Onwards and upwards.

I'm aiming to increase my long weekend runs each week, hopefully peaking at around 18 - 20 miles by mid May. I need to bump up the milage pretty dramatically, mainly because I've entered the 'Picnic' Marathon' http://www.trionium.com/picnic/ which takes place on June 20th and is described as the toughest marathon in the UK! So I'll have to be getting in plenty of long, hilly, cross-country runs over the next few months.
Today I set off on a run from home at about 10-ish and planned to head out to the Devil's Jumps via Bourne Woods and Frensham Common and then return across Hankley Common, through Tilford village and back via the footpath that runs past the witches cave.
I decided to pretty much make up the route as I went along and use my GPS to keep track of the milage and hope to run about 14 or 15 miles. It wasn't a particularly pleasant day, with grey skies and a chilly wind blowing but I plodded on for mile after mile up some pretty challenging hills followed by yet more challenging hills; eventually coming onto Hankley Common . The Army were there in force and at one point I had to run through one of their ambush exercises. They were busy shooting at each other (I hope they were firing blanks!) but were ordered to cease fire by one of the NCOs to let me run past before resuming the fire-fight. Never a dull moment on my training runs!
Another highlight of the run was the sighting of some new cows in the field near to the witches cave. Don't know what breed they are but they looked pretty cute so I stopped to take a couple of photos.

The 'cow photo stop' was quite welcome as I'd run about 11 miles at that stage and the brief stop gave me a chance to stretch a bit and have a drink. And so,refreshed, I carried on for about another 3 miles, making an overall distance of 14 miles.

Next weekend should be interesting as I've inadvertantly entered two races in succession; the G3 10k on Saturday and the Leith Hill Half Marathon on Sunday. Guess I should give the running a rest on Thursday and Friday but we'll see!

Speed and distance training.....

Okay, Wednesday saw a run along the Thames at lunchtime and a yoga session after work; the first one since before xmas due to the yoga teacher being out of action for the last 5 weeks after she fell on some slippery tiles and cracked her head...ouch!
Thursday night I opted for a road run through Farnham of about 10k and then on Friday morning I ran with Jenny on the short 7k Hankley run.
Picked Richard up from Gatwick late Friday night after his trip to Spain with Joe. He'd had a good time and even managed to squeeze in a days skiing in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

Despite the late night, it was up early on Saturday morning - a gloriously sunny Saturday morning - and out for a run round the longer Hankley route with Jenny and Jackson. They returned home in the car whilst I took the scenic route on foot via Frensham Pond, Tilford Reeds, Bourne Woods and across to the Elstead Road and back past the Witches Cave. Total distance of about 21k.

The rest of Saturday was spent mainly doing stuff in the garden with the occassional break for some sunbathing - YES it really was warm enough to get the shirt off and soak up some rays!
Later in the day I had a very competetive game of squash against Richard. And somehow, despite their earlier workout, the legs kept going for 50 minutes.

Sunday was equally busy with a 40 minute x-country run first thing then loads of sawing and chopping in the garden This included chopping down the conifer that stood in front of the lounge window and blocked out all the light.

And then it was back to the Devil's Jumps for a hill session. I was in half a mind whether to go because my legs were feeling a bit jaded and I didn't feel particularly energetic. But I went anyway and was glad that I did. I ran four laps and my times for the climb were significantly faster than I acheived last Sunday. My record now stands at 1'44 and that's the target to beat next week!

Hills...

Had some good news on Friday from James in Buenos Aires. He's had two lengthy root canal sessions with the dentist and his tooth has been fixed and he's now free of pain which means he can get on with the rest of his trip.

I had a day off from running on Friday but was up early Saturday morning for the G3 race at Newland's Corner. It was a great morning; sunny and cold and slightly hazy. The race is one of a series of three which are run at monthly intervals in January, February and March. The course is pretty much the same for all three races but with minor differences. And there are always loads of hills; the worst being the slog up to St Martha's Church from the south side of the hill. A lot of runners became walkers for the climb and there were the inevitable bottle-necks as the path is quite narrow.
I got around the 10k course in 1hr 04'57" which put me in 149th position out of 300.

Sunday morning I ran with Jenny and Jackson on the usual morning route around Hankley Common and then, after dropping Richard at Gatwick for his flight to Spain, I was back out for a punishing hill session at the Devil's Jumps. I left the rucksack in the car and concentrated on trying to get some speed up on the climb to the top of the hill. The first time up was done at a steady pace but after that I pushed myself as hard as I could and managed to get the time down from 2'37 to 2'14 then 1'59 and finally 1'51. The last effort was an absolute killer and it took me a while to recover sufficiently enough for the jog back down to the car. It's a good work-out for Jackson too. He devoured his bowl of food when we got home and then fell into an exhausted sleep!

Monday lunchtime I did the 7k bridges run from work. The legs were pretty tired so I took it easy and just enjoyed the fresh air and watched the rowers out training and just generally jogged my way around.

Pounding the streets...

So I've been doing a fair bit of road running this week, which I generally try to avoid. Staying off-road for the bulk of my training has almost certainly helped me to stay free of injuries. But I've been busy at work this week and not getting home until well into the evenings and the added time spent driving to Hankley for a run would have meant not getting back until 9pm and sitting down to eat at about 9:30pm. So I squeezed in a lunch run from work along the Thames on Wednesday and a 10k run through Farnham and back via Hale on Thursday. The snow returned on Thursday evening, making the pavements nice and slippery and somewhat difficult to run on in places but I managed to get round in about 50 minutes.

News from James in Buenos Aires was not good. They'd arrived safely but James was suffering very painful toothache and had to have emergency root canal work done to alleviate an abscess. He's had to go back to the dentist today for a second lot of treatment after which he should be okay to resume his trip, free of pain. I feel really sorry for him because he's been planning and looking forward to this trip of a lifetime for ages and must be feeling really down and depressed at the moment. At least he's got Jess with him to cheer him up and he's away from the miserable English weather.

Anyway it's an early start for me tomorrow morning as I'll be running in the G3 10k race at Newland's Corner. The race starts at 8:30am which is a bit on the early side but at least means I'll be finished by 9:30 at the latest and still have the rest of the day to do other stuff.

Back in the gym...

...Monday afternoon for a session on the rower. 7421m in 30'.

Tuesday morning; up at 4am to take James and Jess to Heathrow for their flight to Buenos Aires and the start of their 4 month tour of South America. Felt very jealous!!




James and Jess in disguise!

Thought about going for a very early run when I returned from the airport at 5.25am. Didn't think about it for very long and decided to go back to bed for another hour or so before getting up and driving to work.

Took Jackson for a 5 mile road run through Farnham this evening. Luckily he refrained from stopping for a pooh in the centre of Farnham which is something I dread happening whenever I run through town with him!

Hidden dangers...

I came across this on my run today...

One of the hazards of using military land for my training runs I guess! Anyway, I stuffed it into my rucksack and brought it home with me and will be nailing it to the gate into the back garden as a burgular deterent. Combined with Jackson's bark (which sounds more like that of a Rottweiler than a Springer Spaniel) we should be safe from prowlers and robbers..

Slush...

Friday. Somehow I managed to get everything wrapped up at work by 2pm so jumped in the car and headed back to Farnham. It was raining as I left London but by the time I reached junction 3 of the M3 the rain had turned to snow. And as I reached Farnham the snow was getting pretty heavy. So I made a brief stop at home to get changed and to grab Jackson and then we were off to Tilford for a 10k dash around Hankley.

But it wasn't so much of a dash as a careful jog because the recent snow had turned into a soft, wet slush which was pretty difficult to run on. Also, the snow that was still falling wasn't really settling and was only adding to the general wetness. And somehow I managed to slip and fall over within 5 minutes of setting off and landed in a puddle!

Surprisingly I came across a few other folk out walking their dogs. There was the guy that looks a bit like Ed with the two Setters - Jackson had a scrap with one of them as we ran past! And then, a bit further down the track there was a women with two dogs - and Jackson had a scrap with one of those too! After that we didn't see anyone else for the rest of the run, maybe Jackson's new aggressive nature had scared them all off or maybe the weather conditions were just too adverse for most people to venture out.

Friday night the temperature dropped to minus 3 or 4 and the snow and slush turned crisp and icy. So the Saturday morning run with Jenny had a completely different feel to it. It was still hard work but more fun because it was much easier to avoid slipping over. The only downer was that I'd forgotten to dry out my trainers from Friday's slushy run and had to put them on while they were still soaking wet which was pretty horrible.

Training continues...

..despite the snowy conditions and lack of daylight.
I've seen loads of pedestrians slipping over on the icy pavements in the last few days and decided that I really didn't want to risk injuring myself by trying to run on the local streets. So, I thought, the only thing for it is to attempt a night x-country run in the snow at Hankley Common. Jenny didn't think that was a good idea at all and told me that I was 'an idiot' to even think of running off road at night through deep snow. But I went anyway.
I parked the car on the road as a precaution as the muddy area that I usually park on is down a little snow covered slope and I had visions of returning later on and being unable to get the car out. That proved to be a wise move because James parked there the following day and did get stuck! He had to get his girlfriend to push the car while he drove it out!
After parking I had to walk a short distance and cross the road to get to the start of the run. I was aware that people in the cars passing by were looking at me and probably wondering what the hell I was doing in the middle of nowhere, at night, dressed in running gear and wearing a rucksack and head torch!
Once onto the common, though, I was able to get running and was pleasantly surprised on a couple of counts.
Firstly, the running itself wasn't difficult at all, in fact the deep snow seemed to even out all the usual bumps, roots, puddles etc so that I could run at a pretty decent pace. It was a bit slippery on the steeper up and down hills but I only actually fell over once and that was a soft landing, also thanks to the snow.
The other thing was that with everything being so white it was really easy to see in the dark. I reckon I could have got round without a my head-torch. There was a bit of moon to help (about half a moon or so) but even that was obscured by clouds for most of the time.
And I wasn't the only one foolish enough to be out. As I crested the last but one hill I came across a bunch of soldiers lying very still with their weapons pointing in my direction. Luckily they must have realised that I didn't pose a threat and decided not to open fire!
The rest of the run passed without incident and I got back to the car in about the same time as I would have done in daylight without the snow.

I enjoyed myself so much that I went and did the same run the following night. The snow was much softer though and a lot more slippery. And it was quite foggy. So It wasn't as much fun but still good.

A slippery run...

I opted for a late afternoon run along the Thames from work to Hammersmith Bridge and then down to Chiswick Bridge and back to work. It was a bit on the slippy side but I managed to stay on my feet and took some video footage on the way round. Total distance of about 8.5k.

snow...

A 10k x-country with Jackson on Sunday morning was followed by a 6k hike (also with Jackson) later in the afternoon. The snow clouds were looming in the distance and the forecast for overnight and into Monday morning predicted heavy snowfalls. Sure enough we awoke to 6 inches of snow on Monday morning.

This is a video of part of my journey to work, it normally takes an hour door to door; Monday morning I was traveling for over three hours!



Of course there was too much snow to make it safe for a run and being one of the few to make it into work, I was a bit pushed for time anyway. But today I'm planning to brave the ice and snow and get out to Hankley for an attempt at a 10k. It's probably safer to run off road at the moment as the roads and pavements are turning into ice rinks. I'll just have watch out for those crevasses and avalanches on my way around!