Today's Run

[GregMay]

To the Pike again. Needed some sunlight or I was going to go mental. Really needed not to be at a desk.

Dobbed shoes on again, able to run on the sheet ice up top with no worries. Saw no one, was wonderful running into the setting sun as it all went golden.

10km in an hour, 380m of up.

[PaulB2]

I had to go grab my bike from a friend’s garage so I thought I might as well run over via a circuitous route. My head torch is not very good in the pitch black so I ran straight into what I thought was a shallow puddle but rapidly turned into a foot deep pool with surface ice. Since I was wet anyway it wasn’t worth turning around so carried on plodging through - I probably would have turned around if it had been daylight and I’d been able to see what I was doing but hohum. I’ll see if my shoes have survived tomorrow.

[sean_iow]

I needed to get out as I'd swapped Wednesday's run commute for the bike but I'd been on a site visit earlier in the day and knew how cold it was, well for here compared to what I'm used to. Even the fact I had new shoes didn't seem to be motivating me, I didn't want to get them muddy, but I somehow managed to get out.

The shoes stayed dry for all of 1.6 miles before a shin deep section put an end to that Did a local loop and actually went on a footpath I've never been on before, despite the fact that it's less than a mile from my house and under half a mile from my Mum's where I grew up, I guess there are so many paths here that I've never needed to use it but I saw the sign and thought I'd just see where it went. I also saw my old Scout leader out walking his dog, he didn't recognise me at first but it has been over 30 years and I've only seem him a couple of times in that and I didn't have the beard then. Pleased I went in the end, the sun was out and despite it being 2 degrees I was just warm enough, I will relax with a beer later.

7.4 miles, 514 feet, 1hr 7min

[RIP]

So did he convince you to re-join the Scouts then?

[sean_iow]

So did he convince you to re-join the Scouts then?

He didn't ask, but we did remark on how long ago that was now. For context, his eldest child is younger than me, but him and his siblings have produced 17 grandchildren and 4 great-grand children. Doesn't sound like 'be prepared' has been their moto

[GregMay]

Skipped todays hill intervals to go ice climbing locally...not very often I get to say that. I think it was a valid excuse.

[whitestone]

Skipped todays hill intervals to go ice climbing locally...not very often I get to say that. I think it was a valid excuse.

Cliviger?

[GregMay]

Skipped todays hill intervals to go ice climbing locally...not very often I get to say that. I think it was a valid excuse.

Cliviger?

Yup

[PaulB2]

Managed to squeeze in a pre-sausage sandwich run this morning - forgot to press the start button until I was 5 minutes in so around 6.8k in 41 minutes. Now for the reward

[GregMay]

So f*****g cold. -5 before the wind, calculator makes it at about -17 on the tops. Felt like it. Snot froze twice. Ran out into a headwind for the first 30 mins before climbing up onto the main ridge and turning tail to the wind. Snow,snow,snow,ice, ice, ice. Thankfully out with my winter running shoes again - felt like a dope down at the valley clacking along, but worth every clack when I went up high.

Popped out along the ridge to the local high point to check out the lee side where I thought there might be some skiable pockets of snow...which there are. Going to pop up again later and fall over for a while :)

2.5hrs, 18km, 700m vert, two bouts of frozen snot, wore nearly all the clothes in my bag (worrisome as I popped my emergency layer on it was so cold).

[Dave Barter]

Just back from another 14.5 mile coast to coast. Felt stronger this week until suddenly I wasn’t. Better conditions underfoot and I’m below 9 minute miles which is encouraging. I’m now going to eat everything in the world and we need to get a bath fitted in our tiny house

[GregMay]

I am Gregs body, I am tired, it has been a long week, you have abused me in several orientations you've not tried in many years. Just because it snows hard while windy and you know that there will be great photography up high doesn't mean we need to go up there. Just because the local waterfalls freeze you don't need to go climbing. And just there is just enough snow left to ski - doesn't mean you should do all this on top of a week of working and training. I hate you.

Regards,
Legs.

Tired does not come close to how i felt going OUT on my run today. Only an hour and quarter planned, but the weather was still crap, the thaw had not yet arrived and it was going to be hard under foot. Felt pretty beaten up but laced up the spiky shoes again and walked up the first climb. Started jogging. Started running. Wind was brutal. Not as cold as yesterday, but still enough to slow me down. Eventually turned as planned up the final climb and got a wind assist up and over. Must be how e-bikers feel. Smug. Down the last bit of single track that nearly finishes at my doorstep. Opened the door to be attacked by my daughter with promises of cake. Then the rain came. Perfect timing.

[Verena]

Decided to celebrate Valentine's Day by running a heart shape-ish on Strava. 4k ish round town. Felt too nice to go home just yet, so I added another 6k ish for good measure.
Got home, then the rain came. Perfect timing. Snap.

[sean_iow]

The usual post work Monday run, a variation on a theme, there are enough paths from my usual start point to vary it week by week.

Unlike last Monday's 1 degree, crystal clear and crunchy underfoot this week was 11 degrees, mist and mud. 8.5 miles in 1 hr 16 min with 960 feet, that's 9 min/mile but that doesn't really portray how hard I was going, but weaving my way along narrow muddy paths and picking my way down washed out tracks uses more energy than it produces forward progress but does add to the fun

[PaulB2]

Your slow pace is still faster than my fast pace so I wouldn't worry about it

[sean_iow]

Thanks, I try to avoid comparing my pace to others though as there's always someone faster.

I used to work with a runner who could run in the 5's and keep it up for 26 miles, his marathon pace is literally faster than my sprint

[PaulB2]

I didn’t have a lot of time today so didn’t bother with a warm up which was probably a mistake - everything felt sluggish and hard work. 5.1k in 31 minutes around town

[GregMay]

Our fell club is doing our championship races as virtual timetrial races. Usual 2 short, 2 medium, 2 long - age group adjusted.

Wife wanted to go and reccie the next race in the series and I had nothing else planned to do, knew there was a nice descent in the route so joined in. One hour with some route finding, snow drift wading, 400m of up and a veggie chilli on nachos at the end. Almost felt like normality for a few short minutes.

[Dave Barter]

Got angry at work. Went out and ran a little under 9 miles in a huff. 8:25mile pace with 1100ft climbing. Must get angry more but really just wanted to go faster than sean so he feels bad for getting done over by an old man

[sean_iow]

I'd assumed I was older than you Dave? It must be your boyish good looks, I'm 51 next week.

I'm running to work in the morning so I now have the motivation to up my effort level

[Dave Barter]

You are a mere youngster so I expect sub 8s

[sean_iow]

When my alarm went off the sound of the rain and wind outside didn't bode well for setting a PB on the run to work, which was a relief as Dave's sub 8 min/mile target would be hard work. I did the route in just under and hour before which was 7:59 pace and that was with a lighter pack and on dry trails, although they are generally pretty good tracks and a fair bit is surfaced so the wet doesn't slow things down too much.

I set off into the dark at a high pace anyway and after the first mile a glance at the watch showed I was under the 8 min/mile target, bugger, now I have to try and keep this up. The first section is also slightly downhill, more of a false flat than a proper gradient but it would have helped all the same. Round the corner and into the wind, and now slightly uphill, I may as well get both the climb and running into the wind out of the way at the same time. Still under the target pace. Despite overheating as I'd put my waterproof on (the rain stopped as soon as I left home) I pushed on as hard as I dared. Somehow managing to actually gain a bit of time on the cycle-path into town. Still inside my target and now on the pavements I counted the road crossings to come in my head, 7 to go and traffic at any of them would slow me down.

On the approach to the crossing at the bottom of the high street at the main roundabout I could see the lights were green, so they'd be red for the high street and I could go straight across, but would they still be red by the time I got there, sprinting now to beat the lights, only 3 more roads to cross and they should be quiet, a last push along the road to the office and I'm in the car park and stopping the watch..... 55 min 06 seconds, 7.36 miles which is 7:29 min/mile

Luckily I could remember these figures as my Garmin won't upload even luckier is that I copied the file to my desktop as now the watch has deleted my history, when I look it up it says No History - Go Run! it can get f****d, I did go run, as hard as I have in years and you (the watch) didn't manage to save all the data correctly So if anyone is any good at repairing .fit files let me know, I tried the online one but had a message about ended after name or something, the file is 13kb so about the right size for the length of run.

[whitestone]

Nice one Sean.

Presumably it was fitfiletools.com - https://www.fitfiletools.com/#/top that you tried.

[Dave Barter]

Firstly, if it's not on Strava etc...

Second, the target was for over 8 miles. Anything under does not count. So up the game and distance on way home

ps. this was off road yes?

[sean_iow]

I did, I also tried this one

http://garmin.kiesewetter.nl/

But I get this message

Unexpected end of file while parsing Name has occurred. Line 151558, position 9.

Which doesn't mean much to me I expect Dave would know what it means but as I've upped the benchmark now he's unlikely to help To be fair to Dave, my run only had 84 feet of climbing, he's done that by the time he's got to the end of his road, so there's no way I could run even close to that pace where he lives, but I'd much prefer the hills and coastal path he has to mine.