Training Log Archive: Mark3

At the top of the first climb (c.400m ascent) we decided to retire, Emma hurt her hip flexor yesterday and it was causing her obvious pain, particularly uphill. We could have completed the day, but it would've taken a very long time and might've made it worse. So we had a nice (for me!) walk back to the cars along some ridges. Still took quite a few hours after we'd elected to give up! Cooler than yesterday but only had to put coat on for a bit because we were going so slowly.
Course less interesting today and much shorter.

Looking forward to racing again soon, but still pretty tired now and have yet to unpack the wet tent...sigh.

Doing this with Emma who is an orienteer rather than a runner and so was only ever going to be casual. I didn't expect to be out this long though and so probably didn't have enough food (was expecting about 5 hours).
The Howgills was a good venue although they won't be able to have another there for a while as we basically used all of it.
Mainly took contouring routes when possible to minimise ascent. Jogged a bit on a few flat and downhill sections but largely walking pace for most of it. Really well planned courses; lots of route choice.

Longest MM day and 2nd longest time I've been out for. It was basically fine at that pace although I did get burnt on my legs (I don't tend to suncream them as I don't tend to burn them...). Sunny and warm the whole day, but not too hot like last year.

No nav mistakes; basically perfect in that regard.

Don't think I'd do another one with someone where the disparity in fitness is that much again.

Nice to see Ali/Leah, Mark/Clare and Sam/Anna :)

Overnight camp was fairly nice although lots of midges. Slept not bad too.

Mainly packing; always takes ages.
Cold is improving but is still going to be annoying this weekend I reckon.

Since Oakamoor was my 2nd least favourite SM last year I thought I'd do the o instead. Enjoyed it actually; nice change - and still over half an hour faster than N which is the main thing :)

Saying that, not a great performance. Well planned start meant suboptimal route to 1 although recovered well. Very steep slope down to 3 was genuinely scary - it was dry with a thin layer of dust over everything which made it extremely slippery. Running ok to 6 though, which I contoured around nicely too and then failed to find, tried again with a bearing from fence corner, failed again, went back to the fence, saw what looked like a depression 45 degrees at the wrong angle, went to look in it; hey presto. Not gonna get upset by that one since its clearly mapped in the wrong place by loads.

Can blame no-one for bad down-up route on 7 though; just bad/no planning. Rest of the course went ok.

W/D with Tom whom I was physically and navigationally schooled by us usual :)

The front of the trail group is a similar speed to the MaccH trail group, but the back is much slower! So lots of looping.
Nice evening though and good route + company :)

Lemsip working; feeling marginally less ill today.

Easy flat jog with the Bollington Harriers. Did a bit of looping at the start but then stopped doing that to continue talking to a girl. Seemed a reasonable course of action.

Achilles still hurting tediously so probably good to be doing some easy stuff; might do this club's run tomorrow too.

Also she might be there again :)

Based on OS maps this should've been 7.43km with 83m ascent.
I ran round the track a few times before the start looking at my pace and estimated I should be able to keep to 5min ks, so estimated 36:06 (I misremembered as 7.42 I think).

I was rubbish; far too fast. Which is good really because it didn't feel that easy! But certainly had no idea at all I was running at 4:20 average pace - that's 3:05 marathon territory - felt much slower. Not quite last - someone was 7 minutes wrong (!) But not far off. The winner was 1s off, and then top 10 were all inside a minute. Best tactic seemed to be to run it like it race - next year will do this if I don't feel so rough.

Nice evening after the warmth of the weekend. Sociable as well which was nice. Tape over the watch so I couldn't see the screen worked well, although not great for HR accuracy clearly.

Edit: even worse that I thought since I actually estimated 37:06 but then forgot...