Week Ending Sun 20 - 43 miles
Easy build up starts again. All morning runs are on the gym treadmill at approx 9:22 minutes per mile. At least that's what the thing says. I noticed that some people run on a slight incline when using one of these, allegedly to mimick road conditions. I've set the incline at 2% for now.
Evening & weekend runs are on the road.
Mon 14 4 miles easy am.
Tue 15 3 miles easy am, 7M in the evening. Club night, we went too fast though. We ended up doing 8:30 pace. At least I managed to keep it steady.
Wed 16 3 miles easy am.
Thu 17 3 miles easy am, 7 miles easy in the evening. More of the same, unfortunately. I may have to ditch the group and run on my own next week. They only seem to have one speed at any given time, mostly the wrong one for me, LOL!
Fri 18 3 miles easy am
Sat 19 Rest. I was planning to do 5 today and 9 tomorrow, but I'll have to do nearly 14 tomorrow because of the xmas Devil's Gallop and running club slap up breakfast at Mrs Miggins Pie Shop the Tavern, so today I'll just concentrate on getting my hair done.
Sun 20 13.75 miles easy? Xmas Devil's gallop. The running was easy enough. In the end it took us 2 hours and 15 minutes, although in fairness that did include five or six stops to let the group er, regroup. At some point, while we were waiting around at the beginning of the section along the shoreline, some of us even stood around taking pictures.
This version of the devil's gallop goes on tarmac for about 6.5 miles, on trails for another 2 then along the sandy shoreline of the river Mersey for a further 2 miles. We finally resurface on city streets just shy of a mile and a half from the sports centre where we all meet. We always do this run the Sunday before xmas and then all meet up at one of the local eateries for brunch. This time our favourite place asked us to turn up for 10:30 because they had another large booking at 12:30, so we had to get going a bit earlier than usual...
...It was a gorgeous morning for about 15 minutes at the end of the shore section. The rest of the time it was a good, solid example of north western bleak. But hey, when sleet started coming down we all got free exfoliation. I bet you could pay good money for this sort of thing in a Spa. When the wind and sleet were off it was nice though. Just around freezing so nothing to get too worried about, really. These conditions are nothing to people used to continental weather, but because of our position and closeness to the sea it rarely gets colder than this in this part of England, which made this morning a proper winter's day.
The roads and pavements were covered in ice and a thin layer of snow, which on the trails and shoreline also hid all the pools of water beneath. The trails are normally a mudbath in winter, and today was no exception. Two blokes went through the ice up to their knees, whilst another went for a dive in a giant puddle. Looking at him you'd have thought he was trying to swim his way out. Let's just say that the only visible body parts at some stage were his head and his arse. Speaking of arses, I seemed to spend more time on mine than on my feet. I went flying four times, which has to be a new record. Twice on icy tarmac, once on the trails and once on the shoreline. Fortunately, like Buzz Lightyear, I may not be able to fly but I do fall with style, so I didn't do any damage. I expect all the martial arts training had to do me some good in the end. Two decent side breakfalls and two side rolls were all I needed to avoid harm. Of course I would have preferred to stay on my feet, but given my choice of footwear I soon realised that that wasn't going to be on the cards.
The fourt time I fell, in fact, I went, rolled, got up and carried on whilst my running chum and I carried on talking. That, my friends, is falling with style. Even though I say so myself. Can't speak for the others, but today I blame my shoes, LOL! I always keep an old pair for this run because we always end up caked in mud, but today I could have done with something with a little more tread than my baldy-soled old shoes had to offer. For some reason I completely forgot about the conditions. It didn't help that we had to set off at 07:45 hours, at which time I'm barely conscious, let alone capable of rational thought. I'm surprised I actually remembered to put on shoes at all. Next year I'll have to remember this.
Total for week: 43.75
Evening & weekend runs are on the road.
Mon 14 4 miles easy am.
Tue 15 3 miles easy am, 7M in the evening. Club night, we went too fast though. We ended up doing 8:30 pace. At least I managed to keep it steady.
Wed 16 3 miles easy am.
Thu 17 3 miles easy am, 7 miles easy in the evening. More of the same, unfortunately. I may have to ditch the group and run on my own next week. They only seem to have one speed at any given time, mostly the wrong one for me, LOL!
Fri 18 3 miles easy am
Sat 19 Rest. I was planning to do 5 today and 9 tomorrow, but I'll have to do nearly 14 tomorrow because of the xmas Devil's Gallop and running club slap up breakfast at Mrs Miggins Pie Shop the Tavern, so today I'll just concentrate on getting my hair done.
Sun 20 13.75 miles easy? Xmas Devil's gallop. The running was easy enough. In the end it took us 2 hours and 15 minutes, although in fairness that did include five or six stops to let the group er, regroup. At some point, while we were waiting around at the beginning of the section along the shoreline, some of us even stood around taking pictures.
This version of the devil's gallop goes on tarmac for about 6.5 miles, on trails for another 2 then along the sandy shoreline of the river Mersey for a further 2 miles. We finally resurface on city streets just shy of a mile and a half from the sports centre where we all meet. We always do this run the Sunday before xmas and then all meet up at one of the local eateries for brunch. This time our favourite place asked us to turn up for 10:30 because they had another large booking at 12:30, so we had to get going a bit earlier than usual...
...It was a gorgeous morning for about 15 minutes at the end of the shore section. The rest of the time it was a good, solid example of north western bleak. But hey, when sleet started coming down we all got free exfoliation. I bet you could pay good money for this sort of thing in a Spa. When the wind and sleet were off it was nice though. Just around freezing so nothing to get too worried about, really. These conditions are nothing to people used to continental weather, but because of our position and closeness to the sea it rarely gets colder than this in this part of England, which made this morning a proper winter's day.
The roads and pavements were covered in ice and a thin layer of snow, which on the trails and shoreline also hid all the pools of water beneath. The trails are normally a mudbath in winter, and today was no exception. Two blokes went through the ice up to their knees, whilst another went for a dive in a giant puddle. Looking at him you'd have thought he was trying to swim his way out. Let's just say that the only visible body parts at some stage were his head and his arse. Speaking of arses, I seemed to spend more time on mine than on my feet. I went flying four times, which has to be a new record. Twice on icy tarmac, once on the trails and once on the shoreline. Fortunately, like Buzz Lightyear, I may not be able to fly but I do fall with style, so I didn't do any damage. I expect all the martial arts training had to do me some good in the end. Two decent side breakfalls and two side rolls were all I needed to avoid harm. Of course I would have preferred to stay on my feet, but given my choice of footwear I soon realised that that wasn't going to be on the cards.
The fourt time I fell, in fact, I went, rolled, got up and carried on whilst my running chum and I carried on talking. That, my friends, is falling with style. Even though I say so myself. Can't speak for the others, but today I blame my shoes, LOL! I always keep an old pair for this run because we always end up caked in mud, but today I could have done with something with a little more tread than my baldy-soled old shoes had to offer. For some reason I completely forgot about the conditions. It didn't help that we had to set off at 07:45 hours, at which time I'm barely conscious, let alone capable of rational thought. I'm surprised I actually remembered to put on shoes at all. Next year I'll have to remember this.
Total for week: 43.75