Pyro's Yard v2.0

So, last orders were called yesterday and I was happily queueing for the metaphorical bar, ready to get a short swift one in for the road. The numbers looked good: Yesterday's big effort, although less than I'd been hoping, stood me at 142.4 miles (or 229km, for those of us who think in metric) - a still long-ish but definitely manageable 12km to finish at 150 miles. I'd kind of dwelled on this point for a lot of the day at work, mulling the numbers in my head. I'd hoped to hit the 150mi yesterday, which would have left a 10km bimble for today to take my tally to 250km, which is more my kind of round number. I'd even jogged a couple of K to the Co-op and back at lunch time, to pull that 12 down to a 10, to make it easy on my legs. But... 241.40 is not a nice round number. And I like nice round numbers. To make my 250 would entail me running my longest run of the month on the last day. But hell. I like a challenge. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been involv...

Tonight's run: 22.19km, 2:49:04. More chat and stats analysis once I've eaten my own bodyweight in pasta...

A last chance for a big run before the end of the month (and to stay ahead of a couple of close runners behind me, since Gary V pointed out that I might be in with a shout of a top ten finish. Thanks GV, nothing like a little pressure to focus the mind...) and a chance to bag some more trig pillars, just a couple, but a couple that I probably wouldn't get otherwise. I'd been planning a ramble over Ilkley Moor since the start of the month. I don't know the area that well, only having been there for the Jack Bloor fell race, but it's always seemed to be a good place to head on a decent day, and the lure of the trigs was an added incentive. The original plan was to do it by train, head to Ilkley and loop up and over, picking up two trigs on the moor before dropping down to Baildon, grabbing the two pillars there, then down to get the train back from Saltaire. Sundays, unfortunately aren't the best time for regularly spaced trains, so I decided to drive to Ilkely, pi...

A slightly strange but ultimately very rewarding day today. I'm an occasional attendee of the Leeds parkrun . For those who don't know what parkrun is, it's an organisation running weekly, free, fully timed 5km time trials. They're not a race as such, but with barcode timing, signage and marshalling, they're almost certainly the best free event a runner can go for. They're also a great way to benchmark performance. Like I say, I only attend occasionally, but since my first run last year I've stripped over 3 minutes off my PB. Let's just say, with 200km already in the bank this month, I wasn't expecting miracles. I decided to head down early on a bright but damn cold (-5°C) morning, so I could get a bit more of a warm up, though as they say, the best laid plans etc, so I didn't head out quite as early as expected and didn't quite get as much warm up as I would have liked, but hey. Some warm up is better than none, and then we were lining u...

A very chilled one for number 28, and a lovely way to spend an evening. It was payday, and I felt like celebrating, so what better way to do it than to have a leisurely jog into town, meet the other half there, have an excellent dinner for two at Wagamama, then walk back to Headingley for a quick drink in Arcadia (and a catch up with some friends who are trying to goad me into running a trail Ultra while also planning to steal my gear to run a mountain marathon) and them. a brisk walk back home. An easy way to rack up the mileage, and thoroughly delightful with it. 8.42km, time immaterial.

After catching a Jagular and letting it go, and still looking for a Janathoner, Tigger and Pooh found themselves by the big oak tree by the little path in the furthest corner of the Hundred Acre Wood. And they stopped and looks at the ground in surprise. There were *hundreds* of footprints here, as though lots of Janathoners had been here, dancing. "If we could see a Janathoner dancing, that would be REALLY special" said Tigger. "Oh yes" said Pooh. "I'd heard that Janathoners liked dancing. It helps them do something when they're not running" So Tigger and Pooh decided this would be the perfect place to hang the internet and the clogs, and looked around for a branch to hang them from. Tigger looked up at a big, wide bough that would be perfect  and had a little shiver. He'd had an uncomfortable moment up a tree that he didn't want to repeat. "Pooh" he said "Maybe we should get some help to hang the clogs up, because it...

A very quick blog about last night's run. It's not that it wasn't a good run, just that I need to get to work! Headed out from home to kind of reverse Wednesday's route - Oxley, The Hollies, Meanwood - but instead of looping back up the Otley road, I dropped down to the Uni for the Thursday night canoe polo session. 8.42km, 1:06, then an hour and a half of polo. An excellent evening all round, and only 6km to do tonight to make it 200!

If I had to list my religion, it would probably be 'music'. It's the one force in life that can bring me up, cool me down, hack me off and change my day around in a heartbeat. I haven't had enough of it recently. As I said this morning, yesterday was a hard day, for a variety of unknown reasons. This morning felt a bit better, though the whole day I've been rottenly tired, yawning and generally feeling like I was about to fall asleep at my desk, which is surprising because I had an early night. Caffeine withdrawal, perhaps, having only about a quarter of the volume of industrial-strength coffee that I normally put away. Anyhow... Home from work and eating, because I think 'not enough fuel in the tank' was probably another reason for my malaise of yesterday. Pasta bake, Cumberland sausage and a brew. A touch of CSI while it all settles and prep the Minidisc. Lots of rock (old and new) and hip-hop, and hang the maps for tonight, I'm going to run by fe...

Yesterday (for I am posting this the infamous morning after) was the hardest day of Janathon for me so far. Physically and mentally, I just felt flat, nothing left in the tank, no secret reserve of cheerfulness and strength to pull on. Just a very run-down, flat, Pyro. I'm not sure what brought this feeling about: 24 days of consecutive running almost certainly played its part; perhaps too much activity and not enough fuel input over the weekend made for depleted reserves; maybe pushing for 40 miles last week was a bad idea; perhaps my immune system's a bit low and I'm coming down with something. I don't know the cause, only the symptom, and the symptom was that I felt like a deflated balloon. I think we're into a second set of doldrums in the Janathon now. Days 1 and 2 were awesome, a runner's high, but from there we hit a dip as it sinks in what we're trying to do. We grit our collective teeth and keep pushing onwards, and it gets easier again as we s...

Nice gentle bimble to the Give It A Go session organised by LUUCC last night. I decided against the direct route to the uni pool (which would have been about 4.5km) and went off on a wander through Beckett's Park and the back lanes, which meant a circuitous, inny-outy, multi-surfaced 7km in about 55 mins. After that, a lovely night at the pool, a quick pint of Leeds brewery's Midnight Bell (fantastic dark ale) and a lift home. Joyous! Tonight I'm going for a short one, hunting a haggis to have for supper. There's not enough hills to be able to chase one anti-clockwise, but I reckon I should be able to find one somewhere..

Having made their rissolution to find a Janathoner, with an internet and some clogs, Tigger and Pooh decided to split up to collect the things they needed. Tigger bounced off to Rabbit's house to see if he could borrow the clogs Rabbit had been making, while Pooh wandered over towards Eeyore's house toward the pond to find the internet, or at least a fishing net. Pooh had found the net, and was carrying it back when he decided to stop by and see Eeyore. Eeyore was sitting in his house, chewing on a thistle and looking glum. "Oh, hello. I see you have a net. You've not come to catch me, I suppose?" Pooh smiled at Eeyore. "No, Eeyore. This is my internet. Tigger and I are going to catch a Janathoner, they like internets and clogs, and they run a lot." "Oh." said Eeyore. "I couldn't be a Janathoner then, so there's no point catching me. Running too much makes your legs fall off, I suppose. I'd rather just stay here" Pooh ...

Firstly, and perhaps more importantly than tonight's run, I've had a fantastic weekend. The Lakes was awesome, sharing the log cabin with 'Team DamX' (Mark, Dave, Martin and Laurent), cracking banter with the LUUCC mob, good food, good ale, and above all else, phenomenally fun boating. We started off Saturday with a run of the Leven, from Newby Bridge down to Haverthwaite. Once portage for me, around Backbarrow falls due to a lack of confidence, and one roll on one of the drops below, but enough to start nudging my boating state of mind back into place, it having been AWOL for the best part of two years. The afternoon run on the Crake was pleasant enough, a beautifully cold, crisp day, but marred by the fallen trees and overhanging vegetation making it hard, cold, damp work for the unwary and the relative newcomers. Sunday brought an ace run of the Kent, including leading a somewhat unsuspecting first timer over Force Falls, and the pride stayed firmly intact with ...

... Went up a hill. Well, it was Carrick and Mark, actually, and neither of us broke anything, though Mark did fall down a few times. As I said the other day, I'm up in the Lakes for a kayaking trip this weekend, and trying to fit a couple of runs in around paddling and socialising. Last night it was a 4.5km ramble up The Hoad, a wee hill on the outskirts of Ulverston. Very pleasant on a cold, crisp, clear night, and a pleasure to have company on a leg as well. A couple of beers and some sleep later we're off to paddle the Kent and the Lune today, and I'll fit a saunter in either between the two or tonight once I'm back in Leeds. A rather pleasant way to spend a weekend...

I'm in the Lakes, the place where I earned my name (thanks Closed Circle/Dai Jenkins). The only appropriate place to make my target. And I've done it, after 4 pints of Old Peculiar. From Mark's place, the log cabin, to Booths, two laps of the roundabouts, and back = 3.2km, which takes me over my 150km target - 40 miles this week, average 50km a week for 3 weeks, and 150km total. 10 this weekend and I've hit 100 miles. More than I've ever pushed myself to before. I'm proud, and slightly drunk. Woo! Goodnight all, and keep pushing. Pyro

It was winter in the Hundred Acre Wood, and most of the inhabitants were spending their time huddled up in their houses, keeping warm. Sometimes they would pop out, to collect some wood, or for another jar of honey, or some thistles, or maybe even to say hello to a neighbour. But generally they all stayed at home... ...All except Tigger. Tigger was, as usual, a bouncing ball of energy. Someone had told him, just before the New Year, about a creature that he might see if he was out of his house in January, called a Janathoner. Tigger was intrigued, he'd never heard of these Janathoners. Heffalumps and Woozles, yes: They were often heard of in the Hundred Acre Wood. But Janathoners? Never. And what a funny name! Tigger had bounced around the woods many times this January, trying to find one of the elusive Janathoners. He hadn't seen a single thing! He'd been told that Janathoners were only visible for the first month of the year, and he knew it was getting close to the ...

It's all persickologgical. Or headological. Whichever you believe in. If it's a placebo, but it still seems to be working, is there any point telling anyone? These are the thoughts that wander through my head as I potter around a 7km loop of Cookridge and Holt Park, specifically related to the compression calf guards I'm wearing. They seem to work for me, but would I run any worse without them, and if I did, would it be because the calf guards actually help, or just because I think they do ? Questions like this cannot be any worse than my earlier attempts at poetry. Maybe I should stick to hard facts for the next 11 runs. Starting now: 7.07km, 51:27, and now only 2.86km to go to make it 150km in 3 weeks. Reckon I can manage that tomorrow night...

To all the Janathoners (and anyone else following the adventures of the Janathon), Pyro’s Yard humbly presents: Janawocky (with apologies to Lewis Carroll) 'Twas darkness and my sodden toes, Did slide and stumble as it rained. All dribbly were my running clothes, As the slurping paths I trailed. "Beware the Janawock, my son: The legs to ache, the words to post. Beware the blogging urge, and shun The dubulous hours lost " I took my grightening torch in hand; And long the noisome shoes I sought. I founded myself at foot of stair, And stood in hesitous thought. But then, through furbled thought, I swear, The Janawock, with miles to gain, Came tinkling throught the frigid air, And giggled as it came! Left, right! Left right! And on and on, My noisome shoes went ticker-tack. I ran for miles, then turned: ‘twas gone! So I went harrumphing back. "And hast though escaped the Janawock?" Just for today, but so it goes. "Oh spanglish da...

I wouldn't normally class the walk to the pub as part of an exercise regime, but tonight I'll make an exception on the basis that a) I did jog some of it and b) the pub in question is 3.5 miles away, and I've jog-walked there and back. In between these two jog-walks, I've had a very nice pint of mild and listened to some good music at an open mic night. Which was nice. Oh, and interestingly, my horoscope in the Yorkshire Evening Post today said "Great strides forward can be made with a positive frame of mind." I know. I'm sure of it...

I'm very lucky, I think, to have good friends delivering good advice. Advice with knowledge and experience attached, rather than just "I read summat in the paper..."  Advice like this, whether it's big stuff or little stuff, life-and-limb saving warnings or just "you might find it easier if..." type hints, can be invaluable. And hell, they could save me doing silly amounts of damage to myself while trying to set myself targets. I have set myself the target to finish this week having run 40 miles. Well, actually I'm setting that at 40-and-a-half miles, for that will take me to another milestone (or should that be kilometer stone?) of 150km over 3 weeks. A couple of good friends, another Janathonite and a non-Janathonite fell- and ultra-runner  (and both all-round nice chaps as well) have given friendly encouraging advice/warnings about not knackering bits of myself in the attempt. Advice which, to be honest, I'm very happy to follow. To make my ...

First off, an explanation and an apology. After my blog about my run on Saturday, I received a couple of comments, which I haven't published, about a specific comment I made, which pointed out a couple of things that in my food-deprived and oddly-humoured state, I hadn't picked up on or thought about. The comment in question was the offhand crack that  "I've been reliably informed by an Osteomyologist that running on tarmac can cause cancer of the knees."  First off, this is a joke. A long-standing joke between myself, a friend who happens to be an Osteomyologist, and a handful of other people involved in a certain series of Adventure Races. 'Cancer of the knees' is used as a slang term for the way your legs feel after two-and-a-half hours of running around the city streets chasing checkpoints. Running on tarmac does not induce actual cancer of the knees. I apologise to anyone who misunderstood this. Secondly, I also apologise for the implication t...

I knew today was going to be short on time. I knew after yesterday's wombling about I was going to be tired. I also knew there was jack-all chance of me fitting in a daylight run, and that the evening would probably be out as well, for reasons I shall explain later. So, the only reasonable (and I use that word advisedly) thing to do was to run early in the morning. Hmm. There's one problem with that: Mornings are normally something that happen only to other people. Given the choice I hibernate as long as possible until daylight and a nagging alarm with no more 'Snooze' presses available drag me from my slumbers. Today would have to be the exception. The run itself was singularly unexceptional: Left house just after 6am decidedly woozy and not really sure what I was thinking; Trotted gently up the Otley road to the Ramada hotel, 4km and about 30mins away; turned round and trotted back, trying to push a bit harder on the long flat bit by Bodington Hall and down to the...

I'd intended to get up onto the moors and put in a good, solid, long tab day with a racing partner, Steve, today, but a spell of miscommunication meant we never made it to the moors, and I was sat in Leeds, having missed my occasional Saturday 'fast 5km' at parkrun. At that point, about 10am and my second cup of coffee, the usual nagging doubts set in. The niggling little "Well, you could skip it and make the blog up - no-one would know" , the occasional " You did loads last week, you could have a day off, maybe just walk round the block, that still count, right?" , the   ever-present "Face it, pal. You've run for 14 days consecutively. Your legs aren't really in the shape you'd like 'em to be. Knock it off, eh?" and the particularly seasonal "Look out of the window. It's pissing it down and blowing a hooly. Put the kettle on and sit back down.". This is, after all  'annual festival of activity and excuses'...

Yesterday I talked mysteriously of second and third targets. Again, these are minor things in the grand scheme of things, but they've been my drivers to get out and run hard (well, hard for me) today. They've been something to aim at, something to be proud of, and something to go "Holy sh*t. I never thought I'd do that." at. And tonight, I've done 'em. (Author's note: Apologies for the geeky stats-obsessiveness of all of this. I never said I was cool. And Steve and Katy did say they were expecting a maths puzzle after my alliterative efforts last week...) As we left it yesterday, I'd cleared a marathon over the week - 26.2 miles, 42.16km. Because of the extra distance Hannah and I ran around Kirkstall park, I was actually just above that, sitting at 43.83km. Not a bad haul, for a fat boy who doesn't run. But rather than rest on my laurels of 'having run a marathon in a week',  I'd been sat looking over my stats in the spreads...

So, should the 13th run be unlucky? Should everything be put on hold to avoid the jinxed date? Nope. Not, especially, when there's a couple of targets that can be reached. Okay, I said I wasn't competing with anyone, and that I was just running for myself, but the chance is there to make some personal battles up, and make some points that I'm proud of. So, tonight was the first of those targets. I set off from home for the downhill sprint to Hannah's for stage 1 of the plan. A quick 2.5km (14:45) and I was at the door, sweating and panting. A quick stretch, and then I headed back out, accompanied for the first time on a Janathon run. Hannah and I logged out and across Kirkstall park, down through the Abbey grounds, then pushed back up the short, steep hill back to the house. A nice, steady 3.21km (22:49) to finish the day's session. "So what..." I hear you cry "... is this target of which you speak?" Well, for the first time in my life, I...

I feel, honestly, like something the cat has dragged in, mauled, eaten a bit of, and left the rest to fester in the shed. 12 days in - over a third done! - and I'm into a weird rhythm of good night - good night - bad night - recovery run night - dubious night - oh, maybe I'm okay night - ouch.  Tonight was an 'ouch'. Not a particularly long or fast night, because of the 'ouch'. Calves and whatever-the-hell-you-call-it up the outside of my calves. Both trying to kill me, or at least make me stop running. Still, I've got another 7km-ish in the bag, new trails again, through the back of an old quarry and into Ireland Wood. I was intending it to be about 5-and-a-bit km, but one of the footpaths I was planning to take doesn't seem to exist any more (at least according to the house that's built where it used to be) and another footpath wasn't signed and I missed it in the dark, so I took a slightly longer route. According to SportTracker, 7.12km, ...

A lot of alliteration for a little bimble out onto the hills! Relatively short but hilly Two Trigs run tonight, and very muddy. All the footpaths are just soggy brown streaks up a grassy field, and the only change in consistency is the crunchy five millimetre ice layer on the surface! The clim wasn't too vicious, just enough to warm the legs, and the first trig gave a beautiful view to the south over some of the leafy suburbans and over into Bradford. The second trig, beautifully embedded into a wall, gave a lovely view of Leeds Bradford Airport. Honestly, I've seen prettier places... All in all 4.9km, 41:45. A little slow because of the mud, and stopping to take pictures. But who's counting? (Obligatory pics of two trigs below - sorry for slightly shaky crap phone camera pictures!)

Just a short run today - well, actually, three short runs, mainly resting up a touch from yesterday and in anticipating of a bigger run tomorrow night. I ran to  work, at lunch time, and back from work. Seems a little odd, but it's a good way to get in a few short sessions (2x2km, before and after, each about 15mins, plus 1x3km at lunch, about 20mins) Despite the long one yesterday, the legs are feeling much better - less tightness in the Achilles - and are now just dull and achy. Dull and achy I can cope with. Hot baths help. Talking of which, off for one now. Night night!

Split session tonight, and I'm going with the SportTracker version of the distances, because I can't plot the trails through Meanwood accurately enough on MemoryMap to get a definitive figure. And hey, the Tracker reckons I ran further than the map plot does. That makes me happy, as did Michael Franti & Spearhead's "Stay Human" on the MP3 player on the run. Hence the title. As I say, I split the session. Part 1 was a 4km, 40min walk from home to the Ramada Jarvis hotel by Golden Acre part. Walking to both warm up, to stretch the calves, and to enjoy a crisp, chilly but bright winter evening. The pastel-y sunset was quite pretty, and the traffic buzzing past was probably wondering what this lycra'd up loony was doing sauntering up the main road like he'd nothing better to do. It was nice to 1) be out in daylight and 2) shake the legs out with an enforced walk. Part 2 was the run. From the hotel, the Meanwood Trail drops away from the road, round the...

Night trail runs, although my bread and running butter at the moment, always feel weird to me. I enjoy them, generally. Often more in hindsight than during, but hey. There's a certain purity to bashing through the woods on a muddy path, living only in that little dribbly pool of visibility from your headlamp. The world is small, and close, and personal, and anything in the dark to the sides doesn't exist: It's just you and the Cone of Reality extending 10-20ft in front of you. Maybe it's a really short form of goal setting, or maybe it's like the donkey with the dangling carrot. "You want to see more? Come right this way..."  Tonight, I kept pushing to try and run to the edge of my little enclosed, claustrophobic, vision-limited world, but I never got there. It was more than 20ft, I guess. The GPS reckoned 6km. All I know is I ran for 45mins and never reached it. Oh well. Maybe I'll get there tomorrow night.

Still recovering from the first week of the Janathon (did you think I'd forgotten?!) so run #7 was another short loop just to eke some miles out and massage some life back into the legs. A short but a little faster loop than usual - 3.2km in 19:50 (so just under 10 minute miles, something I don't do too often) It was just a short sprint (Map below), but it needed to be a fast lap just to shake the legs out. When I got back I could feel 'the burn', but it was a pretty good one. And it's the end of week one, so I celebrated with a very nice Thai green fish curry and a glass or two of very nice Sauvignon. My week one stats probably aren't that impressive, but as I said after #6, I'm competing only with myself, and I'm a Data Analyst by profession so I like the geeky side of life. But they are, as follows: Since this post just sneaks under the 24hr limit to blog, that's me up to date. and I'm also sat in my running kit ready to ...

Just been reading a few of the other blogs from other Janathon... erm. I can't really call them 'competitors', can I? Isn't this just supposed to be an incentive to run? Hell. 'Janathoners' will have to do. There's a couple of them out there who are seriously racking up the miles. 'Auswomble' and 'Local Adventures' - aka Kevin and Gary - seem to be watching each other and pushing hard. The collective atmosphere coming off other people's blogs, comments on Facebook etc, and the community feel is awesome. I'm glad I got involved. Sometimes, though, the spirit is willing but the flesh is falling apart. Tonight was one of those nights - like I said after yesterday's run, I needed a recovery day. I'm still determined not to lapse though: My challenge isn't how many miles, or how many unique routes, or even total time or pace or averages or... anything. It's just to see if I can do it. The only way I can 'cheat' ...

Day 5 and I'm starting to feel the pinch of the Janathon. I'm not sure, even back when I used to orienteer regularly, that I've ever run for 5 days straight. normally 3, then a rest day, then another 3. Needless to say, things are starting to ache. Fifth run of the year was down to be a general run, at least in my Rough Plan, which I composed yesterday morning to try and bring some order to the chaos, so I laced up my boots and pottered off towards the park. The effects of five consecutive days of abuse showed: My calves, thighs and lower back were all vying for my attention in their own special ways; unlike my fourth-day Two Trigs, I had ceased to be a singing, bouncing, lycra clad almost-superhero and had regressed to a lumbering, shambling lump. It became fairly obvious, halfway down the grassy path towards the corner of the woods, that I could do with a short recovery run some time soon. So, back to normal, then. I ran this loop, or a variant of it, a few weeks ago, w...

It's amusing, how friends, when they perceive that you may be having a crisis of faith (running faith, in this case), come up with all sorts of motivational tools, from the encouraging (thank you AM, Nonie and Gary V), to the abusive (cheers Graham) via the downright blooming strange (merci, Ross). For the record, my resolve may have flickered a little, but only in that I needed to eat and then let my food digest before I went for tonight's Janathon Two Trig Tuesday spectacular! In the past, while poring over OS maps for the little blue triangle-and-dot symbols that make me so happy, I'd spotted a couple just across the Aire valley from the house - beyond Kirkstall and over into Bramley. I'd always planned that, as these two were both on or close to tarmac, I'd pick them up by road bike, but with a little kick in the jacksie needed for Janathon, and a suitably configured route, they looked like a viable foot option. About 7km, 120m-ish of climbing. I reckoned o...