Thursday 25 February 2010

Winter, say hello to spring.


Since my last post time's flown. Fresh on the back of the thinking and planning I've been doing for a future attempt at a PBR I decided to log how much climbing I was doing a week, something I never really thought about during the training for last year's ultras. I kind of knew I would have to get some hill work done but didn't record or think too much about the amount. In fact I'm pretty sure I didn't get enough consistent miles or height in prior to the Phoenix 33, that along with the heat is why I suffered on it so badly. For the PBR I've been reading that some say that 10,000ft a week's needed! My local hill run gives me about 1,000 - 1,200ft from the start the the first summit, then once on the top I can roller-coaster up and down a chain of connected hills. I can rack up some height without 'repping' the same hill via the same route which keeps it nice and interesting to run. For a few weeks I started clocking 4,400ft - 5,000ft over 30-40 miles a week. I think it caught up with me early last week though, as I had a poor run. There again it could have been an unpleasant encounter I experienced with a mutilated sheep that ruined that particular run. I won't go into detail but the thing suffered longer than it should have at the hands of nature.

I'm picking this up a couple of weeks on. Still aiming to clock the height as mentioned above. We're moving into a bit more sunshine and spring at the moment, so my feet have actually been dry of late! It's time to lay off the red wine a little now and think about shedding a few more pounds and get myself at a decent running weight. I need to drop 8lbs fairly quickly. Vince my occasional running partner is back from a second injury and pushed me hard- this last weekend, he led the way over 16 miles of 3,000ft. I also need to rearrange my running week in order to cope with the extra effort that's going to be required over the next few weekends as I increase the LSR's in distance, height and effort. Winter running up on my local hills has been brilliant this year, now I'm looking forward to spring erupting under my feet as I run the trails and passes. Time to keep an ear out for the first cuckoo. And on the subject of Sunshine...

...Welcome Little Miss 'Mary Sunshine' - what a lovely name.