Category: ‘Daily Diary’

After the morning school and shopping run – 3.5 miles of walking to be more accurate – a little soup making and I was out of the door for a satisfyingly forgettable run. Sunny skies, pleasantly cool, my now very familiar out and back run down to Dysart Park via Wyndham Park. The legs felt really quite comfortable so most of the run was spent considering whether to do intervals or a marathon paced run tomorrow evening,

By the end of the 6.15 mile run, averaging 7:20, I’d decided I’d make a decision closer to the time. So much for a rigid marathon plan…

My rather hastily scheduled training plan had me down as doing twenty miles today, despite doing a XC race yesterday. At six o’clock last night with legs pretty stiff I wondered the wisdom of attempting such a run, so I had a few glasses of red wine to aid the recovery.

I woke surprisingly fresh, and after an hour or so to consume breakfast and allow the worst of any ice in the ground to melt slightly, I headed out on a cold and frost covered morning – probably the coldest morning of the winter so far – which says little about our winter except how warm its been as it was barely below zero.

To my surprise I felt pretty sprightly from the off, and apart from having to be quite careful on some icy patches I was running far more freely than I’d expected. I was thinking that if I had a good run is average 07:40 per mile; I went through the first mile in 07:30, the second in 07:14 and the third in 07:02. I was on a good one.

The opening miles were slightly uphill on the A607, but that stretch of road feels quick in either direction. What was more pleasing that the run up from Denton to Knipton retained the pace and even when I’d reached Belvoir at nearly 460 feet (I began the run at 170 feet) I felt fresh and it all felt easy.

Dropping down into Woolsthorpe the average was spot on seven minutes. I’d turned to face a slight headwind which wasn’t strong enough to slow but sure was cold. Onto the Grantham Canal and I went through a half marathon in 1:31. The next four miles on the canal were the hardest of the run – it’s a little uneven in places underfoot and with numerous puddles turned to ice I was frequently chopping and changing my stride. I even managed to slightly twist an ankle near the end of the canal; thankfully the pain quickly subsided.

Leaving the canal I’d covered 16.5 miles and I knew I’d have to do a little running around the houses to bring the distance up to twenty. This can be a little self destroying but thankfully I found myself feeling the best I’d done at any point in the run – knocking off the miles in comfortably under seven minutes.

I arrived home having covered 20.3 miles at an average of 06:57 per mile. An excellent first real long run of the year and bodes well hopefully for the weeks to come.

Some proper Japanese style base training during the day courtesy of the double school run. Over seven miles walked, not all of it flat out mind you, as the little one wandered along mostly in her own little dream world.

As for the run proper, it was back to putting in just shy of 4.5 miles alone before meeting up with the GRC guys. This felt fairly pain free, apart from a liquid stomach, although it felt like I was working a bit harder than the pace suggested.

Once on the club run, it was the usual mix of mostly easy miles chatting along, some proper running conversation mixed with some stuff better left on the run. At the drop out of Barrowby I allowed the legs to relax and flew down the hill. It was there I saw the green eyes, thanks to the head torch in the total darkness, of what may have been a feral cat. Didn’t hang around too long to see if I was correct in my guess of species.

Once onto the A607 I decided, with the cross country race fast approaching on Saturday, to allow base slow running rules to be relaxed for a mile or two to out in a bit of a stretch at marathon paced effort. What was pleasing, apart from a return of the nagging ache in the left hamstring, was that it felt very easy to knock off the complete mile on the stretch at 06:08. It felt like a pace that was entirely sustainable for some distance and is encouraging going forward once training commences properly in earnest.

That quick bit done it was back to a comfortable pace back to club, then after some chatting, the 1.6 miles or so back home. Boy did the legs stiffen up in those 10 or so minutes of inactivity. It took a minute or so of uneasy shuffling before life returned to the pins.

Sixteen miles covered in as near as dammit two hours of running. Exactly as planned. Decided to follow the plan and rest Friday ahead of the race on Saturday. Apart from the Japanese style training that is.

I’ve guessed at what day this is – applied some bad maths from when I last knew what day it was and hoped for the best.

Frankly I don’t care much about the running, after much tearing of hair out before Christmas trying to get links and URL working for this blog, an hour or so this evening with a cider and suddenly some a moment of clarity, a few lines of code, and voilà! Everything seems to be fixed. One day I’ll have all the fancy menus and graphics that other people have, but for the time being, I’m happy to keep it fairly bare-bones.

As for the running, Tuesday evening, I knew that GRC were doing hard hill efforts and the base building part of this training plan strictly forbade this. So instead I went off on a pretty easy paced 8 and 1/4 mile run, aiming to find a route that 1. wasn’t too hilly and 2. was pretty much totally lit for the entire run for the purpose of being able to easily do marathon paced runs in the coming weeks. Thankfully I found it. If you look at a map of the run it is a bit north and south north and south along different roads, but thankfully it doesn’t need a head torch and usefully a couple of miles here and there can be tacked on.

Running steady easy miles is a little dull so I plugged in the earphones and enjoyed some tunes, ignoring all those sensationalist warnings that you must never do so outside in hours of darkness. I’ve never quite understood the exact logic for this, and so carried on blissfully ignorant of any unaware dangers I posed myself.

Wednesday morning had eight easy miles on the plan, so, I plugged in again to the mp3 player and headed off – running an eight mile loop I’ve done a couple of times before, but really jazzing it up to dizzying heights by…. running it in the opposite direction…. For some reason in all my years of running, except for Kenilworth Runners’ winter circuit, which we always alternated between clockwise and anticlockwise depending on whether it was a Tuesday or Thursday (but I NEVER ran it clockwise on a Thursday and vice versa), I’ve been fairly loathed to change the direction of a looped run once it had been run for the first time in a certain direction. No idea why, it’s just the way its been.

Other than this crazy direction switch the run was entirely unspectacular. The niggly right groin was a bit more niggly than yesterday and after the run I was quite stiff and sore. Maybe being able to run some quick miles again will alleviate these aches and pains…

Rather predictably this blogging thing all stopped once I headed away to the relatives and the consumption of copious amounts of alcohol began. Then once back my resources were diverted to Project Kenilworth Runners Road Race Rankings, a mission thankfully accomplished yesterday.

So a brief summary of what happened since Boxing Day. The day after it was 6 easy miles before heading to Stroud. Right groin sore. Saturday I had off as I traveled on to Minehead and with the groin hurting could use any excuse not to run.

Sunday and I was due to do 16 miles. Instead I headed to Dunster and inadvertently found myself in Dunster Forest. A quite excellent run following the blue 4.5 mile circular route followed. Plenty of climbing, but not too brutal, good conditions underfoot in spite of the recent rain. Managed to get slightly lost and onto a busy country road before finding my way again. By the time I was home it was just nine miles but right groin was quite sore and so was thankful to do that.

Monday and with a big storm overnight just starting to recede, I abandoned plans to run along the sea front and instead headed to North Hill. I had a bit of a Rocky montage moment when I was able to make it up the initial approximately 20% gradient on the initial footpath without stopping – something I don’t think I’ve managed before. No such luck on the next steep section however, the leaf fall and rain making it incredibly slippery – safer to walk. I made it as far up as to when you are alongside the cliff edge. A strong gust of wind made me think it was probably safer to turn around and head back. 7.5 miles done.

New Year’s Eve and I was back with my brother in Stroud. I wanted to do 16 to guarantee I hit my target of 2500 miles for the year. Brother joined me for the first 8 miles – out and back on the old railway line. I then proceeded do a further 9 miles along the canal path and back, a little further than planned as I’d got my sums wrong. Groin grumbing but bearable. Worst pain came from a sore head after smacking a fallen tree (Limbo is not my strong point).

New Year’s Day was declared a rest day after experiencing a sizeable hangover. It was all for a worthy cause…

The next day and it was a club run in Grantham. Feeling hugely overweight and lethargic I struggled on this one – thankfully it is still just easy slow miles on the schedule as I could manage little else. RIght groin still troublesome.

Groin really sore come Friday on the six mile recovery run and felt pretty down about it – the pace really slow. Saturday was eight miles, groin and hip still painful but bearable and I could run a little more freely.

Some good massage and stretching during the day meant that thankfully Sunday’s 16 miler was a largely pain free affair. An out and back route – the way out felt ridiculously easy, coming in at around 7 minute miling and one mile around 6:30. I soon realised why when I turned around and began the run home. Quite a noticeable wind now in my face and making the going tougher. The right hip began grumbling at around 12 miles and not helped when I was spooked by a passing car whilst turning my head to see what was coming – something somewhere needs freeing.

Yesterday was a standard 6.2 mile run on the out and back park run. Hip not feeling that bad, although the wind was blowing something terrible. The same went for this morning although thankfully the wind had dropped. A run of 8 steady miles is scheduled for the evening.