As a youngster, I would get home from School, get changed and go out to play with my pals.
Now I'm older, I get home from work, get changed and go out to play with my pals, but now I call it training.

Friday, September 16, 2011

FFS!

Being off the blog scene for a while means desperate calls, texts and emails from around the globe (though mainly Carlisle) have been received asking 'whits garn on'?

The Sunday prior to the 10k event I awoke with a slightly scratchy throat which I ignored and enjoyed a fantastic day on Helvellyn, taking in the views, photographing tourists and triathletes and having a wee moment at the far end of Striding Edge with me half way down the 'big drop', heavy backpack scraping the  rock behind me, Two grand camera dangling from my neck in front of me,  and suddenly a frightened Scamp appears way above my head trying to get down to me. I try to send him away but he edges ever nearer. He slips and scares himself so bad he somehow scrambles back up. Cue Steve, balanced on small footholds in rock,  removing backpack from back to stash camera away. Back on with backpack and wonder how I might best deal with Scamp now I have two free hands. Scamp then appears 10 feet below me and waits patiently like nearly falling to his death is a normal occurence. He was exactly the same the day he became caught in a strong current in the river and to stop him (pointlessly) trying to swim toward me, I had to run half a mile around via a bridge to then shout for him to come to the opposite side where I was now stood - a three second swim WITH the current.

Next day I had a slightly swollen throat and a runny nose. I was concerned about the race but hopeful plenty of sleep, OJ and fresh air would quash the 'illness' before it took a hold of me.

Unfortunately things only deteriorated and by race day I also had sore ears and could hardly swallow as my throat was so swollen. Didn't even feel up to going through to photograph the event. Of course, Thursday I felt about 75pc better than Wednesday and I continued to improve each day thereafter.

I'm now left with an annoying cough but feel absolutely fine in myself. I haven't ran for 14 days but fully intend to do so tomorrow. I didn't take 14 off because I felt poorly but because it was always my intention to have a two week break from training after the 10k anyway.

Shame I missed the chance to run a good 10k time - bigger shame, I'd only entered about 2 days beforehand - £14 I could have better spent on beer and cig's

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Such fun

The usual Monday run with Milly and his track cronies has now ceased. They get to have September off from training, so I was on my own. I opted to run my ten mile circuit doing four, eleven minute efforts with four minute jogging recoveries. It was difficult at first to capitalise on the mild tailwind  that took me out to to the turn, and then the mild headwind home hindered my return a little and of course by the last effort I was tiring too. However, 62:58 isn't bad going.

After that tough Monday run I didnt do anything at all on Tuesday - I had to go back to work later in the evening  and decided that a long walk with Scamp in the late afternoon would benefit me as much as a short, slow jog.

Back into the tough stuff on Wednesday with a four mile time trial. I did this over the same ground as I do the mile reps so not surprisingly the splits went a similar way with roughly 5:53 pace for the first 3 miles coming down to a final average of 5:49 by the time I had ran the slightly more downhill final mile. Although this was tough, I was only really hurting in that last mile and afterwards I wished I had ran my five mile loop instead. Still, as long as I can run 12 seconds per mile faster (=5:37) and for 55% longer (=6.2miles) at next weeks 10K I will be delighted.

Plucky reported his intention to do an hour at a decent clip on Thursday and I suspect it would have wise to let him get on with that and do my own easy run elsewhere. But not having ran with him for a month or more I joined him anyway and simply let him dictate the pace. It was a funny run, certainly not hard enough to call it a proper hard run, but certainly it was a decent effort - maybe just a tad below the effort of a tempo run. Plucky was full of craic all the way round the 9 mile route which is another sign we werent running as fast as normal as on those occasions he scarcely (is able to) speaks. Average pace was  6:21 per mile for 9.3 hilly miles.

Blencathra  (crapper fells in distance)
I needed little persuasion to take a trip up Blencathra on Friday evening. I was already concerned that doing some 800m reps might be too much to end a reasonably tough week and a Blencathra ascent is not exaclty a walk in the park from any point, but then of course it was just Penrith Stu I was going up with, so even if he was trying hard it wouldnt be much of an effort for my good self. Indeed it turned out a most pleasurable evening - nice'n warm on the climb and then not too cold on the summit as we took some photos, despite only having the flimsiest of T shirts on.

Long run today (Saturday). I didnt want to do anything too arduous so decided to run with Scamp at first then on the road. We did 50 minutes of slow jogging around the park and golf course - possibly only about 8 pace. The  I took Scamp home and ran the Crosby 10 in 73 minutes.


Thats it now for training for a while. Going up Helvellyn tomorrow to watch the Triathlon then one easy jog on Tuesday before the 10k on Wednesday. I'm feeling OK but looking forward to a wee break from the non stop cycle of training. Then I should be ready for another mini season of the November races.
Steve Angus -Tired and looking forward to a wee rest