Training Log Archive: Leon

Staying in the pub at Crookham, Northumberland, so after a few pints the night before, myself and Sarah G went for a run round Flodden Field and Flodden Hill, taking in the battlefield and historical sites. Lovely morning, very pleasant run, mainly off road. An eventful day after this...

Holgate Windmill and West Park. Made it up as I went along. Nice enough.

Extended river south run, to end of west bank path and over to the east bank, back on Fulford Rd. Slowly cranked pace up as feeling good, and couldn't be bothered just trotting along.

First headtorch run of the autumn, took some getting used to.
Railway path down to Otley, birdcage walk, up East Chevin road, along lower path across Chevin forest, then up and over to Carlton Lane, then off road again all the way back to Menston other side of Chevin top.
Felt pretty decent again.
Once away from street lights and near woods on Chevin, visibility was nearly nil, which was a bit crazy and slowed me somewhat, nearly ran off path several times, stood still for about a minute trying to see if what I thought was the path to the top was the actual path. Cleared once I escaped the trees.
Only stacked it once, which could have been more serious than it was.
Took a stupid route back home, won't be doing that again in the dark.

C • Should have come and done h... 7

Clifton and Bootham, Bit damp, legs fine

Run from Kirkstall into town on canal, up to Hyde park and around, back through Burley, first 6mi with Oz, Tom and Susan, quite a relaxed pace and sociable. Felt like I had a lot in the tank at the end which was good.

Just the one run today, from Sandal and Agbrigg station, through Walton into Haw Park, then the Barnsley canal path, back on the old Midland Railway path to Newmillar Dam and then on the roads.
Was targeting a trio of Strava segments, 0.6m, 0.5m and 1.7m long, the first two easy enough but the latter was average pace of 5:36 which didn't feel up to at first but once I dipped under this pace managed to hold it fairly comfortably, however I effectively combined the 0.5 and 1.7 into a 13 minute effort as I hadn't really fully clocked what was going on with the segments, was envisaging the path ending so just had to keep going until it did.
Cracking route and area to run in, feeling good.

Tried to extend a tried and tested 4 miler to 5 but didn't really come off so ended up covering the whole loop line.
Moving well enough though, mainly to get lunch quicker.

First run with the students of the autumn, great to run in a big group again.
Standard '7' loop (actually 6.5) with a mile to and from the union.
Started off feeling terrible first two miles, but got into it and was feeling great by 4 miles, ticking along and chatting away at 6:40 pace.

Another 300 mile plus month in the bank, 64 days and counting averaging over 10 mi per day.

Might come to an end next week in Cyprus when I either expect to cycling a lot, or lazing about by the pool.

From Scarborough station to assembly and then to the start.

Raincliffe Woods Event, Brown course, 55:19, 4.6mi
Decided to take the opportunity for some forest practice ahead of CSC final.
For me, in a forest, this was bloody decent.
1&2 took shortest route, was slow but fairly accurate
3-Biggest mistake, took paths to south of control and dropped down, but didn't drop far enough, and then was too far west (would have had no idea what I'd done if not for GPS trace) After a couple of minutes of faffing, relocated to the path north and came in from that was and it was easily found. Lost 3-3.5mins I reckon
Having decided I should have done north, went north path to 4 which was straightforward in and out, and amazingly from here I didn't go far wrong until #20:
5 - nailed this by coming in from NW corner of open area
6 - straight in from north along edge of green stuff
7 - what appeared risky, followed ridge SW to minor southern path and dropped down once I could see stream
8 - straight across W, maybe slightly slow for accuracy purposes
9 - easy off the path going N
10 - Again straightforward of main path
11 - slightly hesistant but soon found it
12 - straightforward
13 - straight across road and then parallel to it on paths, spotted reentrant straight away which is most unlike me
14 - followed contours round and dropped in.
15 - Followed main path to N and then followed steam
16 - Path then contoured across
17 - Possibly should have come back to path, but feeling confident contoured round and got caught out by little stub of fences but quickly corrected.
18 - Along paths and not far off
19 - Someone else was there so easy
20 - Tired now, misread contours and ended up too high maybe lost 45s
21 - Couldn't work out why I was in a ditch and took me 30s to realise I'd just left 20 and not 19, at which point I worked out, so lost something like a minute
Navigate to finish, controversial, couldn't see it until I was on top of it.

Being harsh on myself, probably not the most difficult course and I lost a bit of focus near the end. Plus I still can't run through rough stuff, ankle liable to give way at any moment. But good fun and pleased to come out of it feeling like sometimes I can actually do this stuff outside a concrete jungle.

As it was only 4.6, did a longer 'warm down' along the woodland ravine, through Peasholm park, round north bay, round south bay. Very busy. Topologically, a bizarre place for such a big settlement.
Remembered with a mile to go the final YUL is here in November and I should probably run through the middle areas rather than the coast but by then the climb put me off. Hope it doesn't in the race.