Starting to make plans for 2012


After a really lovely run at The Derwentwater 10 at Keswick on Sunday, I decided to enter The Brampton to Carlisle road race.  This is the oldest road race in Britain and this year will be it's 60th anniversary, so looking forward to a good day out.    I have done this race a few times, it's always a good club outing.  At this moment in time however I'm not sure whether I will be running or supporting as I have been struck low with a bloody awful cold, barking better than the dog.  Managed 3 miles on Monday night and will give Thursday night a try then I'll decide what the plan is.


At Keswick I got chatting to a chap as we were running along and he recommended The Coniston 14, I have thought about this race before but was frightened that it might be a bit tough for me.  The chap however was quite persuasive so  I looked up the website and checked out the finishing times, bit the bullet and have now entered.  


At the moment the 2012 race list is
January    -   That's Lyth - 23 miles,  trail type terrain.
March     -    Coniston 14  -  14 miles road and plenty of undulations.
May        -    Marathon of the North - 26.2 miles - distance and flat - hoping for a decent time.


I have other races in mind but no definite bookings made for them yet, plenty of time to get them organised after Christmas and New Year.


Would also like to find some sort of bike challenge to train for alongside the running training.


Will update shortly on what happens next Saturday at Brampton.

Kielder Marathon.

I entered this as my fail safe after Lakeland, just in case I didn't make it round at the 50 I wanted something to help rebuild my confidence.  I knew that I could make it round (eventually).  Also it was a great excuse to have a weekend away.   Last year we took the caravan, but this year we booked a POD.  First time in a Pod and I must say that it was an enjoyable experience, plenty of room and nice and warm and dry.   As we have tons of camping equipment it was like a wee home from home.  OH has declared that for Autumn/Winter outings this is the way to go.   Who am I to object.

Anyway, we also gave a lift to a friend of my daughter's who was doing his first marathon, in fact his first race of any kind, he pitched his tent next to the pod and settled down in his many sleeping bags and rather large cake!.   We headed to The Anglers Arms for a lovely huge bar meal.  We were also pleasantly surprised to find a club mate and her family parked opposite us in their campervan.  

Sunday dawned wet and horrible, and basically remained wet and horrible for the rest of the day.   I must admit that there was an issue about the parking and bussing that fairly irritated me and I was going to send an e.mail to the organiser but in the light of what happened later in the race it seemed petty so I didn't.   We did the usual pre-race faffing about for a bit longer than usual because the race was delayed by half an hour.

Jamie and I lined up and set off, Jamie soon left me and I was tootling along at the back of the race, I just do my own thing (in fact on the Fetch, people who are at every race, thread - I'm probably labelled Woman who runs like a duck -).  I was joined by Flip and Lisrun (Fetch names), Lisrun said hi and continued but Flip jogged along with me for the first 5 miles.   I popped into the loo and he went on to catch up with his friends.  It was lovely to chat with him, but I was worried I was holding him back.  I worry about this a lot.

For the next 15 miles I was more or less on my own, several of the back markers and I played a sort of tig tag along the route.  The weather remained rather wet and windy, but wasn't really a problem.  The marshals and water stop people were excellent, and the pockets of support very encouraging.   Half way came and went and still within the time limit, in fact at the half way point I was on target to beat last years time.   The Dam passed and I went into countdown mode.   Just past Tower Knowe I fell in with a lady called Naomi, it was her first marathon.  We decided to stay together until the finish as playing tig tag was getting silly and weary.   The last six miles were spent chatting to Naomi and giving her encouragement when she was getting tired, this also kept my mind off my own tiredness.  I slurped a caffeine gel at 4 miles from the end, it kicked in within the next mile and kept me popped until the finish.  

Naomi and I were last over the line.  It was fantastic to have our medals given to us by Steve Cram.  Wonderful that he was still there at the end to see the back markers in safely.   Met up with Jamie who had been back for about an hour, he had ran until the last 6 miles when he was reduced to a walk, but he was very pleased with his day out and his marvellous achievement.  Endured what seemed like a rather long uphill walk to the car, think it did my legs a lot of good really.   Treated myself to a bottle of wine and settled down in Pod for mashed tatties and corned beef.

Headed back home next day stopping off at Newcastleton at a lovely tea room for cakes, yummy.  All in all a lovely if wet weekend away.

In conclusion, obviously not enough marathon type training to make any kind of dent in last years time.  I didn't take the event seriously in a participating way but I feel it was good to get those miles on that terrain into my legs and even more importantly into my head.

Have been slowly getting back into routine, nice easy club runs, resuming speedwork etc.,   Also tomorrow we start on the winter dog walks with dog club.  We're up the Drumlanrig woods.  It'll be wet, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Entered...

Well that's the entry done.  The easy work is complete.  Now to get Kielder over with and onto forming up some sort of base training plan.   Will follow the same format as last year, starting with base training, then main training which will include specifics, like map reading etc., then there will be the core element and finally warm down and taper training.  

Autumn and keeping things ticking over..

It's my favourite season, Autumn, I can't really explain why but I think it may have something to do with the colours, the fruitfulness, the misty mornings and cold crisp days, although I must admit that today it's not very Autumnal, just wet and miserable.  

Getting back into routine, club on Mondays and Thursdays and lots of short runs and walks with Kona.   Will be putting my gym membership to use shortly by getting back to yoga, swimming and if I can make it down to the town in time a spin class or two.  I must admit that my gym membership has been gathering dust and depleting my bank account since July, but I always get more use out of it in Autumn and Winter than the other two seasons.

Will be plodding my way round Keilder in two weeks time, using the tried and tested strategy of run/walk/chat/photograph things.  You can see how seriously how I am taking the event.   Why I entered is a mystery, well perhaps not, I think I thought that I'd never manage Lakeland 50 so wanted another event to look forward to and I do love the area.   All the runners from Northumberland that I have met so far are marvellous, friendly encouraging people, and last year this was a very friendly event.  I however think that it's overpriced, and the event team seem a little inflexible from what I've been hearing.

Anyway I am keeping the legs etc., ticking over and enjoying mixing up the training with some running and some walking with Kona at one of my favourite places Drumlanrig Castle and Country Estate.   I have a season ticket to the estate which is a special place for me for various reasons, so we can head on up there any time the notion takes me.  The trails are varied and lead off in all directions giving a great variety of training opportunities.  There are little gems around every corner. In fact I find the woods very magical. which could have something to do with reading too many fairy tales as a child.   I plan to take the mountain bike up when the season finishes, so that I can get Kona used to coming along with it.   At the moment there are still some touristy people about and while she's no problem off leash while running and walking I'm not sure about the bike etc.

 Through the Beechwoods.

 The road less travelled.   Not many of the castle visitors head up here.

 The hills in the above photo form the start of the Lowther range and where I did a bit of training for Lakeland.  I fully intend getting to know them and the Lowthers much better in the coming year. It's funny that they've always been there but it took a race in The Lake District to get me out exploring them.

Kona at the start of one of our favourite routes. Just over the top of the rise lie two small lochs, Beech and Coldstream.   Kona always has a swim in both.

Pedal for Scotland

Not perhaps fully related to training for Lakeland50, but I am including this because it was my second big challenge of the year.  The cycle should have been 50 miles, same as Lakeland but route changes meant it was 47 miles.  I won't go into detail, just to say that it has whetted my appetite for cycling and will be looking out for more cycling challenges.  Although I may have to buy a new bike as I think I may just look a little out of place on my ladies tourer of advanced years.  I have just got a new pannier system so will set about turning my old faithful into commuter machine extraordinaire.   If this works there should now be a photo of us before the event.  Gosh how professional we don't look.  

Why?

I already have a blog on Fetcheveryone, but this one is going to be slightly different.  It's going to be mainly about training, what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, what I plan to do, you know the sort of thing.
You see last year I had this mad notion to enter the Lakeland 50 event, but I didn't tell anyone so I couldn't really write anything about my training or recce runs etc, so I have decided that if I manage to get an entry this year I will keep an account of my progress.  I say progress because although I did finish last year I want to be a bit quicker at my next attempt and now I know just exactly what's expected and what to expect at the event I know what I need to include in the training schedule etc.,

Tonight I went a walk over Halliday Hill at Glenmidge with OH, Kona, Frank and Tramp,  I used trekking poles for the first time.  I had seen a great many of the competitors at L100 and L50 using them, and intend to include their use in my training plan, just so that I have the option of using them in the event if I wish.  At present I am using the ones we already have, but I have my eye on a pair of Alpkit foldable ones.   My headtorch is Alpkit which I felt was actually better than my L50 buddies one which was Petzl.  Mine had a much better beam.

I'm not sure how having two blogs is going to work but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.