the wrong route grommit!

Decided to head for another run last night after the previous few days efforts, but picked the wrong route for the conditions. In the end I quite enjoyed myself but if I had wanted a run to work on technique or speed last night was not it! Its been so wet here and was wet again last night. It is also late summer when the bracken is at its most monstrous heights, so a run up from the village over Fell End towards Blea Tarn, up to the stone circles, across White Moss, and back down into Miterdale was really a silly idea, it was also properly in the mist and I didn't bother to take anything with me, so no map, no compass. It was very braken infested to start with, and very wet, then very boggy, soggy and slippy, and it was raining too. Good fun!

Tuesday evening was a different matter, with a sunny evening. P and I went to check out our 'legs' for this weekends Fells Angels and Friends BG Relay attempt to beat Billy Blands record with 70 odd people each running a mile each! P was roped in at the last minute, and is running from the bottom of Joss's Gully above Black Sail Pass to the summit of Kirkfell, where he passes the GPS tracked 'baton' to me and I run the next leg from the summit to Beckhead Pass, and had over to a friend and colleague for his leg to the summit of Great Gable, as so on to the end! We had a good evening outing leaving Wasdale head at 5pm trogging up to Black Sail, an effort in up Joss's Gully (which was very wet!) to the summit, then another effort along and Down to Beckhead, before dropping back to the car down Gavel Neese. A lovely evening.

I managed to recover from the branch incident reasonably quickly, resting on Wednesday to let the cut seal up. Thursday I checked a bike helmet would be OK, and the road to work and back. Friday a quick short 3 miler at lunchtime along the coast and back.

At the weekend P and I were down in the Peak staying with his parents. On Saturday I got up early before breakfast and headed out for a 5 mile run on the tracks around their house, managing accident number three of the summer, by tripping over a stone on a track and going flying, no really bad damage done, except a very bruised hip, grazed knee, grazed palms and fingers. It was actually a bit of a mess, and needed a fair bit of cleaning up when I got back, and didn't go well with the days plans of sport climbing in Cheedale. More than anything I was just very angry with myself for being so careless! Again!

We still headed to Cheedale, to Two Tier Buttress. I just wanted to stay on the non-sharp end of the rope still as this was the hardest climbing I had attempted yet since the crash, so top roped the 6b+ there a couple of times, to see how it would cope. It wasn't always comfortable pulling but the second ascent felt much better. I felt very rusty generally, inflexible too, and wasn't concentrating very hard. I'm glad that the shoulder seemed to get better with use.

I have realised since the weekend that a theme has appeared to me regarding my running and climbing and it will be there for mountain biking too when I finally get back on that bike. I have lost my ability to focus. This is especially obvious when climbing as I let all sorts of distractions, thoughts and worries creep into my head all the time, instead of just concentrating on the climb. And it also explains the unusual clumbsiness when running too. So I have started to practice focussing more on things instead of trying to multitask/multithink all the time! This includes basic meditation and breathing. I think it might be a long term project for me but I see now that it is a crutial one if I'm to retreive my lost fitness and improve.