Night-running deserves a quiet night

Went out on Saturday night (25 Apr) for a night run. The purpose of the run was to try out my head-torch and to get a feel for running at night.

The run took place between about 8pm and around 11:30pm, and covered about 19 miles.

The run was just mad - running through woods and along the towpath. A bit spooky, but exciting and fun too.

I was pretty shot on Sunday, but am OK'ish now.

My next goals are:

• Add another leg weights session per week to help balance my leg strength
• Reduce my Sunday long runs to 20 miles and increase my Monday long runs to reach 20 miles, so that I'm doing 20 miles + 20 miles back-to-back
• Do the first half of the ONER course before the end of May, not worrying about how long it takes, just getting used to the course

Night-running, remembering that night
August's coming soon I'm pining for the moon
And what if there were two
Side by side in orbit
Around the fairest sun?
That bright, tight forever drum
Could not describe night-running

(Modified Nightswimming lyrics, R.E.M.)

Very pleased...

...today I clocked up a 24 miles training session in 5 hours.

I set my alarm for 4:45am, and was out of the door by 5am.

The route began by running down through the centre of Bristol and around the Harbourside. Then out along the towpath beneath the Clifton Suspension bridge. Up through Leigh Woods, across to Abbots Pool, through 100-Acre wood and then around Ashton Court. From Ashton Court, I went around Leigh Woods some more and then back down to the towpath. Followed this along to Pill and then over the M5 across the Avonmouth bridge. I managed to find about 4-5 miles of off-road path on my way back in to Bristol before I was forced to run along the Portway (A4). Finally up through Clifton and back home.

My mapped route looked something like:


And here are a couple of photos I took along route as I was overjoyed to be running amongst Bluebells and Hawthorn blossom.




The only downside of the whole run, was being attacked by a Poodle in a jumper (no I wasn't hallucinating!) as I climbed up a steep hill to get to Clifton. It really was the most unattractive dog as well as being badly behaved.

Hills, hills, hills...

The last week has been a bit of a recovery week. I skipped the long run over the Easter weekend, but did get out for two runs, an 8-miler with a friend Jon, who we stayed with in St Ives, and another (5 miles) on my own.

I have recently taken the step of trading-in pure miles for shorter more intense hill training sessions.

My weekly schedule is now usually:

Sunday - Long run (unless it's a recovery week)
Monday - Medium / long run to back-up the Sunday run
Tuesday - Rest day
Wednesday - Hills
Thursday - Weight training
Friday - Hills
Saturday - Rest day

Trading-in the pure miles seems to be suiting me better. I feel less like I'm on the verge of illness or injury, and I am recovering better from my training sessions and feel like I'm getting stronger.

Yesterday was a typical hills session taking-in a variety of local hills. I wore my Heart Rate Monitor out of interest. The results were as follows:


I gave it some stick up Marlborough Hill. A hill steep enough to get my HR up towards its limit. My heart maxed-out at 184bpm which was lower than I was expecting.

My max-HR used to be about 192bpm. Maybe my max-HR has lowered due to age.

Hoping for another good long run this Sunday.

A historic training session...

I had an opportunity today to train both when and where I liked. Suzi had taken the children to Dorset to visit her Mother. I would have gone too, but I've been getting a bit run down by Felix's terrible sleep, so I stayed at home to do some DIY jobs, sleep and go for a good long run.

I decided to use this opportunity to train away from my normal trails around Bristol. And much as I don't normally reminisce, today's training session was a trip down memory lane for me.

In the morning, I got a bus from Bristol to Churchill in Somerset. Even the bus ride reminded me of a bus journey back from Bristol to Hill Farm, where I used to live, with a girl friend, after a good day's ice skating.

From Churchill, I ran (well actually mostly walked) up to Rowberrow Warren, and then on up to the top of Beacon Batch, Somerset's highest point - 1066ft above sea level. Here, I had previously been on School walks and youth club camps, and in my teens I could even be found tearing around this area on a motorbike.




From Beacon Batch I headed over to Cheddar - Somewhere I sailed (a bit) previously on the resovoir. I even had a few piano lessons in Cheddar when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

From Cheddar I run-walked over to Shute Shelve hill, and then up through Kings Wood, past Hill Farm, where I used to live, and along to Crooks Peak.

I lived at Hill Farm from about 1972 until around 1982. During most of my time there, I was always out on the hill - playing in the woods, riding bikes, hiding in the bracken, riding horses with my Mother - I have many fond memories of that time.

From Crooks Peak, I descended down to Barton, then on to Loxton and Christon, and over a hill and along a Roman road to Uphill.

I finished my run by running along the beach at Weston-Super-Mare.


All in all, I run-walked for 4hrs 30mins, which was 30mins longer than last week, although the same mileage - 22 miles. The extra 30 mins was accounted for by the very hilly route. At least as hilly as I expect the ONER course to be.

A good day out.

ow, Ow, OW! Thanks, where do I pay?

I started this week with an 18 mile run on Sunday afternoon. Setting off at about 4pm and returning home at around 7:30pm.

I didn't do my normal 5am start because it was Mothering Sunday, and also Helena's birthday on the following Monday, and both Helena and Suzi needed (and deserved) breakfast in bed.

The run route was a change from my normal run route also. I set off from home to Eastville Park and then followed the Frome Valley Walkway all the way until just after the Winterborne Viaduct (see picture), where the pathway began to cross very rough fields that made the going quite tough, and so I decided to return home.

I felt like the 18 miles was pretty much my limit. Thinking about how to go further, I think I either need to toughen up, better my nutrition, or go more slowly, or probably a bit of all of these.

When I returned home I used an ice-pack on my knees as they tend to be the area that feel the most sore. This treatment seemed to really work, and on Monday I ran the 8 miles round trip to the Junior BAD Tri track session at Filton Academy and my knees felt fine.

Tuesday (today) was a rest day. However, I had booked myself for a sports massage. Hence the title of the post - My God it was painful (but effective).

Gina, my massuer, highlighted some possible issues with my legs and gave some helpful advice on ways to improve things:

1. I have an imbalance between my legs. Most pronounced is that my left hamstring is much weaker than my right. So from now on, when I do weights sessions, I need to concentrate on strengthening my left hamstring
2. My ITB's are both tight. Gina recommended using a cut-off part of a swim woggle as an effective roller to loosen my ITB's
3. My glutes are very tight, and she gave me some stretches to assist with this

I'll try to repeat the torture of the sports massage every 4-6 weeks, as it has really helped to loosen-up my legs.

Spring is in the air...

What a fantastic day to begin my week's training.

After feeling very old last week, with achy joints and slight malaise, I decided to skip my long run today and go for a long mountain bike (MTB) ride instead. My thinking was that I could still give my muscular endurance a good workout whilst also giving my joints a much needed break from the pounding of a 20+ mile run.

I arose at 5:10am and was out of the door by 5:30am. And once on my normal run route along the towpath, there was just enough light to see the terrain and enable me to push-on rather than just dawdle along. I tried to keep a pace that would keep my heart rate up at about my normal run HR -10 beats.

As the Sun came up, it turned out to be a beautiful day, with Spring very much in the air. With Daffodils, lambs and wild garlic all showing an end to Winter!

By the time I got home 4 hours later at 09:30am, I really felt like my legs had had a good workout, but my joints felt fine. And, given the success of today, I will probably look to change my training plan so that I have a long run every other week with a long MTB in between.

I wore my heart rate monitor to give me some idea of the intensity of the workout. My average was 135bpm, which was about what I expected. Here's the chart of my heart rate:


The long gap at about 3hrs 20mins was for a stop to get something to eat. By then my breakfast of two oatcakes with peanut butter had definitely burnt-off.

All-in-all, a very good workout.

On my return, I found that the children had gotten Suzi up very early, so the household atmosphere wasn't its best. However, Suzi had managed to get another hour's sleep while the children played.

Now, given how wonderful that the weather was, we took all the children's bikes up to the Downs - which is a big open space not very far from our house.

Helena had her first try riding a bike without stabilisers, and just took off without me having to hold her at all! Top marks. In fact, this has very much been her weekend. Firstly, she got promoted to the top group at her swimming class despite being much smaller than the other children in the top group. She also went to two parties, one Saturday and one Sunday, and learnt to ride a bike. Surprise, surprise, she was very tired tonight!

Tomorrow evening I shall be off to help with the BAD Kids training night, and will try to get in a good long run as well (10-15miles).

Back on track? Just maybe...

The trouble with enthusiasm...

...is it can get you into trouble!

Oh what a fool I am. The week following the Tough Ten Challenge, I was so full of enthusiasm that I pushed on hard trying to claw-back my mileage total for the week .

I seem to be at the point where my muscles are able to accept plenty of training volume, but my tendons are not. Smashing down rough, rocky descents in the Tough Ten Challenge, followed by too much road mileage training resulted in another tendon inflammation (tendonitis), this time - the knee (hence the picture).

The main symptom of the injury was a stabbing pain in the knee when attempting to run up any sort of incline. So, again there wasn't much to do but RICE (Rest Ice Compression Elevation) and add some leg strengthening exercises.

On the positive side (sort of), my knee injury coincided with a head-cold, caught from my darling wife. So, dodgy knee and snotty nose - not great!

After a week's rest, with the exception of doing some gym work, I managed to get out for a 17 mile slow run on Sunday. This started badly with a few bouts of the stabbing pain, but after about 10 minutes or so the pain pretty much disappeared. And since this run, my knee swelled very slightly but now seems pretty much back to normal. But just to be sure I've kept it pretty low volume this week.

Looking forward, I need to re-focus on the ONER. And therefore I have decided:

1. To skip the Bath Half Marathon as it won't help me at all towards preparing for the ONER, and will just take time for me to recover
2. Add more leg-weights sessions, particularly leg press, as there is some evidence that these may help to protect my quads against all the hills that the ONER will present
3. Don't fall into the trap of just adding more and more mileage at the expense of other training
4. Listen to my body more to try not to get injured again

I have re-planned as follows:


Also, mad as it seems, I have taken to carrying a rolled-up piece of roofing lead in my work rucksack. I will soon be adding to this with a pair of 1Kg ankle weights. These impediments are to help me get general conditioning at every opportunity (free training!). Will these work? Only time will tell...