More good training, a sneaky half marathon and a first fell race

I think I may have just covered it all in the title.  I'm now happily a couple of weeks into some good training.  I can tell this by the way most muscles from the belt down have a dull ache, I feel like I need more sleep despite having improved this massively, and the key, that the aches fade a couple of miles into any running.

A solid 3x 1500m session with the club on the track gave way to pacing duties at the Dirt Half Challenge on the Saturday.

Now this is a lovely race and it is the third year that I have attended.  It is almost completely off road, with most of it on flat canal towpaths, a beautiful section through woods and another short section on some heavily muddy fields.  The first half of the race along the canal is a good place to settle into pace. I had my target pace locked in mentally and rarely wavered by more than the odd second per kilometre.  There is then a hill that everyone tends to recall as we hit some farm trails and the massed heavy breathing starts.  The quick dive through the 7 mile water station.  Then, into the woods for the most interesting part of the race.  It is here that people can realise they may have been a little over excited at the beginning, particularly after being made to slog up the hill.  It is through this section that people seem to recall that this race has the word "dirt" in the title and work overly hard to keep those running shoes shiny.  It is a pity.  There seemed to be a lot of time and effort being wasted to find routes around some of the muddier sections.  Also, here is where people become aware that they have never raced downhill off road before and begin to fear for their lives.  My runner, Fiona, had no such qualms and took a hundred metres or so out of the train of people jogging (and at one point, walking!) down the muddy trails.  There was only the barest hint of elbow involved.  We then made out into the fields for a couple of miles were further complaints about the mud were heard from the competitors.  We were comfortably on track to meet the sub 2 hour goal but there was a definite eagerness to push on and enjoy the splashing.  The most exciting aspect here was the wooden bridges which defied grip.  And then we dropped back to the tow path for the final few miles.  Fiona continued to push pace improvements throughout this sections and there was only the briefest grunt regarding the final surprise hill in the last few hundred metres before crossing the line several minutes inside 2 hours.  Good stuff.  There wasn't a lot of hanging around prior to heading into the school hall to find warm drinks.  Funny how quickly you can go from being cold at a start line, cosy during the race and bloody freezing after being given a medal.  It was nice to see Greg picking up his first place accolades for yet another year.

So although this wasn't too much effort, given my current focus on training properly, I new a light recovery run was the way forward for Sunday.  I was reasonably surprised to find myself driving to the Peak District for my first fell race.  There was some method in the madness in that I would not be running it hard.  8.5 miles?  However hilly it was I planned to be done in 2 hours and stretching with food a few minutes later.  The training schedule is already busy and I did feel a bit of a fraud after recently joining the FRA and putting the sticker on the car.  At least I could fit this in and be more comfortable making eye contact with other runners.  Running the Dark and White Hope Moors and Tors was another awesome experience.  Running out of the village of Hope, queuing at numerous styles and gates until reaching Castleton and that wonderful climb past the castle on part trail, part stream.  Lovely.  No real navigation issues and some great memories of running along a track on a ridge with all encompassing cloud on either side.  Some of the climbs were excessive but nothing that was unexpected but I did struggle slightly on some of the descents.  Fun though they were, running fast downhill with little visibility and few options to slow down due to wet, stone slabs underfoot was a little too exciting for me at time.  I was much happier when the descents made it to trail or field and the handbrake could be removed.  I guess this is something that will come with practice.  Maybe I will stop vividly imagining the worst case scenarios then.

A good weekend of using events as training runs led into another week of mainly sensible training.  Having not trained at high end paces for a while, it became apparent that I could no longer judge them as well as I had in the past.  For example, you probably should not set off in your first hilly 2.6km effort of three at your mile PB pace.  I came to terms with this 1.2km in and drastically re-evaluated the session.  And a couple of days later, what I thought was gliding along at a nice 200m pace for the first of fifteen efforts had me winding up with completely the wrong training group and struggling to breath after five efforts.  Both were resolved and the sessions rescued, but they are fairly basic errors that need to stop occurring.

Heavy Legs But Good Training

So after a little more than a week of more solid training, the old feeling of unresponsive legs has returned.  It is oddly reassuring.

Post-Snowdonia recovery is going well.  A weekend of walking during a navigation course with constantly cold and wet feet in the Peak District seemed to help as a starting point and a progressive return to training has started to develop well.  Light circuits on Wednesday followed by a few minutes off road and then Thursday's club track session of 300s at 80% effort. Friday a recovery run and then a couple of events at the weekend.

Saturday was the Seagrave Wolds Challenge, a 16 mile off road run a little outside of Leicester.  Beautifully organised.  Starting from the local village hall where, being on the edge of my local running events, it was interesting to see different running club vests.  It also seems that Salomon's decision to offer a wider range of colours in their Speedcross 3s has paid off handsomely.  I've never been to an event where they have been more visible in numbers (and bright hues) despite this being a small, local race through some fields.  Pleased to see the smattering of Inov-8s too as well as the usual cross section of road shoes.  Being my first appearance at this race, it did leave me pondering whether I'd made the right decision to wear the somewhat aggressive Fellcross 2s.  Much as I enjoy them off road (they're now permanently the colour of mud - at least I think it is mud), I am aware that their grip on tarmac, or worse still, stone, is somewhat akin to rollerblading.  Fortunately, the race briefing laid my mind at ease in this area, while also highlighting the particularly heavy going for the first two and last two miles of the race.  Having decided to use the race as a hard training session, those last two miles preyed on my mind until the end.  We set of from the front of the hall with a short tarmac section before we dropped into fields whereupon the reason for the warning became clear.  We were crossing on unmarked paths and the field was ploughed, heavy clay.  The type that really wants to stay attached to your shoes until the double in size and treble in weight.  Well, won't this be fun in the latter stages of the race?  There wasn't much in the elevation profile of the race to cause any worry and after settling in to a steady pace and slipping my estimated finish time backwards with each clay-filled field, I started to enjoy the race.  Looking back, the whole thing went by quickly.  The gels were taken at roughly 40 minute intervals and went down without the type of problems I seem to suffer in marathons.  Grabbed a little water at the aid stations, but nothing significant.  I particularly enjoyed the section roughly two thirds of the way around when we ran along the canal, although the canal had overflowed into the path enough at one point that we did a bit of splashing.  All except when we had to duck through the tunnels on the wet stones and I couldn't help but imagine sliding headfirst into the canal.  There were some lovely woodland sections too but they went by quickly while I was trying to assess how well my legs were coping and how much I was going to put in at the end.  Coming out of that canal section into the final few miles I held my pace which the guys and gals around me were struggling to do.  I guess I picked up a dozen places or so in the last couple of heavy miles although this became difficult with gates or styles every couple of hundred yards during one section.  And finally, in the last kilometre, I did drop to a walk for a few yards.  A muddy field with a slight incline where the grass just ripped away as you tried to move forward rather than provide any traction.  The two guys ahead were just too far away from me to catch.  The guy behind that I had just passed was not going to be coming back at me.  And so, for the count of ten, I strode steadily forward and pulled myself together for the last few hundred metres.  The only complication left for me was trying to work out how I actually finished the event having not realised that I needed to find someone to scan the bar code on my wrist band.  Great little event and I was grateful for the abundant tea and crumble which I consumed in my slightly dazed state before setting off.  It is a race that I intend to return to next year.

And then Sunday's run, to be undertaken at roughly recovery pace, was the Remembrance 11k at Fineshade Woods between Stamford and Corby.  It is a race that I attended last year and also an area that I've used for training previously.  A 3k loop, followed by a 8k loop, mainly on well maintained gravel trail.  No real adventures here other than being amused by a guy in the last couple of miles who's ego was larger than his ability.  Watching him respond any time a girl went to overtake him was moderately amusing and led to a somewhat inevitable detonation in the last kilometre.  It took me the first mile or so before my legs started to respond and, although obviously heavy from the previous day, they kept moving fairly easily throughout the race.  There may have been a minor hangover in there too but it didn't cause any problems.

Monday interval session with Parklands Jog and Run was not a lot of fun and I could have coped without the decreasing recoveries but my pace held up okay.  It did convince me to take a couple of lighter days to recover and so I look forward to Thursday's track session with the club with a bit more enthusiasm.  3x 1500m efforts.  Much more my thing.