I’ve had this a lot:
– Some places won’t work with you if you’re not certified (often public sector bodies).
– Some will work with you but you need references or to offer them the opportunity to validate your processes.
– Others don’t notice/ don’t care if you leave it blank.

If you want to do business with big companies it may be less hassle to get yourself certified (~£800 a year when I did it for a little business)

Appletreewick is ace. Walks onto Simon’s Seat if you like hills or riverside and Bolton Abbey for more gentle. A couple of nice pubs too.

What are you trying to achieve?

A friend did little training due to a knee problem but got loads of sponsorship so felt that she had to do it. She pretty much walked it in 6+ hours and was delighted (but took a week off work to recover).

If ‘completing’ is your aim, do it, take it easy and walk lots.

If you want to go fast, I’d wait until you’re fit enough to do yourself justice.

I do quite like the idea of fell running but can never see me going “i’ll leave the bike and take the trainers today”.

I did the 3 Peaks cx last year and was irritated that I’d have covered all the off-road bits faster without a bike.

Also, I wouldn’t have had a mechanical on the road and wouldn’t have needed an hour cleaning my bike afterwards!

The Harriers v Cyclists is an annual runners v riders race in Bingley: http://www.bingleyharriers.co.uk/events/harriers-vs-cyclists/

It goes from the bottom of the valley to the top of Baildon Moor and back. Look through the results – it’s very close overall if you look through a few years.

The runners are generally fastest to the top and the riders are generally fastest back down (but there are sections better suited to both in each direction!)

So it’s hard to tell and dependent on terrain and conditions on the day.

Thanks CountZero – I’ve been trawling a few Alfa sites but haven’t really found any active ones. The watch sites look good.

Candodavid – since you asked…
[/url]
DSC_6200[/url] by illneverrememberthis[/url], on Flickr
(crosses fingers and hopes image works)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/119318086@N06/12913332334/in/photostream/
The edge of the back is a bit tatty and it could do with a new strap but it’s otherwise lovely.

Visiting for the week. It’s been great, but the weather has been rubbish! A dusting of snow overnight above 650m. The scafells looked fairly white as they disappeared into the clouds yesterday.

I’m in buttermere now. Very little snow around here except clinging to north and east faces. It’s ridiculously wet and very windy.

Bloody typical that what’s effectively a reminder to everyone to have decent lights, be visible and ride on safe roads turns into silly squabbling about one individual driver.

Assuming that mdavids also cycles, it’s a pretty safe bet that he’s more aware of cyclists than the majority of drivers.

Think about the standard of the average driver. Half of all drivers are worse than that (that’s how averages work). They need all the help they can get and I reckon we need to help them out as much as we can by being sensible. Then, hopefully, fewer of us will get squashed.

Hendo’s.

Condiment of Champions.

http://www.hendersonsrelish.com

I have a pass out for a run as long as I get the paella started first.

Then wine and Goodfellas.

The question remains though, cost v benefit – an (approx) 30 malted milk at a ha’penny extra per biscuit, over a suicidally dull rich tea?

I’m a quality over quantity man (when it comes to biscuits, anyway)

6 Aldi white choc and cranberry cookies for ~80p. Heaven, and a pack will last a few days.

None of this shovelling in vast quantities of moderately edible brown stuff thanks very much.

I have 11mm drop on my road shoes and 6mm on various pairs of off-road shoes. It’s not something that particularly bothers me as I’m reasonably efficient and run with a neutral, midfoot style.

I guess those who will see benefits would tend to be those with big potential efficiency gains? For me, it may be a way of tempting me to part with my money…

Not weather data but I can’t think of a better job than climbing Helvellyn every day to play in the snow and take photos: http://www.lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk/gallery?result_132659_result_page=1

This is interesting reading, and a reputable source: http://www.scienceofrunning.com/2010/01/why-running-shoes-do-not-work-looking.html

I’m always wary of taking advice from people with such obvious conflicts of interest. I’d shop around a bit and see what you find comfy. I’d also consider seeing a physio with injury or biomechanical concerns

No running shoe shop is going to say you don’t need new shoes!

Even if we agreed that this was a good idea, it’s practically impossible.

There are at least 14 fps and bws from my village. Say it takes 20mins to travel to a fp end and close it. To get both ends is 28 signs needed, or over a day’s work for one village.

How many villages are there? Who would make the decisionto close paths, who would close them, who would pay for it, who would enforce it and who would reopen them?

The Game Cock at Austwick does nice French food in a proper pub. It’s near to White Scar caves, the falconry centre and can be the start for a walk up Ingleborough.

The Marine is lovely: http://www.the-marine-hotel.co.uk/

Harbour views (our room overlooked the rowing club), great food, nice people.

Not cheap, mind!

edit – Room 2.

In winter I wear l-s cycling tops so I can stuff a magicshine battery in there. Tops have to be tight though – stuff bouncing around in pockets is really annoying.

For shorts, I only ever buy ones with a little zipped pocket for a key etc. Small thing but makes a big difference for me.

ok. The distance isn’t usually the problem – she could walk the extra 10k in a couple of hours. It’s about teaching the body to run for that extra time.

Given a 50-55min 10k she could be aiming to crack 2 hours for the half. That’s ~9min miles.

I’d suggest weekly sessions of:
– 9min mile tempos, with 2min rest between them. Building up from, say, 4*1mile up to 4*2m over time. Teaches endurance at race pace and means that race pace feels ‘comfortable’
– 1 to 3min reps (with 1-2min rests. Do as many as possible without technique falling apart (maybe 8*1min or 3*3min at first)) to teach the body to get and use enough oxygen and work on running technique – it’s hard to run fast with poor technique
– a long, steady run building up to 90min – 2 hours. Distance doesn’t matter. Off-road is good.

I thought this was going to be a terrible thinly-veiled racist joke based on the phonetics of this guy’s name spoken quickly.

Not sure why I opened the thread.

>Wanders off confused.

3 pairs work shoes
2 pairs trainers
1 pair boots
2 pairs cycling shoes (1spd, 1road)
5 pairs running shoes
1 pair hiking boots
1 pair birkenstocks

More than I thought
edit: forgot a pair of running shoes – 6 of them now, oh and golf shoes and evoskins

Slawit > Meltham > Holmfirth > Holme Moss > Glossop > Snake > Strines > Midhopestones > Flouch > Holmfirth > Slawit

What is she looking to train? Ability to run the distance or ability to run the distance faster?

Jack Daniels said that specific stress leads to a specific result. If she runs all those runs at the same pace, she’ll only ever run at that pace.

She could increase the distance to prepare to run 13.1 miles by adding a km to each every couple of weeks.

Or she could keep the overall distance and add in bouts of shorter faster running, before building distance slowly on top.

I’m training for a half mara. Each week I’m doing one day of 1min reps, one day of mile tempos, one long day and fitting in whatever else I can at a steady pace. The McMillan running calculator is great for helping with working out appropriate paces for these.

Remember it’s supposed to be fun, too!

martinhutch – Member

keighley to Skipton all needs sorting tho, it’s like the friggin Somme in places

It’s alreet. Maybe the bit just before Silsden could do with a muck-out, though.

It’s dreadful. Lodge Hill bridge to Farnhill and then Bradley to Skipton are horrible, rutted mudfests at the moment.

Try as many as you can!

I was ‘professionally fitted’ for some a few years ago. They were utterly horrible and went in the bin after a few months. I then spent ages in a big shop and tried on shoes from about 10 brands until I found some that suited my feet.

I’ve stuck with that brand and type ever since.

(longish narrowish feet; neutral adidas boston shoes)

Just off out for a run:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3857913
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=5364854
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3553702
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4320918

ourmaninthenorth – Member
Confession: in the last few days I’ve been reading blogs on decluttering. Worrying, I know, but I’ve decided if we have less stuff, there’s less to tidy up.

We bought a decluttering book. It ended up in a pile of clutter for months.

Since Christmas we’ve been working on the basis that things should live near to where they’re used. Not a lot of effort but means I’ve now got screwdrivers stashed where I can always find them, which is nice.

I’m recruiting at the moment.

2 of my team managed the first round. Their ‘appointable’ people are put through to the second round, with one of the team, a Director and me.

Focus of the first round was ‘do they have the skills to do the job?’

Focus of the second round is ‘will they fit into this business?’

Oh, and do be careful on hobbies and interestes – one candidate went on and on about his running abilities. A simple Powerof10 search revealed him to be somewhat slower than his cv’s race times. What a pointless thing to lie about.

Nearly in your area – Dale Thomas in Skipton is brilliant and might be worth a call:

http://www.dt-gas.co.uk/

Have you actually seen any of it? They’re now strange superhero ninja ponies. Honest.

Don’t ask me how I know this.

I started this thread ages ago – some interesting reading: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/asthma-what-does-peak-flow-really-mean

My (relatively mild) asthma is triggered by dust, pollen, cats and cold, dry air. I find that the fitter I am, the easier it is to manage.

I now only use reliever inhalers on occasion. I never found any benefit from the preventer.

it is an excellent excellent bit of wrk.

Fully agree. Not mine (much as I’d like to take credit for it)!

I would like to prevent my kids from thinking that the earth is bigger than the sun, is there a real scale one too?

That was my first thought but it would be tricky to render size and distance on a screen and still be able to see moons!

Would love to see any other examples.

I just posted this visual of the solar system on the physics thread: http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/orrery_2006.swf

…and my 4-year old loves watching the youtube video of Sunny Williams giving a tour of the ISS before she came back to Earth.
edit: this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doN4t5NKW-k

Tenuously related and at a primary school level, but I spend far too much time just staring at this:

http://dd.dynamicdiagrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/orrery_2006.swf

I’ve been in Silsden for a couple of years.

Haven’t found much good off-road riding from the door (help, anyone?!) but the road riding is hard to beat.

Silsden is a pretty good place to live. Probably the best things going for it are Stefano’s Italian and location – 10mins by car to Ilkley, Skipton or Keighley, easy train links to Leeds/ Bradford/ North West. I bike commuted to Leeds via Otley Chevin 2 days a week – 22 miles each way and ~1h15 to work’s door so was quicker than driving or train.

We looked at Skipton but it’s a fair bit more expensive in terms of property and train tickets.

If we’re going out for food, it’s usually Ilkley. If out for drinks we usually head for Skipton.

I’m of the view that for the vast majority of people, fitness comes by doing more of the chosen activity. I get fitter for riding when I ride more, irrespective of pace. I get fitter for running when I run more.

Might not be the most efficient use of training time, but every little helps.

How much running are you actually doing? If you do intervals properly it will take a couple of days to recover.

I’d suggest doing 2 sessions of faster running per week and a couple more steady runs.

The faster running could be one set of shorter intervals to build speed and running style (less than 90sec) and one set of longer ones to improve oxygen uptake (3-6 mins)

It’s a straightforward route with little navigation needed, run at a good time of year. As big races go, it’s a good one to start with.

It’s about 3000′ of climbing in 9 miles. Where do you live? Can you get some decent hill reps on a climb that’s just about runnable?

I’d make sure you know the route and profile so a) you know what to expect and b) you know where you can get yourself safe if it goes horribly wrong. It’s classed as AM – you’ll need to carry full kit as per FRA regs.

edit: If you’re nearby, the Ilkley Moor race is also a bit of a classic and has just opened for business: http://www.ilkleyharriers.org.uk/index.php?page=imr