Janathon '12 - 5: What a difference a day makes

So, map of yesterday's shambles of a jaunt first. It was cold, wet and miserable and I'd really rather not have any more like that, if that's okay with you? Thank you



Today couldn't have been any less like yesterday if it had been upside-down. This morning was still pretty horrible, but come lunchtime the wind had dropped, the clouds had cleared and the sky was blue! I even got home this evening to find the power on and the heating fixed! Wonders will never cease...

So, for once I actually felt like I wanted to go for a run. And slow, short and shambolic as it was, I did! Lots of stops to do stretching-y stuff because my calves are still a bit wrecked and I never warm down properly (slaps self on wrist....) but a nice steady 6-and -a-bit km potter on a rather pleasant evening, for once!

And so, to bed. I'll do some adding up some other time. For now, sleep!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dalby's Inferno (and the 10 Circles of Suffering)

Image
So this was an interesting one, in quite a lot of ways. The basic premise is a 50km Ultra, split down into 10 'circles', themed loosely on Dante's Inferno. Starting from 9am, run a 5km trail loop with a touch over 100m of ascent/descent, on the hour, every hour, for 10 hours. You can miss a lap by choice or if you are over the time for a lap, but if you do so you can't run the final 'Centre of Hell' lap, which unlike the previous nine, is an actual race (at least if you want it to be). Steve had spotted the event online, and sent me a the entry link in early February with a message saying "Fancy a laugh?" I decided that I did, so we both put entries in. Unfortunately, 6 weeks later he sent me a picture from a foreign hospital of his leg in a splint/moon boot, which meant I was probably flying this one solo... I'm never going to be one to say that I'm now a pro and Ultras come easy, but I wasn't overly nervous about this one - and I probably
Read more

On and up.

So, one challenge ends, another arises. As the song says, that's the way (ah-hah, ah-hah) I like it... I placed top ten in Janathon, 6th place I think, which was a heck of a shock. I never entered for any sense of competition, just for something to give me the motivation to train early in the season and to give me a kick up the jacksy to do some work. I'm happy with my mileage and the effort I put in, I know the areas where I could have done more and the reasons why I didn't, I've shifted my view of my own limitations, I've run further in a month than I probably ever have in a year, and I've managed all of the above without injury. All good stuff. Really good stuff, in fact. And now, with the lessons learnt from Janathon, we carry forward to the next challenge. It's a way off yet, but it's a reason to continue jogging, logging and blogging. And to express it the same way as the big piece of paper on my wall does (target visualisation, don'tcher
Read more

Juneathon 6 - The long haul

Image
I've said in an earlier post that I want to spend less time in June reading maps and worrying about distances and more time just going out for a run. Contrary to this, I keep catching myself at the maps, making plans, looking at routes, going "Ooh, well, that would put me up to X-km this week... dagnammit! Behave!". Today's run started a bit like that, with a plotted, measured, planned route, but I'm happy to say that the planning went a wee bit awry when I spotted some pretty looking trail that looked like it'd be fun to run down, and the rest of the route varied between the planned and the "Ooh, shiny... less go see where that goes..." This is, I think, a good combination. Especially on lovely sunny summer evenings like tonight. Sunshine on singletrack I drove up to Guiseley, with the idea of looping round on to Baildon Moor to pick up two rogue trig pillars* that I'd planned to stitch onto an Ilkley Moor run, but never got the time (or in
Read more