Today's Run

[GregMay]

The Drop - Winchester
No Map, No Compass, No GPS!!

What a fantastic idea! I'm totally going to blag that and use it with our fellrunning club :)

[GregMay]

Urban orienteering in Manchester yesterday, part of a 4 day series of races. 34 controls, 7.5km, 37mins. Brutally fast. Had a good run, pretty much perfect route (was supposed to be 7.6km best line) came 4th vet by 6 seconds (mildly annoying) and only 16th overall including the fast M21 runners. Happy with that.

[GregMay]

Coiners fell race - 11km with 325m vet and a lot of fast trails that my legs can't handle at the moment! Started out hard (careful now) in order to get to the stile that always causes a bottle neck. Ran well up the next climb and flat before having a bit of a wobble along the climb to the Pike. Lost a place, but got it back on the next decent. Ploughed on trying to not stop before the final plunge into the finish line and a sprint away from another local. 1:06, which I'm happy with.

Legs were not recovered from Saturdays race!

[Bearlegged]

Made it all the way round the Round Sheffield Run route. 25km, a bit over 3h10m. There was a certain amount of walking, shuffling and stopping to inhale jelly beans. Approx. 10km more than I've ever done in one go before. Legs are now toast.

[PaulE]

Made it all the way round the Round Sheffield Run route. 25km, a bit over 3h10m. There was a certain amount of walking, shuffling and stopping to inhale jelly beans. Approx. 10km more than I've ever done in one go before. Legs are now toast.

Well done that man! It's a great route too, and I guess you can run it from the front door too!

[PaulB2]

Nice, have you started planning your next long run yet?

I'm pootling along at 16-20km a week at the moment but struggling to find the time for longer runs. Not sure if I'm getting fitter or running out of one of my meds had a curious side effect but my resting heart rate is in the 40s again for the first time in years and for my last run I stayed in zone 3 the entire time but at a pace where I'd typically be 10-15bpm higher. Now I've got a new supply, it'll be interesting to see if I am actually getting fitter.

[PaulE]

Yesterday's run was the austwick amble fell race - 8 miles and a fair bit of disturbingly runnable climbing. Accidentally ended up on the front line at the start as I was saying hello to a fellow dark Peak fell runner... Set off at a front line pace, so got cramp after about 100m! Quick bit of self massage (to the lower thighs) while walking got that somewhat sorted. Never felt massively fast, but had an enjoyable run across some stunning limestone scenery.

Sadly put my foot in a boggy hole on the last descent, and bent my left knee the wrong way. Feels a bit delicate, but not too bad today. 3 minutes slower than last year, which works for me.... and apparently the teammate won by miles too!

[GregMay]

Spent 3 days in the hills doing a walking trip...then decided a local fast orienteering race was a good idea after a day climbing with my daughter....it was nice training, but it wasn't racing for me :)

[PaulB2]

Last evening's run really. The trail running group I've been running once a week with has a fortnightly 4 mile 'time trial' around a marked course where you set off at a specific time based on the pace you're going to run it at so that the faster people have something to chase and the slower people have a bit of encouragement to try and stay ahead of the quicker people. The theory is that everyone will finish within a few minutes of each other for a bit of a natter at the end and some cake. The route is all nicely marked out with little triangles at junctions where you have to make a change of direction.

I've done the run a couple of times before but I've always had someone within eyesight so navigation has never really been an issue but last night I got held up by traffic so I was about 10 minutes later than I normally start. Just as I got there a group of 3 set off so I thought I'd latch on to the group and adjust my pace from there. Long story short, apparently I'm not as fit as the last time I ran this course so I had to slow down (a lot) once my heart rate went into the 170s. That meant after about 2/3 of the way around the route I knew I was tail-end charlie and I couldn't see anyone. Of course, that's when the markers disappeared on a section I didn't really recognise - I knew there was a left turn somewhere but wasn't sure exactly where so carried on down the trail through the trees until I came out to a short sharp descent down to another trail which I knew was definitely not where I was meant to be. I could climb back up the hill and try and find the left (now right) turn or just give in on the prescribed route and follow the trail in front of me and just take a left when I could to go in the right general direction. I decided on the latter choice and headed downhill until I could see a car park with people in. I get there and it turns it out it's not the car park I started in so I took the trail to the left and headed gradually up a valley. Half a kilometer of very gradual climbing later I recognise that a right turn takes me to the foot of the steep climb that's on the correct route so up I go. I get to the top to see my first marker for quite a while which was a relief and I knew there was just two right turns until the final straight shot across the heath to the finishing point. The only problem was that there was no second triangle and the heath had a lot more foliage than the last time I was on it so I wasn't entirely sure where to turn. I ended up taking a right turn but that just took me out to the road so I knew it was just a short jog down the road to the finish. Only 15 minutes off my fastest time of 39 minutes

It turns out some kind soul had removed two flags entirely and changed the direction on 2 others so I wasn't the only one who got lost but everyone else seemed to have a better idea of how to get themselves back on track By the time I'd got back I just a saw a couple of people chatting at their cars. I should have just loaded my last strava run as a route on my phone for emergency navigation so I'll do that next time so lesson learnt and I got to use some other trails that I'd not used before so no harm done.

[sean_iow]

Getting lost running is so much worse than when walking as you get further away from where you are meant to be faster

When it's not an event you can call it 'exploring' instead

[PaulB2]

I need to spend more time just driving to the woods, putting on the shoes and then just going down random trails. There’s a fair amount I recognise from riding or walking but I’ve lost count of the number of trails I’ve been on while following another runner while having no clue where I am relative to a landmark I recognise

[sean_iow]

I've not run since last September... a friend is training for a 100k event and keeps sending me pictures of the countryside when he's out running.

Inspired by this I actually went out today 'just' the 4 miles as taking it easy and it's about 25 degrees

Not as bad as I feared it would be, don't know why I've put it off for so long. Better than mowing the lawn which was the other option.

[Dave Barter]

I ran my 5k PB yesterday at Parkrun so pleased to get 19:52. Now working up to the Torquay 10k next month

[PaulB2]

Nice! I just seem to have plateaued at the moment

[Dave Barter]

Tough week as I build volume and start working on intervals. Today was a pyramid session at 7am. Rest day tomorrow then Parkrun which I suspect will be slower this week

[Dave Barter]

Parkrun was considerably faster at 19:31. Can’t work out why as I felt pretty destroyed in the last kilometre.