Glorious

Got out early this morning at 6:30am, and stepped out into a lovely start to the day. Sunny, a little breeze and an almost clear sky. I’m living with my parents at the moment, family et al, which on its own is a new challenge.

Anyway, this whole area is new territory for me and those are by far the most motivating runs. The exploration, not quite knowing where you will end up and how far you’ll go, the new places and routes. All of that just makes me love running somewhere new. When I go somewhere on holiday, I’m almost looking forward to the first few runs where we’ll be more than other parts of the holiday! Just love it. Something about a fresh unknown route just takes out the sometime drudgery of routine running.

This morning, found a lovely route, hardly touched a road, and went through fields, woodland and off beat tracks. On some of the paths, I found myself in those areas where you can no longer see any man made structures or roads and it just makes you feel away from everything, which in and around London, is a hard thing to find.

All in all, ended up going just over 15 miles, as always going faster than I should, but no injury, twinge or ache still. Just finished completely satisfied. Lovely.

RunnerPlus

Great site if you use nike+, far more fun than the Nike+ site itself. Now I’m back into a regular running routine again after a patchy month in May, and various events changing things around in June, I’ve been logging my miles and playing with the various challenges.

Quite basic really, but that little teaser and push to do a bit better than some other unknown runners around the world makes you get out and go that little bit further. Was out this morning, got to the usual turn around point, and thought… “that extra mile will push me up the challenger”… so I carried on some more, and felt good for it too. It’s the little things…

Generally enjoying the running at the moment. It’s not feeling like a chore, nor a training regime as such. Just feels great to get out in the open and just run in any direction really.

Summer edges it way through the clouds

… or so it nearly seemed today. Whilst elsewhere in the UK, there’s gales, strong winds, rain, the south east has had it easy with a good bit of sunshine. I’d be almost tempted to say it was nice weather… and on a Sunday as well.

Of course, this meant I got out for a nice 9 mile run, as always a little too quick at 7:40 min/mile pace for me and my longer distance training aim. Felt good, fresh and back on a roll to increase by no more than a mile a week on the longer runs, whilst increasing all shorter runs to nothing less then 5 and no more than 6.5 miles. This mile a week approach should get me to comfy 20 mile runs in time for the Marathon du Medoc in September, nice and gradual reducing the risk of sidelining myself again.

However, this pales into significance to the effort of a good friend, Rich, who did the Parish Walk yesterday on the Isle of Man. An 83 mile trek through the forementioned gales and rain across the Isle of Man. Although he had to retire due to suspected hypothermia(!), he got 60 miles in, something I could never do at the moment. See his blog, linked at the side… So, respect is due!

Been Challenged..

Another post starting with another “it’s been a while” sentence… so now that’s out of the way.

Last week was spent running around the hills near Stirling, Scotland as part of the 4 day ‘Intelligent Sport’ event, Challenger. Here’s a nifty little link to the site.. http://www.challengerworld.com/. Basically, it’s a mixture of running, mountain biking, navigation, strategy, puzzle solving and contraption building, almost non-stop for 4 days. This year it was made up of 120 or so corporate teams battling it out for 9 places in the World Championships later this year. The location was glorious, perfect, a considerable improvement on the previous year in Sheffield. Each different event was in some outstanding areas, all off road, making the pain and strain all the more worth it.

So how did I/we do. Well, I was there as part of one of the ASE Consulting teams, where we unfortunately handicapped as our captain had to leave the event on the first night due to a family matter. Just to start with this put things into perspective, and so we had to continue in the event with a more determination and no substitute. I also took over the captaincy for the rest of the event.

Every other team had 2 subs, as each event had 4 people involved. So all of us had to do the whole Challenger, absolutely exhausted by the end but entirely satisfied. After what was a gargantuous effort, we came 11th overall, just missing out on the World Championships by 2 places and 30 minutes (in Challenger that’s extremely close…). I worked it out and we must have run near 40 miles over the 4 days cycled nearly as much and had to use our brains to get the best strategy to make up for our growing fatigue as the days went on.

It was just great fun. Really enjoyed it this year, unlike the previous one, and am looking forward to next years in the Cambrian Mountains in Wales.

On a positive note, I was able to run and run and run and there was little pain in the shins, so I’m hoping that’s now been put to bed. Now I have to start the long distance training for the Medoc Marathon in September, the first step to the super long distance training for the Sahara.

A way away

well, bit of a break in the updates, but back again.

Running has been a little stilted since the last entry mostly still down to the niggles of shin splints. It gets to this strange place where every slight niggle, ache or pain makes you think it’s all going horribly wrong. A bit like a car when you hear a strange noise, you keep on hearing it, convinced the engine is about to blow.

Saying that, I still got in some nice 9 – 10 mile runs in France, over pleasantly flat terrain, running through vinyards and forests. It’s hard to complain. I have done some runs since getting back to the UK as well, but nothing more than 6 miles here and 7 miles there, just taking it careful. Instead I did get in a good 35 mile bike ride, plus some indoor sessions, which helps to keep up the fitness without making things worse.

And now, I’m in a kind of taper week seeing as the Challenger 4 day adventure racing event starts next Wednesday and that will be a good bit of running and cycling around like fools in and around Sitrling up in Scotland.

If I look back on May, after a storming start to the month with those long runs, they kind of killed the rest of the month, reducing it to not much. Bit of a crap exercise month and I can feel it now, carrying a little bit more, not quite with that fit feeling bounce in the step… And all my fault really. Fell at the hurdle of doing too much too quick… again. One day I will learn.