I just did a trail 22km at the weekend logs rocks steps bridges streams and tunnels it was hard as hell but great fun got a bit lost and fell a few times, took me 2hrs12

Thats a really good time, it took me 3hrs to do 26km with 1,341m elevation gain, that run absolutely ruined me.

Err, has anyone else managed to burst an air bubble in a pair of Nike runners? Out on the canals tonight and trod on a thorny branch. On pulling out said branch my beloved Pegasus’s hissed and felt very soft and odd for the rest of the run. At least I now know that there is air in Nike Air’s.

7km tonight! Getting there. My hip flexors start to hurt after about 30 minutes though. Any tips for getting them stronger?

Run quicker and you’ll have finished your 7k by then 🙂

I once had a bad hip flexor that took a while to fix, eventually I worked out how to stretch it and the problem went away. Also I sometimes do some simple plyometrics, just hopping really. Not sure it works but probably doesn’t do much harm. .

😂

I don’t know what plyometrics are but I shall go and give it a google!

I don’t know what plyometrics are but I shall go and give it a google!

Plyometrics and horrific, yet have a huge benefit. Do them, but expect them to hurt.

I don’t do anything very strenuous, just a bit of hopping really. Just hoping that it will increase the spring and elasticity in my stride a little.

So, what are everyone’s plans for this weekend? Mine are very Parkrun-centric, 2 volunteer roles on Saturday surrounded by 4 mile run up, and a 4 mile run home, may even get the actual Parkrun in as well. So hopefully 10 miles before an afternoon on the sauce with Mrs Lunge. Then off to Junior Pakrun Sunday to volunteer again, which will also likely involve a wee trot up and back. Just checked the weather for tomorrow and it’s going to be a lovely, sunny day which makes it all the better.

Feeling pretty damn happy with that.

Hopefully get a couple of largeish hill runs in this weekend although having had a bit of a cold this week might limit that.

Parkrun tomorrow as an early season benchmark. Not expecting fireworks but interested to see how much work I need to do to get into shape.

Planning to run from Newtonmore to cluny castle via the river Calder and back to uvie farm tomorrow afternoon

Sounds great Terry. Wee local run for me, struggling for time just now, uni stuff getting in the way.

Cycling is kind of getting in the way of running.

Been riding with a local chain gang and they are kicking shit out of me.

I am riding .37lb touring bike though

So, what are everyone’s plans for this weekend?

Hmmm. Got Tiny Tykes football with my daughter at 9 this morning, then straight to a 3yr olds party. Then I need to put a roller blind up in the kitchen and on Sunday I’ve got another 3yr olds party….!

Am gonna try to squeeze a run in at some point this weekend, but no idea what it’ll be; some kind of longer interval session perhaps…

37lb, think of the training benefits!

Just making a coffee to stick in the car then off to Eastville parkrun in Brizzle. Nice still cool 8 deg so lovely conditions for a run.

Nobeer, are you on Strava etc?

Aye, that I am Darcy.

Beautiful morning for a run, enjoy Mr Darcy.

Can me stalk thee?

Absolutely! And me thee!

Cheers andygravelman mine had just over 1200ft , I was it turns out 29th out of 400 so very pleased:)

I have the club’s handicap race tomorrow should be fun and then xc series starts next week looking forward to that

Ran from kingussie to Cluny castle by the behind hill path.

18km of bogsnorkling

Did my first marathon in 20 years today. Set out at the start of the year to do at least one half each month and a couple of full ones by end Dec. I’m up to 17 halves now and now a full after I’ve been struggling a bit with the last 4 or 5 miles. Not fast mind (3:30) but I can work on improving pace.

Reasonably pleased with that as I usually get injured or fed up after about 3 months of running training each year.

What a stunning day today was, in the Highlands at least.

Oh yes it sure was .

What a stunning day today was, in the Highlands at least.

Also on White Sands at Dunbar, round 2 of this year’s xc series, surprisingly hard run.

@boblo 3.30 for a marathon is a decent time, maybe not fast fast, but holding 8min/mile for 26 is good going.

What a stunning day today was, in the Highlands at least.

Pissing down here in “sunny” Spain 🙂

So I turbo’ed in the garage instead of heading out into the rain, and managed a massive 1 mile post-Zwift brick session 😆

Well after a weekend of almost uniformly lovely weather I finally had the opportunity to get out for another run this morning (I wanted to run within a week of my last attempt, so I’m only a day out). Last week was my first run in ages, a couple of miles in about 25 minutes (I think) so I had high hopes of improving on that today.

Naturally I awoke to the wonderful sound of rain splattering on the window. Brilliant. I came close to sacking the whole idea off, but I don’t have that much opportunity to get out at the moment so I kitted up and got out there.

Luckily for me the rain eased off for a few minutes and gave me a chance to get well warmed up before starting to come down again. I did the same route as last week in reverse, and concentrated on not going too hard too early as I had before. Timewise I improved by maybe a minute which isn’t too bad (I’m making a point of not paying too much attention to times yet, and just concentrating on feeling more comfortable on my feet) but by the second mile I’d found a nice steady pace that felt like it was a sustainable. I could certainly have kept going for a bit further.

It’ll be interesting to see how my legs feel over the next couple of days – it’s my muscles that are the main limiting factor I think, aerobically I could go harder – but hopefully I’m going to try and get another run in on Thursday or Friday and start to build up some strength.

Interestingly I’ve suffered for a long while with an old Achilles problem, and spending a day pushing my bike up the hill at Stile Cop seems to have stretched that out brilliantly. So maybe I need to start doing more push up days…

So, what are everyone’s plans for this weekend?

SDW from above Lewes to Eastbourne.

Just spotted on Straaava that I’ve ran more miles than I’ve pedalled this year! Never thought I’d ever do that!

Got some great running in at weekend up in t’Lakes. Combined a bit of Wainwrighting and recce for a possible future project. Me and @BorderCollieSam at Thornthwaite Beacon.

*Likes*

I’m glad that I’m quite fit at the moment, as the trains weren’t doing me any favours yesterday!  Jogged the few miles to Wimbledon Station to find no trains until about 10am, so ran the entire way to Leatherhead unplanned (was going to take the train part-way).  Having run more than 20km in the morning, thought that taking the train half-way home would be the sensible choice, to ran to Ashtead to grab a train from there.  Only after buying a ticket did I realise that the chances of any trains coming along was slim to none, so once again, had to run the entire way unplanned.  Having detoured to Ashtead and loitered at the station for a few minutes I then had to get a wiggle on to get back in time to collect the boy from Nursery.  Thus a 40km day!

For anyone not relishing the prospect of training through the winter, I can thoroughly recommend a Gore Shake-dry jacket.  It’s predecessor was the Active Run, and I think the new one has been discontinued.  The most breathable fully waterproof fabric I’ve ever encountered, amazing for running hard in and not turning into a sweaty condensation filled bag.  I’ll probably be wearing mine nearly every day for the next few months.

Cheers, Rich

I wanted to see how I was progressing last night, so the aim was seeing if I have reached my target for the end of year to manage 8 min miles or less for 3 miles, which apparently converts to ~5min/km for 5km.

Went out in the cold & dark last night & ended up doing a 6km route at an average pace of 4:47/km, so was well chuffed with that.

I now need to find a new target, so think I’ll be aiming for 10km in under 50 mins. The last 10km I did was 52:11, so there’s a little bit to find & my IT band generally starts playing up around the 7km mark onwards, so I need to keep working on that…..

Trying to really space out the runs at the moment to give myself plenty of recovery time, so it’s just under a week since I last went out. That was my second run, and I managed 2.1ish miles in 24 minutes. Not exactly rapid (in fact not much faster than a brisk walk if I’m being honest) but it’s a start right?

Went out this morning in lovely rainy weather (though once again, it had the decency to stop as I was heading out and not start till part way round. Same loop, the opposite way around. I started off ok, trying to keep it nice and steady, then started to feel it a little bit in the middle (this may be because there’s a really long boring stretch – well, longer and boringer than the rest), then felt like I got into my last stride and was going a little bit quicker sustainably for the last mileish.

I’m not using any training devices beyond a stopwatch at the moment, so this is all anecdotal – I used to have a forerunner watch but the body where the strap attaches has broken so that’s pretty useless now. I might look into a new one at some point.

Anyway – I managed to knock about three minutes off today, getting round in a second under 21 minutes which I’m pretty well pleased with. I think if I can get round in 18 minutes or so by Christmas I’ll be really pleased. I’m under no illusions that I’ll be able to keep knocking three minutes off every time out mind!

After that I think I’ll start steadily upping the distance over a couple of months and start varying the route a bit more. It’s nice to have a set route for comparison at the moment, and it’s also handy not to have to cross loads of roads (not that there’s much traffic at 6.30) but it’s not exactly exciting.

I managed 18km from scolty back to my house yesterday. Ran out of food and water though -ie had none from the start…oops

Also my it band started playing up at 17km ….same as last weekend.

Squat time !

Just started running last week, for the first time since school crosscountry (not counting the time I “trained” for a 10k), and did my third run yesterday.  Just followed <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>this walking route</span>, with the addition of a little loop by mistake.  Didn’t record it but I’d imagine 14km x 700m.  The climb was very technical and muddy in parts, so didn’t get close to running all of it, and it was hard to get a rhythm on the descent as I had to keep stopping and checking the route – obviously not a problem for the next time.  Got very cold and wet on the tops, arrived back at the van and fired up the Kelly kettle to get a brew on, lovely.

Aside from a couple of niggles (blisters, black nails, and a sliced hand on barbed wire), the old body feels ok today so I’ll hopefully venture out tomorrow.  It is clear I am desperately slow – bike fitness is good for the time of year as I’ve been training about 15h/wk since having a month off in summer – but doesn’t carry over to running particularly well!  Objective is to find enough form to at least run round with the last group in some local races, and to do some fell races when I’m over in the UK (Dad lives in the south Lakes), but that feels like a long way off at the moment.

I’m trying to keep the GAS to an absolute minimum, but looks like I’ll be asking Father Christmas (well, Olentzero over here) for some proper trail shoes and a light rain jacket.

Round 11 of my half marathon or above race (per month) and it was the Clowne (Yes it is a real place) half marathon.

Chilly and damp but otherwise ideal conditions (I like it cool anyway) and no rain.

I wasn’t expecting to be really quick but I’ve done some extra miles in the last couple of months to prep for this and hope for a sub 77.

I managed to get away in the front group of about 6 and got pulled along by them. After half way the group started to fragment and one guy pushed on and left the remaining group to fight for second. A couple dropped off the back and that left 3 three, which became 2 after about 9 miles.

After about 11.5 miles we turned to go up a shallow gradient for about 800 meters and I put in an extra effort to try and gap the other guy which I just about managed and then had to hang on for the last mile but managed to hold on for second, by 10 seconds from third and get a new pb in the process (75:54) so I’m pretty pleased with that given it’s not an exactly flat course.

Just Keyworth Turkey trott in December to contend now and my challenge is complete. I’ve also got a few other shorter races before Christmas too which will hopefully put me in good shape for Brass Monkey half in January, and perhaps a sub 75 – must show self restraint over the festivities!

Oh, I also confirmed my championship entry for London last week so a good week all round.

That’s a good effort alanf. I did a gentle 18km which more or less marks the start of my proper marathon training. Recent parkrun results suggest I’m reasonably fit, certainly not pb standard (about 30 secs outside, on soft ground though) but good enough at this point in the cycle.

Is now the right time to start thinking about the best run you did all year?

Did my first run in over 7 months on Friday. Unfortunately there was a bit of sciatic pain in my calf in the following days, so haven’t decided to run again. Very frustrating 🙁