Training Comments 2013

PFR Run 12/12/13

GeoffB suggested a great run last night. Dragons Back, South Head, then Kinder Trog in reverse to Edale Cross to pickup the Kinder Downfall route back to Hayfield. Amazing the difference to this time last year. It was very mild last night misty and a slight drizzle. Really enjoyable evening.
Back to the Trigger.

This year I actually done some work for the Stockport 10 road race so each Tuesday I have been doing a 7 mile route on similar accent to the race itself. Now that is out of the way I have to start concentrating on the Trigger. Got out last night for 1:30 and done a couple of assents of Cobden Cross. Met two groups of Mountain Bikers, I always like meeting them, makes it less lonely when out in the dark. Pity I was not a couple of minutes further up the hill as I could have caught and overtook them. They were too close to the top road so I only passed one and met the rest of them on the road as they waited for the tailender. A quick good evening then the climb (for me) gets to the really serious section through "the banks" before the final road section up to Cobden Cross. Repeated the climb again before returning back to the Guide Hut for the pickup. There needs to be a lot more Cobden Cross reps done over the next five weeks.

All ready for the BG weekend.

Up at 5 am on Saturday morning for another 6 reps up to Cobden Cross. Went very well got the whole lot done in under 3 hrs. I even set my second fastest time for the hill climb segment. That is it now a couple of handy runs this week then upto the Lakes on Fraiday Afternoon.  Lets hope we are lucky with the weather and Stolly has not taken September's quoto of good conditions. Stolly was very lucky as 24 hr later the conditions were horrendus.

The Summer is Over

 Since getting back from Germany I have been working pretty hard in preperation for helping out with a Bob Graham attempt later on in September. Quite a few of the runs have been with the Head Torch. I also had to use it for the last 15 minutes of Pennines run last Thursday and I was sorry I did not bring it with me when running over in Hayfield on Monday while waiting for Cadets to finish. I has been a good summer both on the weather front and the running went well. A long six months of headtorch running now.


Thursday, July 18, 2013
Usually Thursday night Pennine get together. It was a lovely evening in the Car park and on the spur of the moment I suggest to AndyH would he be interested in a long run tonight? I suggested 2 hours and when I explained the route Wardy commented that it would be more than two hours, which did not really surprise me.

Kinder Clockwise Circuit Team.

I ended up getting a group of 5 so we headed off to the base of Sandy Heys  to have a very difficult climb in the sweltering heat. From there we headed directly north-east to hit the northern edge path round-about  Red Brook then followed that path around to Fairbrook Naze and onto Seal Stones. From there we took Tanky's famous five-minute-crossing to the south edge above Edale. It took us about six minutes! Done the reverse of the Edale Skyline around to Grindsbrook Clough and as it was now over two hours I decided that we would head straight across the platue to get over to the River Kinder. I did not have a map so I just tried to keep heading west using the compass when in reality I should have been heading more North-West. We ended up at the trig point at Crowden Head, I had never been there before and it was a surprise to meet two young lads that had a big bag of sweets so I helped my self to a crunchy bar! We continued west and eventually hit the edge path by Pym Chair which is further south than I intended but OK. Straight forward return from there by following the Kinder Downfall route back. It was starting to get a bit dark across Tunstead Fields but the running is pretty good underfoot along that stretch so no problem. We finished at about 10:30 so nearly 3 1/2 hours. Very enjoyable evening.

July 15th. 2013
Back to my usual assault on the Snake Path and Sandy Heys. I felt I was going pretty well going up Sandy Heys in sweltering heat while running in "Luv Shack" mode. Got home and uploaded the strava plot to get a time of 16:24 (my PB is 15:45 so it was my 3rd fastest.). That PB has stood a while now and the closest I have got to it is 15 seconds. Tonight I even check it to make sure there was nothing odd about it in case it was a mistake but it looks OK so I genuinely done 15:45.

July 10th. 2013

Another fantastic evening last night on the Pennine Relay from Ladybower reservoir to Hayfield. Trashed myself on Leg 2(Mam Tor) to give Stevie a chance on the last leg. It worked we WON
by 23 seconds in 2:08, 3 minutes outside the course record.  I am particularly chuffed with my 15:04 for the Loose Hill climb segment giving me 8th place out of 68 in the Strava League.

June 4rd. 2013
I have been concentrating on hill climbing lately in preparation for DazH's race later in June. The longest hill I have is the river Goyte upto Cobden Cross (about 210 metres climb). It is a quite a wooded track and on six reps of it on Saturday this is the resulting Strava Plot.

I done four reps last night and I was expecting the worse as I was assuming the trees were the cause of the poor sat. lock. but this was last night, pretty much perfect (with some illegal descending through the golf course between 10pm and midnight). I held the phone pretty much the same place on both runs and weather conditions were the same. Many times I have had it go a bit mad but never as bad as on Saturday.

June 3rd. 2013
Just an excuse to put up a photo from my phone (pity it is not better quality). Went up Three Knolls, last night. Went onto Kinder Low then the  top of Jacobs Ladder then back via Edale Cross and the Kinder Downfall route. Fantastic evening. Met two pensioner age women at Kinder Low at about 20:15, they had got lost following the Pennine way. I set them on the right track. they were intending on camping so did not matter so much that they were late. They tried to load a pile of sweets into me!! Probably could not get their head around somebody running.

Kinder Low Trig

April 15th. 2013
 It was the Kinder Downfall race over the weekend. With a lot more people using Strava  I had a look on Sunday to see I had dropped quite a few places on the Snake Path segment. I headed over to Hayfield last night to repeat what I done the previous Monday in a very strong head-wind namely Snake Path and Sandy Hays climbs and return the same route. It was a lovely evening and underfoot conditions very good so I thought I would be able to have a good blast at it. Went very well I set a PB on the snake path and jumped from 38th to 23rd out of 63 people with posted times. The one I am very happy about is talking about 67 seconds off my Sandy Hays time to jump from 10th to 7th. Have to see how long I hold that as now we are into the improving weather some of the faster runners in Pennine ,who have not posted a time yet, will start having a go at the segment.

Paul's Bob Graham this weekend. I am feeling good so hopefully it will be a successfull day for Paul and me! I would like to do three legs.
 
Feb 11th. 2013
Got myself involved with the "Overweight to Raceweight goal" on the FRA forums again. Determined to get down to the 70 Kg this year (did not quite get there last year before creeping back up a bit again). It is the next weigh-in on Wednesday so with that in mind I have been out running the last 4 days. Got out last night and done a 24 Km via Cobden Cross, Rowarth, Cowen Edge, Mellor Church and back to Marple. Very cold night and with frozen snow in most of the sheltered areas. Very enjoyable run and unsurprisingly did not see one person the whole night.

Strava
Started to use Strava now instead of RunKeeper. It is a bit of fun with the segments where I can see how I compare to other Strava Users and the Pennine Strava Club. My best Segment is the climb from the Foxes to New Mills golf club where I am 9th out of 80. Most of the 80 would be MTBers. On a climb like that running would be faster that trying to cycle it. I have overtaken MTBers a number of times on that climb. One of the segments last night was from the Little Mill up to the top of the climb. Not doing so well on that climb, well down the ranking. I see quite a few members of Pennine in that league table.

Jan 23rd. 2013.
I need to stop reading the FRA forums! After struggling in the ice last Thursday a guy on the forums let us know of an offer on at SportsShoes.com. They have
Inov-8 Oroc 340 on at £45. That is a bargain so for the umpteenth time I made a snap purchase because the "price was right" They arrived this afternoon so I went out at 9pm tonight for a five mile run. Lots of packed snow and ice. The shoes were great. I really enjoyed the run, so bright with all the stars and white snow.

Jan 17rd. 2013.
Pennine's long distance coordinator put another of her three hour runs on for last night. We arrived in Hayfield to a cold night with light snowfall. After some debate 3 of us decided to follow the Trans Pennine Bridleway from South Head to Rushup Edge then down Chapel Gate to Barber Booth. The return would be along the Pennine Way to Edale Cross, over to the fields below Kinder Low End and then down through Tunstead Fields to Hayfield. It was a tricky enough night, epically on the Trans Pennine bridleway as there was a lot of ice. The wind and snow was not so much a problem, in fact when in shelter it was a lovely evening. The steep descent via Chapel Gate was to prove to be my most difficult section as three times within a minute I lost my footing in the ice to go crashing down. The final fall wrenched my right arm and little finger (it is still sore). On the way back my five hours on Sunday's Trigger started to catch up with me and I started to struggle to keep up with the pace. Overall an enjoyable evening. We were out for 3 hrs from 7:10 to 10:10 and done about 13.5 miles.

Jan 10rd. 2013.
Last run before Sunday's Trigger, Not run since last Sunday as I felt a slight issue with my left ankle. Felt it again last night so kept it very steady, pretty much in last place for most of the night. Should be OK for Sunday. We went up to Lantern Pike to get an amazing night time temperature inversion. The Hayfield valley was shrouded in cloud with all of the hills visible with the starlight reflecting off the cloud. We have had so many incredibly memorable (for the right reasons) night runs

Roll on Sunday, weather forecast looking similar to last year.

Jan 3rd. 2013.

Lovely conditions tonight, still pretty tired from the Trigger reccie on Monday. Stephen and I decided to do  a bit extra by doing an up and down of Sandy Hays. Very misty on top and we lost the path on the decent. Lovely runkeeper plot of our antics.

The kilometer from 7km to 8 km should have followed back the same line as the kiolmeter from 6 Km to 7Km