The hills have eyes

Day 312 Wednesday 7th November 9.2 miles : miles to date 2053.4 Well that was an odd one. A lunchtime run from Berko in my Ron Hill's meant a choice between mud glorious mud, or playing chicken with oncoming cars on the road to Tring. I plumped for the road on the basis that I still had an afternoon's work and no shower facilities meant I couldn't scrub the dirt off. Baby wipes and out of date fake LaCoste aftershave only goes so far to tamper the smell. The road choice was surprisingly undulating and I set out just trying to run evenly. As I neared Tring, I decided to keep going and loop around the outskirts towards the canal. I ducked out of coming back that way and eventually found a hill, that got steeper as you went up. By the time I got to what I thought was the top, I was puffing hard. As I rode the crescent, it hit me it wasn't and I had another forty feet to go. Legs and lungs were burning, but as any X-C runner will tell you, hit the top and keep on striding. The downhill will make you run faster naturally and despite that, you will also recover. I slowed myself down when I hit 6.20 pace on the way down, despite the hill moments before. I then switched onto cruise control and kept it steady all the way, clocking an average 7.02 per mile. It was odd in that I just didn't think I was running smoothly, evenly, fast or with any great style. Given the number of inclines, all in all, an unexpected decent time with limited dirt on the legs (cheers Ron) and just a mild smell of mildew under the pin stripe.

Day 311 Tuesday 6th November 8.6 miles : miles to date 2044.2 My intended run at the club's speed session was torpedoed by traffic, so I headed over to Ampthill just to put in some junk miles with no specific training aim other than to add to the tally. Just over a half mile in I bumped into Jody Buczynski early into an 18 miler, so I tagged along with him just shooting the breeze. Its amazing really how two runners together can just whittle away the time talking about exactly the same things time after time. Races, plans, nutrition, pacing, distances, how well someone else is doing, mile splits etc. If we went out again tomorrow we would quite happily talk about the same things and no doubt dissect them in even more detail. We didn't talk about world peace, investment prospects in emerging Asian markets or finding a cure for leukemia. We just talked running and anything related. I often come home from a run and Fi say's to me, what's the news or gossip? The answer is invariably none, as runners seem to just talk about, er, running stuff. Anyway, it was great just to meander around with Jody who missed Chester through injury and is running Luton marathon in ten days instead. For only the second time in seven years, I've not entered it and will be taking my lad to rugby instead. It seems to me, that to run a super fast marathon in the spring, I need to concentrate on my fitness now with some speed work and running an in between Luton marathon is pointless. Boring but true. This need for speed is going to cost me at least a year in my long term plans to join the 100 marathon club. Ho hum.

Fireworks night

Day 310 Monday 5th November 8 miles : miles to date 2035.6 Well that was a lot harder than it should have been. The intention was a straight forward run at what I hoped might be a comfortable pace of around 7.15 per mile. I decided to lap the country park in the cold and dark with my head torch. Almost straight away, I felt a little out of sorts and struggled with my running gait partly through difficulties with my depth perception in the dim light. The cold made my breathing a little harder and even Axel screaming out on the long play i-pod thingy machine didn't help. There were a few surprises on route to keep me occupied. A muntjac appeared within feet of me on the path. My torch made its eyes glow and we were both a little startled. Rabbits everywhere, a couple strolling in the night air and some odd chap wandering around on his own. I saw the last bloke three times as I lapped, but didn't stop to ask him what he was doing. Towards the end, the Guy Fawkes celebrations kicked off in the village with a huge firework display. I assume it was that, rather than the village being impressed by my run. I eventually ground out the eight at an average pace of 7.19 per mile. I'm not at all happy with the grinding bit and it appears to be time that the pre training for the race training Voldemort plan mark (ii) needs to begin. I''m a convert to race pace training and I want to go into the next plan fit enough to go to the next level. To infinity...and beyond. Now who said that?

Day 309 Sunday 4th November 10 miles : miles to date 2027.6 Having frozen the essentials watching my lad play rugby early doors, I just wasn't looking forward to running any distance today. The lure of the warm, cosy, living room was a powerful force and I temporarily dozed off with Daisy on top of me, only to be awoken by Fi in her kit saying lets go. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to go, let alone how far. As I had been so cold in the rain earlier, my new running jacket got its first full proper outing. The rain has been hammering down, so we decided to stay on the roads and head over to part of Bedford Harriers forthcoming half marathon course. The rain had eased albeit the wind had not and this made even the slight inclines difficult. I still cant quite get over RW's description of it as a flat course. Its just not and even though we only covered around 4 miles of the course, it was undulating and hilly. We headed out five miles and rather than loop, just turned and came back the same way. I don't have a problem with doing that, as I always think the same route looks different going the other way. Even so, I was tired, cold and wet and any thought I might have had about running further just evaporated when we came close to the front door. Having arrived back, I was promptly kicked out again to walk Daisy. Slowly and with a lot more layers of clothes on

2012 in 2012

Day 308 Saturday 3rd November - Run One - 4.3 miles : miles to date 2014.6 Run Two - 3 miles : miles to date 2017.6 Run one was a very early morning start in the frost and dark, to help Annie Page deliver a master class in x-c coaching. We arrived early to set out the hilly and taxing route we had chosen through the glorious confines of Stockgrove country park. One of my fav races runs through the park every year and is a little known jewel in the areas crown with almost 34 miles of almost entirely trail running. Today's route was further over and positioned strategically for a bacon buttie and coffee after it was done. As I was coaching, I didn't really put much effort in during the session as I think it's more important to encourage the runners than try to get any fitness benefit yourself. I darted between the trails taking shortcuts, as did Annie, to cheer them on. I still managed to clock up a few miles setting out the course and darting about, so I indulged in a jolly decent cuppa and sarnie whilst chewing the fat with the crew afterwards in the cold air and bright sun. Great start to the morning. Run two was an unplanned one. I was in the car, toasting the crown jewels on the heated seats when I realised I could make it back to a local Parkrun where Fi was in charge of timing, to join her for an easy stretch of the legs. She asked me to bring a coffee over and said I had no money, but I'd had a lovely one and sarnie so I was all right. That went down well. A comfortable stroll around the park followed, after a minor panic when my antique Garmin watch was accidentally left on top of the car. Its so old, I'm surprised that no one left us a fiver to buy a new one. Fi is now keeping her fingers crossed that she got the timings right. Parkruns are entirely free weekly 5k events, put on by volunteers for no monetary reward up and down the UK. They rely heavily on the goodwill of volunteers week in, week out. Today's event almost didn't happen due to the low number of volunteers, despite the high number of runners. I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't yet volunteered which I will put right in the next few weeks

Day 307 Friday 2nd November 7.3 miles : miles to date 2010.3 Dooohhh. I've done it again. If I had looked at the total, I would have done another 1.7 miles to finish on 2012 in 2012. I ran part of the Bedford half marathon course today, which is described in Runners World as flat. As I was puffing quite hard up a rather steep incline, I was minded to drop a line to the Editor to point out the inaccurate route description, before running down the other side and puffing back up another incline thirty feet later. I don't suspect I will be troubling my PB in next months race unless a new plan is adopted and fast. I think the batteries are now well stocked, albeit not super charged. I am starting to think that I'm on the final lap of this challenge and need to realise that I have still got two months to go and 489.7 miles to cover. Damn, just worked out that's 8.16 miles per day. Mmm, that seems a long way all of a sudden.

Day 306 Thursday 1st November 3 miles : miles to date 2003 After a late night/early morning HallOwen curry with the Born Again's, it was a lazy day avoiding the subject of running. I rarely channel hop and watch daytime TV. The absolute dross that was on, eventually forced me out the door on a straight forward village loop. The highlight of the run was the first wearing of my new running jacket, which fits like a glove. Fi threw my last one out due to the over powering stench and fungus growing in the armpits. Its taken me an age to find the right one as I'm an odd shape. Think Ernie Wise with shorter legs. Once I got out, it was fine albeit slow and uneventful. The jacket stood up well to the four spots of rain and the, er, quite warm temperature.