I rode my bike over Honister then Newlands passes. It was raining heavily and quite cold and windy - pretty much the key factors in my decision to quit cycling, now 13 years ago. Incidentally, that's now longer as a runner than I spent cycling. Seems like only yesterday I used to lie in bed of a night with a horrible ache in my legs and slowly built up from 3 to 4 to eventually 6 or 7 runs per week. Best decision I ever made though, and I bet still have many thousands of pounds I would have spent on bike gear if not for the switch. This was a pitifully slow bike ride - I wasnt putting any effort in but 14mph for 21 miles is rather pathetic - even given the two massive climbs. (get me likening my bike ride to someone who lives at the bottom of Alp Duez but works at the top and doesnt have a car and does have a phobia of public transport but likes to ride a bike)
After the bike ride I had a mooch around the lake edge near Theatre by the Lake and along a mile or so toward Grange. The rain had eased but still occasional showers and much warmer made this a really lovely walk. Scamp swam in Derwentwater - a first for him. I think I may keep notes and get him to swim in as many Lake District meres, Lakes and Waters as possible. Or maybe not - i cant even be
No more cycling this week but good run training, kicking off with my track session of 4x1600metres (AKA 4 x mile reps). It was a warm sunny day and this continued into the evening, so a vest was worn for the first time this year outside of racing and Majorca. I usually speed up a lot on rep 2 so was quite excited to record 5:37 for rep 1. Only 1 second faster though -5:36. I then put in a considered effort and was rewarded with a 5:30. Then finally a 5:32 which felt like merely cruising. This is the second time I have felt great and been running my best near the end of the session. I might try for 5 x mile next week.
A(nother) race too - Dockray Hartside. About 6 miles and 2000 feet. I thought I may do quite well in this but I should have known better. As we set off up a very steep tarmac road for almost a mile I was quite astonished by how many lads were ahead of me - surely I should be doing well on the road section? I was also aware that the heavy breathing behind me sounded female and indeed as we left the road to begin the fellrunning I was merely a couple of metres of the leading lady. Luckily she never passed me, although I didnt do owt special at all in the race, coming in about 20th I think (cant find results yet - not 24 hrs since race finish). I suppose theres a good reason I don't do so well in race that lasted under one hour - 'cos I never run in the fells for any less than about 3 hours and its many a long week since I've ran up Blencathra as fast as I can then practiced my descending by timing myself down as well as up. Horses for courses as they say - and my next course is as long as I'm ever likely to travel.
Plucky fell of his bike (again) and has sore ribs so cant run with me at present. Daz has a knee injury so cant run at all. Those facts were the reason I did track on Tuesday (when I would usually have met up for a run with the leads), so tonight should perhaps have been the 10 mile road run. But I figured that the 55 minute race was akin to that session so tonight I travelled through to Gelt and spent 65 mins running incredibly slowly, stopping often, enjoying what I think was possibly the warmest day of the year.
Yep, summer is coming, but like Ronnie O'Sullivan - blink and you'll miss him/it
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