It is difficult to keep up with the blog these days, I am just out running too much!! Good excuse I suppose.
Had not realized there was the training log in Strava. It actually gives a very good weekly summary of my activities. Really it almost renders what I am doing here redundant as it is the same data, except it was not! My weekly totals on this site was splitting the week on a Saturday, so that the weekly totals were different to Strava where Monday is the first day of the week. I have fixed that now so that my weekly totals in the below images are the same as Strava to within a couple of metres climbing a week.
After three years in a row doing the Stockpot 10 in December, this year, instead, I ran the Tour of Pendle since the last time I updated the blog. Its a great race nothing special about the climb to the first check point but then it is a lovely 6Km section on soft spongy ground between CP 1 & CP2, loved that section. The hills come tick and fast after that. It really is a tough second half to the race. I had prepared a lovely map for myself with the route plotted out and everything. I send a copy to my brother in Dublin who was coming over for it and printed out a couple of copies for use on race-day. Unlike my brother who studied it closely so that on race day he always had and idea of where he was. Me on the other-hand stuck the map in my bum bag and ignored it the whole day. My navigation tactic consisted of relying on the large field so that I would probably have somebody to follow! I was OK except that I totally lost count of the number of climbs I had done and in my "addled" state I managed to convince myself my guesstimate finish time was 2:45 and not 3:45. So when I climbed the second last hill I though that was it just the 4Km run home now. I was not impressed when the route veered off into the middle-of-no-where again :) I then managed to convince myself that I actually had two more climbs. When I was overtaken on the last climb by a friend from BG support duties he told me this was the last climb. I was not sure I believed him until a stranger confirmed what I was told. What he said was "we would not lie!" It was amazing that despite there being 400 starters we got very thin on the ground by this late stage of the race. I was OK as after the second last checkpoint a couple of people ahead of me headed across a moor without a moment hesitation. I just used my navigation skills gained from years in the mountains to follow them! My bother was not so lucky looking at our Strava times he was 20 minutes behind me at that checkpoint but ended up finishing up over 40 minutes behind by going the wrong way at that checkpoint (they followed the path they came up and had to veer to the right to get to the last CP). That run-out at the end is cruel sheer stubbornness kept me running to the end to come home in 3:34. My guess was 3:45 to 4:00 based on looking at the previous results and knowing generally where I finish. I would loved to have got into the top half but my 3:34 was 12 minutes too slow.
I had a dicky right ankle the whole day and it really slowed my up on the faster sections. My club mate Anna from Pennine overtook me about 5 times during the race but I always caught her on the next climb. If I had been faster on the downhills I would easily have taken that 12 minutes off my time. Considering it was my first visit to Pendle I was very happy with how the day went.
I have had ankle problems (both of them at different times) off and on for years. I have now changed the work I am doing in the gym to try to strengthen them up. There is no way I could get around a BG if I am struggling on the downhills.
