small moveable team.
* Pain killers, play around with paracetamol and ibuprofen to get used to how it works with me on long days.

That should do for now, I will post back next week to keep anyone informed of how things are going.

Andy