WCOC Warrior Series: Race 2

The race tonight was more like a trail race, fast running all the way over Hay and back. Kept a steady pace tracking the shoulder of another lass, but she managed to pull away on the second climb, while I developed stitch from eating too late before the race. A new route for me and it felt like a good run despite the stitch!

Weekend running

Spent the weekend at home, catching up with people and things. Got out for a couple of runs, including 7 miles speed work on Saturday and 7 miles reminding myself of the Middle Fell race route on Sunday.

WCOC Warrior Series: Race 1

Last night was the first in the local Spring Fell Race series organised by WCOC. This year's series opened with Leaps Lowp, which I ran last year as well. Had slight trouble with tight calf muscles on the climb up Low Pen which reduced me to an ungainly descending style to Knock Murton, but came home first lady, half a minute faster than last year. 

Skiddaw’s other summits

After the efforts of the weekend, including all that driving, I put my feet up on the Monday and then went for a gentle run on the Tuesday to loosen everything up. Wednesday was a day off work for me as I was seeing a Physio in the afternoon. As this was an appointment made a while ago, there was no choice in weather so it was a very breezy day with cloud on the tops and intermittent sleet and snow showers. Still I’d plotted a route to tick off the lower summits on the Skiddaw massive: Lonscale Fell, Skiddaw Low Man, Carl Side, Long Side, Ullock, and Dodd.

I ran all the way to Lonscale Fell and towards Low Man before the wind really got the better of me, and in the end reduced me to crawling on hands and knees over the summit! It was certainly the strongest wind I have been in on my own on the fells. Exhilarating to say the least! No incentive to get the camera out. Total distance about 15 miles.

English Fell Championships: Long Mynd

So Sunday was a completely different experience and one I was much more at home with. It was a good hour and half drive to Church Stretton, for the first counter in the English Championships. My legs didn’t feel too heavy warming up, but I knew they’d be tired and it was just a case of going out and keeping the pace up, bearing in mind 5 of the 7 climbs are in the second half of this race. I hadn’t been to the area since I was a child so it was really all new terrain. Luckily it was a fair day with high broken cloud, and a gentle breeze.

We set off at 11 and I kept it relatively steady for the first two climbs, keeping with a few known faces, before the long undulating run along the ridge which really hurt for me. I also suffered on the long descents as they we soo fast! But luckily all the BG training meant I kept a good pace going over the last few climbs when others seemed to be going backwards. Unfortunately, near the very end I lost a couple of positions on the final descent as my quads started to tie up, but finished 22^nd lady in 2 hours 17 minutes, earning myself 10 championship points. It was a fair run after the efforts of the day before!

Inter Counties XC

Somehow I had managed to get myself on the Cumbria Team for this year’s Inter-Counties XC Team, held in Cofton Park in Birmingham. I had agreed to run a couple of months before if needed and already knew that it was the day before the first English Championship fell race at Long Mynd. It seemed like such a great idea back then, but the nearer the weekend got, the more if sounded just a little too daunting! Still I’d get a county vest and see some good runners in action.

I travelled down to my parents in Warwick on the Friday night with Sam, who was also doing the same double as me. We made good use of M&S food on the journey down, reckoning that traditional fast food is not what true athletes eat! My parents took great care of us all weekend, feeding and watering us copiously which was far better than staying in any hotel or B&B!

Saturday morning we headed to Cofton Park, and it then hit me what a big event this is! We soon found the Cumbrian Tent and got settled. It felt like no time at all before it was time to warm up. Sam and I walked the course to familiarise ourselves and then went through some warm up drills. Not something I’m that practiced at doing! It was a bit worrying that we didn’t seem to have a full team there until we actually lined up in our pens, but we started with the bare minimum of 6 to count.

After a wee false start we were off, and although I tried to stay with Sam who starts steadily and keeps an even pace I was off too fast again. It was then a case of just hanging on. In the end I was the 5^th out of our 5 finishers, so we didn’t get a team position, unfortunately. I managed a reasonable time, obviously about 7 minutes off the winning time of Charlie Purdue – but hey I’m not a flat runner!!

It was a great experience and made me realise just how good our good runners are! 

Learning to go steady

Have been trying to get my head aroound what a steady run is and how to run it! Had a lovely run in the valley on Monday evening in the last rays of sun. Flushed another deer out of the trees - its getting to the point that I think I'm going to see one on every run! 5 miles in total with 3.5 of them at a 'steady' 7 minute mile.