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.