Just an easy hour after work, the legs were ok after Friday's hills, but I didn't push it on the ups. I also ended up doing a 12 mile walk with Jane yesterday, don't know if that will have helped or hindered the recovery.

A week without rain and the sunshine and breeze over the weekend has dried the trails quite a bit, I might even go for an off road bike ride after work tomorrow

6.7 miles, 762 feet, 1 hour 1 minute

Well needed recovery week. While distance per week has only been 70km or so, the vertical and nature of only training on fell over winter is quite debilitating! Last three weeks really ramped up.

40mins on easy trails (pretty buff singletrack), 5km and 250m of vert.

Run commute this morning. With no targets set by Dave this week I took it steady and it was a pleasant run in to work, not surprising as I was going 1 min/mile slower than last time.

On my ride yesterday I stopped and talked to an old bloke out walking his dog. He remarked than unless they go the cauliflowers in the field down the track in soon they'd loose them. As I ran past this morning at 06:45 they had just started harvesting so that should please him.

There were lots more cycle commuters on the cycle path this morning than there has been over the winter, it must be that time when those who don't go through the winter start up again.

7.35 miles, 1 hr 1 min, 84* ft

* Sorry Dave, it not my fault it's so flat

I like that you use feet for height to make it bigger It's not possible for me to do a run that flat from where I live. Even running to the canal to run I'll do 35m of descent/ascent! Let alone counting the lock gates and their "massive" altitude gain.

GregMay wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 11:18 am I like that you use feet for height to make it bigger

In metres it would be embarrassingly flat Most of the route in follows the old railway line, they knew what they were doing those Victorians. On the way home I'll head over the Downs to get some up in, I've no fixed end time so I can make it as hard or easy as I like.

Popped out for a lunchtime run, 6k in 35 minutes and 105’ of elevation. Yep, sounds a lot more impressive in feet

sean_iow wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:34 pm

GregMay wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 11:18 am I like that you use feet for height to make it bigger

In metres it would be embarrassingly flat Most of the route in follows the old railway line, they knew what they were doing those Victorians. On the way home I'll head over the Downs to get some up in, I've no fixed end time so I can make it as hard or easy as I like.

Feet, miles, pints. Anything else and you can go live in France ;-)

Just ran the homewards leg of the comutte, went over St George's Down and also Knighton Down. Second one required a lot of willpower as I basically turned left off level track, climbed 240 feet on an 8% washed out path, ran along the ridge for less than 1/4 of a mile then turned right and came back down to join the track I was on originally but slightly further on.

Called in at my mum's to pick up her shopping list, snuck a few chewey sweets from the jar into the pocket on my rucksack strap. As I ran the last mile from mum's to my house I thought there was a dolly mixture left in the pocket I'd missed, but it was just the cord end form the bottle pocket tucked in to stop it flapping about

10.5 miles 911 feet 1 hr 38 mins

I’ve just done my first head torch run of 2021 after a long day working. Sadly it’s rained so we have slippy trails but it was nice to chill out and not look at the watch. 7.12 miles and 712 feet, that won’t happen again!

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 6:14 pm Feet, miles, pints. Anything else and you can go live in France ;-)

How's that blue passport going for you Dave?

Euro in blood and bone - even if our daughter was born in Halifax...she's only getting a burgundy passport. One of the perks of being blow in i guess

GregMay wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:24 pm

Dave Barter wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 6:14 pm Feet, miles, pints. Anything else and you can go live in France ;-)

How's that blue passport going for you Dave?

Euro in blood and bone - even if our daughter was born in Halifax...she's only getting a burgundy passport. One of the perks of being blow in i guess

It's the one area where I am utterly jingoistic. It comes from my road club days where everything was imperial and all races/time trials were as well. I have no idea how far a kilometre is and when I wrote Great British Bike Rides my publisher made me add them in. Own up Greg you do it to make your runs longer ;-)

I'm a scientist, so I use the internationally recognised units of science

10.85km in 58 mins. But as it's mostly downhill should I use feet or metres?

Quite surprised really as I thought I was burst after my big(for me) walk on Tuesday.

Unexpected free start of the morning thanks to world book day, so headed out before lessons. 20 and a bit km, 750m climb over Derwent edge, howden and ladybower. Snowing and well below zero on top, fairly warm and even a bit sunny down at the reservoirs. Feeling a bit tired now!

Easy hour, feeling fine on a nice recovery week. 8km 360m of up.

Only had half an hour so thought i’d test out how my speed is compared to before the ankle fracture. 5k in 26 minutes, so actually faster than before. Back to slower longer distances for a while.

PaulB2 wrote: ↑Fri Mar 05, 2021 2:34 pm Only had half an hour so thought i’d test out how my speed is compared to before the ankle fracture. 5k in 26 minutes, so actually faster than before. Back to slower longer distances for a while.

For comparison that’s faster than me

Got a bit carried away today with the sunshine and dry trails
11.3k 240m in 1h 15

Very unofficial fell club mountain marathon champs "race" today. Normally the highlight of the early season for me - to the point where in years passed I've aimed to peak for it. I've finished second in it twice - last time on the same score as the winner, but back 1 minute later. Gutted - but they won a trophy and I got beer....so I still count that as a win.

Anyway, 3 hours to cover as many controls as you can. Split start from one of two town halls, no mass start, no hang around etc. Nothing to physically dib or punch, but a stake in the ground with a letter on it to confirm you'd hit the control. Two days to run the course took the element that helps me away - my ability to get marked up map in my hand, look at it, get moving in under a minute and navigate and run. Map being released on the Thursday night meant that people could (and have) planned their routes - I did to an extent, but didn't plot a GPX or anything to follow as I felt it was against the nature of the event.

First two controls are pretty much on my weekly run so I didn't need to get the map out for the first 20mins! Lots of fast running for the first hour to get to a chunk of control sites that I know where they but aimed to be as accurate as possible. Second hour and I start to run well, body warmed up now, long fast descending and some road to speed me along. Up into the complex nav on the other side of the valley before the fast running around the farm fields.

24km, 1030m, 2h 52mins - score should put me in the top 5 overall I'd suspect. A few from t'other fell club in the valley are competing and they are quicker than me when I'm not ultra training. Will be interesting to see who else from my club runs as well as me. I can think of two that may do so.

Now, screwed. Ran with an average HR 2 beats below my anaerobic threshold for the whole thing (89% of my max HR). Avg 154bpm, peak 170. My max HR is 173 for info - low for a 40 year old, but there was some.... impact of the TDR on my upper limit.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale...

Back with some new running shoes (no blisters this time!), and a good deal of physio in my back, I set out for part 3 of my quest to run all the roads in my grid square.

4.67km, 113m up, 31'59" (of which 27'21" moving).

Shoes seem comfy, back isn't perfect but will do.

Went out for a lovely dusk run, trails were dry and everything was great apart from the passive-aggressive walker who did not hear me say “Ta!”.

15 miles, longest run for many years, 8:30 pace which is a big result for me given 3500ft of ascent.

Landslide; Putting it into perspective - 20 years ago I couldn't and didn't run. Too much climbing, cake and booze. Even the concept of a 5km run was baffling. I did a lot of running during this "really fat" phase at night so no one would see me run for 200m, then walk, and then do that over and over and over again. Took about 2 years of this before I could comfortably run 5km slowly. 5 years before I could comfortably run 10km whenever I want. 10 years before I could just run (biking helped with general aerobic fitness a lot).

It's a scale for certain. But a scale it is possible to slide along with time. 10,000 hours or 10,000miles - mastery will occur if you put the time in.

I dunno about mastery, but I was running a bit a few years ago and went up to 13km at one point. I suffered a lot with really tight calf muscles though, and I let the running slide.

Now I've been doing yoga for 3 years and it seems to be helping a lot with n terms of suppleness. Hopefully with a bit more practice the distances will creep up again. I feel like 20km might be a nice target to aim for...

I think I started around 2 years ago, got up to around 9k in 4 months or so, then had to back off with knee pain, restarted again during first lockdown, had to stop in July for 6 months after my youngest took out my ankle and then restarted again in January. I’m trying to not overdo it this time round and just build the distance up to 10k gradually by going for two shorter runs during the week and then a longer run at the weekend.

No clue if it’s a good plan but seems to be working ok at the moment. No real aches and pains just a tight right calf at times which is my dodgy weaker leg

I didn’t manage to get out until the evening yesterday so only ended up doing 4.7k in 29 minutes. I need to get a new headlight for running /walking, my 15 year old petzl isn’t bright enough.

Well just got back in after a 1 miler! The Mrs was going out for a short pootle, as she always makes a start at running and then it dwindles away. Anyway I said "OK I'll come along", bearing in mind I haven't done any running for about 5 years when I used to rarely take part in the local park run. Back in 2012 I actually finished the London marathon with only about 50 miles of 'training'. So after this evening's 1 miler I will put my money on the fact that tomorrow I'll be walking like I've just done 20! Wobbly legs on the mile walk back