Training Log Archive: Leon

From Durham station and a couple of laps of the track

Durham parkrun - #57 - 1st, 17:01
Some confusion as the woman in charge told me the course had changed.
Except it turned out to be the exact same course as the one on the website, so she clearly doesn't know the website has been updated to reflect this change, which must therefore be semi-permanent.
Otherwise uneventful, took the lead after 500m and never looked back.
A fairly decent time, consider I have still to replace my trail shoes and so I have no grip whatsoever, there were several slippy patches but the course was flat. Bridge we crossed twice with rough wooden slats was a bit annoying. A bit disappointed I didn't manage to cover the last 300m on the track in the 57s required to break 17, so must have given it a lot before then.

I could easily have gone for a run after this, but just ran back into Durham as wary of making calves any worse this weekend by piling it on.

Legs felt awful Saturday night, really aching, despite doing three less races than last Saturday and over 10 miles less.

Friday shuffle down to Burley in Wharfedale.
And it was a shuffle.
Calves still tight.
Amended last weeks route slightly to loop round the housing estate to the west of the village centre, should be a good Wednesday night event in the new year this one.

Standard Hob Moor Loop. Fine

From Cross Gates station, through Temple Newsam, down to M1 and in on the cracking cycle path alongside the A63 to the City Centre.

There was some club doing a session round TN Hall, bit strange seemed to be sprinting one side and jogging the other complete with lights despite the hall being very well lit.
The rest of the park was dark which was fun.
Think I will do some 2 mile efforts on the cycle path it's very flat and quiet.

Miles 3,4,5,6 were all at 6:15 pace which was great but it felt a bit more like sub 6 pace. Right calf a little tight.

Garmin playing up, left calm tight, cold and rainy, other than that a pleasant trot out to Rowntree Park and back

Harrogate Station to the start.
Absolutely lashing down.
Soaked by a 4 by 4 speeding through a puddle.
Considered turning round but figured I have to run something anyway, looking at a map will take my mind off how terribly miserable it is.

CLARO Street O - SW Harrogate.
Decidely unpleasant, some would say hardcore, some would say foolhardy, some may say foolharcorely, but whatever, the hardy half dozen of us set off, I set off very steady, not much motivation to hammer it anyway even it wasn't ark weather. 3rd lampost pen stopped working. 4th control aware I wasn't warming up at all. 5th lampost started sleeting horizontally into my face. At this point considered stopping, but decided to get half an hour. Then realised Richard had his car key to access my DRY kit. Briefly considered some kind of fun man hunt to find him and key. The decided to stop writing numbers down and just treat it as a training exercise running round the map.
Eventually the sleet turned back to rain and even eased just after the half hour mark and around 40 minutes there was a hint, just a hint, of warmth as I found some decent pace.
Actually took quite a decent route amongst all this, coped with the few dead ends well and took the right short cuts.
Didn't get the last control as thought I was about to run out of time and wasn't bothered about the result, just told the (very nice) man in charge to record me as back as I hadn't written any numbers down. But when the next two back admitted they hadn't either I told him I got all bar one. I think there were 27 but I have no idea.
Has taken me two hours to defrost. Grim stuff, but possibly better than plodding the roads alone, I would have ended up going too fast.
Aiming for Burnley tomorrow but in this weather I probably won't bother.

C • # controls 2

LCAC Bingo Loops session
6 x 5 mins off 75
Was dreading this, but if you get it done, it feels great.
Was aiming for sub 33 10k pace (5:18) and managed this
1. 5:14 pace
2. 5:16 pace
3. 5:16
4. 5:17
5. 5:15
6. 5:11
To be honest my legs didn't feel great after the weekend and I struggled up the hill every time so to manage my best session on this is very good. Only me and Oz did all 6, as others did Abbey Dash or are doing XC at weekend. Very cold, but was fine really.

Out to ring road and back either side of river. Nice and relaxed

To Guiseley for some shopping

Collecting controls with Richard

My legs are in bits. Who'd have thought it?

EBOR Peasholm and Secret Garden event - 1st (course 1) 37:54
Again, a lot of fun in a great area
But no way I should have won making the mistakes I did.
Tired mind and legs meant I was slow but accurate 2-3-4 but picked up 5-6-7 and was going well. Attempted to go back through turnstile at 5 to 8 but it wouldn't budge. Revisited it on warm down to discover only one of the three gates was misaligned and needed lifting to open. So had to go a bit further north and then headed straight for 8, just realised in time the fence was uncrossable from that side and lost more time coming in from 9 then. Very honest of me! would have been easy to punch through fence!
Lost time to traffic to 10, overshot 11 to next thicket and made same mistake as others to 12, misjudging (?) which was the middle path in question, costly.Longer path routed to 14&15, south to 18 and up to road to drop into 19. Road throughout to 20 and in from the north.
At this point was catching Richard so we had a bit of a battle then, I deliberately took the alternative route choice to him for fun and he just held me off after we both overshot the last control.