Ready to Go!
| Last week I fetishised my new Mizuno, proudly showing off their crisp whiteness and resolving (mentally, if not verbalised) to break them in on a treadmill before taking them into a less sterile running environment. This cautious treatment was not to be the fate of my second pair of new running shoes in less than a week! Having semi-accidentally agreed to run for Salford Harriers in the Woodbank Park Cross Country race next Saturday, I realised it would probably be a good idea to do a little research into exactly what ‘cross country’ involves. My only previous experience of this was a far distant school memory, where I trudged at the back with the walkers as my speedier and more athletic class mates shot off over the Chessington countryside before returning with a mysteriously joyous glow, which at the time I simply could not understand the origin of. |
I always suspected that the ‘cross country’ lesson was a default for when the teacher hadn’t had time to prepare anything more structured and whilst I enjoyed the countryside (and frequently walked in it in my own time anyway for this very reason) I couldn’t understand for one minute why on earth you’d want to run through it. Hah! (Incidentally I also recall stating very firmly at the age of about 8 or 9 when I first discovered the concept of vegetarianism that I would never be one of those either. I love proving myself wrong.) Well, those old school running demons were soundly slain about 2 decades later when I returned to visit my mum earlier in the year and took myself off on a rather muddy run to discover the source of my classmate’s apparent triumph in the woods. Satisfying but not exactly race-standard. Research into this strange new running discipline suggested I should probably procure a pair of ‘spikes’ and so I capitalised on my staff discount at Up & Running to treat myself to a pair of Brooks Mach 16. It seemed neither practical, nor appropriate to break these in on a treadmill and so I made the most of a free and fine afternoon to take myself off to Heaton Park to combine my Friday Hill Reps with some grassy-spike-action! I’d never want to run a race in new shoes anyway and since I had no experience in these toothed beauties, I didn’t want to leave it to chance and find myself bitten!
| After a gentle cycle up to the park, I pitched up near the best-bin-in-the-world-ever and laced up. My first impression was how bloomin’ tight the damn things were despite having gone a whole size bigger, but I’d been told by my colleague that they were supposed to be so I ignored the bipedal-claustrophobia and got to it. Not so bizarre until I was forced onto a path, at which point I was not sure which was potentially sustaining more damage, the spikes or the concrete! I was surprised to discover that my first warm-up mile, which felt like a ten minute mile plod, actually trotted by in a round 8 minutes 30. Hmm. Not so bad then. Another mile later and I had selected a small hill upon which to conduct my main training. Now, I say ‘small hill’, perhaps ‘short’ might be a more accurate adjective. I’ve not bothered to work out the incline but I suspect it is steeper than the 7% I have been becoming accustomed to on the dreadmill, however, what it offered in gradient it lacked in distance and I found myself powering up it in a fairly consistent 18 seconds. I’ve been doing 60 second reps in the gym, though definitely at a gentler slope, so this seemed a reasonable alternative. I recently read an article that suggested hill reps should be at periods of around that anyway so perhaps it’s not so much of a trade off! | 
BEST BIN EVVVAAAARRR!
A deceptive view from the top of my hill
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A disappointing lack of mud... I did run! Honest!
Marathon News; how to get 'chugged' in your own living room.
| Though I could feel the steeper hill forcing different muscles to work (no bad thing!) I found it pretty easy to handle the sub 20 second times and happily churned out about 15 of these (maybe more, I lost count and erred on the side of caution a couple of times), much to the amusement of the picnickers based at the bottom. I rounded off with a gentle, exploratory 2 mile cool down, the main feature of which was accidentally irritating a few golfers (whoops, sorry, coming through!), before finishing the whole run with a total of around 5 miles in about 45 minutes. Disappointingly, despite my best efforts, I failed to find any mud to splash through and so the shoes are still virgin pink. Oh well; an ironic complaint from the woman who has decided that the tenth anniversary of ParkRun is officially rained off. I shall have to be careful what I wish for as I’ve seen the forecast for next week and suspect the race proper may be a slightly wetter affair. Other running-related titbits from this week include a bumper feast of goodies with the arrival of a UKRunChat Challenge medal (which I feel rather unearned in comparison to the efforts of Jeff and Joe), my October Joggbox (contents yet to be explored), a crisp new copy of The Terrible and Wonderful Reasons Why I Run Long Distance by The Oatmeal (already devoured and laughed manically over) and last but certainly not least, my copy of the London Marathon 2015 magazine. Only 6 months to go! Maybe if I start running faster I’ll get there quicker!? |
| Finally, the arrival of this magazine prompted me to set up my Just Giving Page in preparation for the Marathon, which will be my fund raising race for the year in memory of my best mate Giles, who we lost 2 years ago to the day. I will be running for the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust and you can see my donations page here. 
An October sky on the 2nd anniversary of Giles' death
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