A Wednesday and a great idea to do mile reps, after a ten minute warm up, 4 x 7-7:30 pace I hit the first one too fast at 6:55 and the second one hurt at 7:24! The last two felt more even at 7:05 and 7:09 and then a cool down to make a good 7 mile run in under an hour.
Had a couple of rest days due to a couple of busy days and then tested the 10 mile tempo pace on the Saturday morning in 1:25, perfect 8:30/mile pacing! This made 25 miles for the week plus some walking to aid recovery and get the family out in the fresh air.
Saturday I was listening to the Runpod podcast with Jenni Falkener and her interview with Hugh Brasher, all the talk of the London Marathon, and pointing out that registration was open for the 2023 marathon already, I took the inspiration to enter for the back to April London Marathon. This also made me think I should do some podcast recommendations, more to come.
Last week started with a cycle commute on Tuesday, it’s 16 miles each way and was a thoroughly nice ride into work, followed by an apocalyptic rain and wind fest on the way home! It was great training to build that base fitness.
An easy 4 miles the following morning on slightly aching legs and then a higher effort 7.5 miles the next day trying to hold under 8 min mile pace (7:50 average pace). I have been taking advantage of the recover app included with Strava membership that focusses on preventative strength and conditioning exercises to avoid injury, trying to squeeze 3 of these in a week. Morning 4.5 miles on Friday in preparation for a weekend away in Snowdonia with the lads.
We stayed above the Old Stag in Llangernyw in an air bnb that was a really good base, plenty of space for the six of us. Friday night involved Curry, beer, more beer, some polish vodka and something called a tatanka. Needless to say I was feeling the effects of a late night with much lubrication when I woke up at 7:00 on Saturday, Anthony and I had roughly arranged to go for a run, but I appeared to be the only one up and about, I thought about getting some more sleep but then I thought better of it, donned the running kit and hit the road.
It was straight away uphill, not what I really needed! and it kept going, and going, a bit of flat and then more hill, then Anthony running in the other direction. He must have just beat me out and had just turned for home after still not reaching the top of the hill! We decided to try and make it, topped out over the hill and followed our noses to a right turn, quick check of the phone more running, lots of chat and a weakening fuzziness and we made it back to the start 7.5 miles (a bit more for Anthony) completed. Time for breakfast, coffee and knocking up a mean packed lunch to hit the hills.
I couldn’t locate my Snowdonia OS17 map and Amazon let me down with a Harvey’s map so resorted to printing a screen shot of my planned route, bargaining on the others having a map, a fairly safe assumption. We had a plan to leave from the Ogwen Valley, head up Pen Yr Ole Wen via the east ridge with some steady walking and some easy scrambling. It was mild, not much of a wind and the ground was good going, we made good progress with a few minor grumbles of middle age, lack of fitness and some beer induced difficulties! About 2,000ft of initial ascent got the blood pumping and the sweat flowing and after reaching the summit of Pen Yr Ole Wen we traversed the ridge to Carnedd Dafydd and stopped at the shelter for lunch in the sun. We continued progress over good terrain to Carnedd Llewelyn and descended to the ridge and the path out to the valley, a great day out with 9.5 miles of good walking, 3,000ft of ascent and three of the Welsh 3,000ft peaks bagged. 23 miles of running for the week plus the walking. Back to running good miles this week.
