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.
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