Easy recovery run

Yesterday's race in the Harrogate League was a bit harder than I'd expected, so today I was feeling quite sore in the legs. A very slow easy recovery run was called for. I ran my regular two bridges run to Addingham & back. My pace was more than two minutes per km slower than yesterday's race (on a much easier route), but it was as much as I could sensibly manage.

The official results for the race show that I finished in 31:42 (8.1km very hilly) in 26th place out of 284 runners. We managed to finish in first place in both the vets & senior vets team races. I was happy enough to be first M55 (the first 3 were all from Ilkley Harriers), but surprised that I'm now also leading the series on the age graded handicap. I was intending to use these races as fast training runs, but I may have to take them a bit more seriously now.

Harrogate League race 1 - Ilkley

This evening was the first race in the 2010 Harrogate & Distraict Summer Race League, organised by Ilkley Harriers. The course was 8.1k including a 2k climb up Owler Park Road & a 2k descent down Carters Lane, with a bit of flat at the beginning & end. After several weeks of warm sunny weather, it was raining & the temperature dropped a few degrees.

I decided on a cautious start heading towards the climb. Once we started going up I felt OK & started overtaking people, usually I'm not quick on the hills. There were plenty of Ilkley runners around me, Ben S a few places in front, I managed to overtake Andy W & Steve C near the top of the hill. There were quite a few Otley runners around as well, including Josie H with whom I'd been warming up earlier. At about halfway I was told that I was in 29th place (not sure how many were running - probably about 250).

I managed to overtake a few people on the descent, but was overtaken by a few others, including Mark I in the last 100m who was absolutely flying - the track sessions had clearly helped his finishing sprint. My finishing time was 31:44, which wasn't too bad for 8.1 k with those hills. Checking my Garmin stats I ran one of the kms in 3:12 - which is almost certainly the fastest kilometre that I've ever run (although it was down a steep hill).

Not seen the official results yet, but I'm hopeful of having done well in my age category & we should have done quite well in the vets & super vets (over 55) team competitions. Quite a satisfying evening's race, but really it was a fast training run in preparation for the John Carr 5k series which starts on Wednesday.

Running without a watch

Normally I always wear my Garmin when I'm running, even if I'm not concerned about how far or how fast I'm going. Today, I was just about to set off on my run when I realised that all of the charge had gone from my watch, so I had the option of waiting half an hour or so for it to have sufficient charge or going without it. I chose to run without it.

I'd taken another day off from running yesterday & my plan for this week is to take it easy before racing on Thursday evening. I now have 4 races in 4 weeks, so I don't want to be worn out before I even start. So just going out for a slow steady run was what was required today. I ran my regular two bridges route, so I knew how far it would be & I really wasn't interested in the pace, so not having my watch wasn't a problem. Even so it felt a bit like setting off running naked.

Thursday's race is a fairly low key one in the local Harrogate & District Summer League, a hilly 4.9 miles course. I've been preparing more, however, for the John Carr 5k series which starts next week. I'm not intending to do any more speed sessions in the next few weeks apart from the races.

Three peaks race (spectating)

Up early this morning to run the Ilkley Harriers 'Hard run' interval session, before heading off the Ingleborough to watch the Three Peaks race. With it being the weekend of the London marathon as well as the Three Peaks, I wasn't expecting too many of us to be running this morning. As it turned out there were 6 of us, including Richard R & Jeff P to push the pace along.


As usual we ran efforts of 2X3 minutes, 2X4 minutes, 2X5 minutes & 3X6 minutes, with about 3 minutes of recoveries between the efforts. The course is out & back along the Nesfield Road to the A59, which is quite undulating, with a couple of significant hills up to Nesfield (which always are part of effort sections). Overall I averaged a bit less than 3:50 minutes per km during the efforts, which I was quite happy with considering that I was still feeling the effects of Wednesday's track session. In total I ran 16k, including regrouping & running from & to home.



Not much time to get showered, changed & something to eat, before driving up to Clapham. Arriving at Clapham at 10:45, I reckoned that I had about 1 hour 45 minutes to get to the top of Ingleborough before the first runner. It was therefore quite a brisk walk, especially after running an interval session. I managed to get to the top with about 10 minutes to spare.



The weather was perfect for the many spectators: warm, little wind, sunny, very dry. Not sure that the runners would be so enthusiastic about the temperature (the car showed 23 degrees when I got back to Clapham).






I've never watched the Three Peaks race before. I was surprised how slowly the leading runners were walking up the final climb to the summit of Ingleborough.....by this stage they had run about 30k, climbing Penyghent & Whernside along the way, so I guess that it's not really surprising that they looked worn out. There were some seriously quick runners, including Ilkley's Tom A & Dave W, who were looking well tired going up. The really impressive thing though, especially for the leading runners was the speed that they went down the steep rocky descent from the top. I have no idea how they can run so quickly downhill on boulders.

After about an hour of watching runners reach the summit, I headed off down the path towards Horton, which was the same route that the runners were taking, so I was mindful about keeping out of their way. There were some very weary runners making their way on the long descent to the finish....it must be about 10k into Horton. One runner in particular took a really bad fall just in front of me, he just lost concentration.


I turned off back to Clapham from Sulber Nick, making a walk of about 18k in total. Quite a lot of exercise & fresh air today covering more than 34k, so I'm going to have a couple of beers now.

Effects of Wednesday's session

Yesterday I didn't run, but this morning I could still feel quite a bit of stiffness in my legs following the fast track session on Wednesday...... I guess that I'm just not used to running at that kind of speed. Today I decided to run my regular two bridges route & just see how I felt when I got running.

Surprisingly I was running faster than I normally run this route when I'm just out for a steady run. I added on an extra loop around Addingham, to make the total distance just short of 14k, at an average of a bit less than 5 minutes per km. I was quite happy with that, even though my legs were still sore at the end of the run. Good job that I'm not racing until next Thursday.

It's a busy weekend for long races with the Three Peaks on Saturday & the London Marathon on Sunday. Good luck to everyone taking part in both. I'm thinking of maybe going to watch the race on Ingleborough tomorrow.

Fast track session

This evening's track session at Carnegie was very different to previous sessions. We did short fast reps with relatively long recoveries. The sessions was: 6X150m, 12X200m, 8X300m with walk/jog recoveries of similar time to the efforts.

I was running in a group with Mark I, David B & Nick P. We averaged 27 seconds per 150m, 37 seconds for the 200s & 56 seconds for the 300s, which is considerably faster than we would normally run in a track session. The idea, according to coach Pete was to get used to running at a much faster speed, out of our normal comfort zone and to sharpen us up for the forthcoming 5k races.

The average pace for the efforts was equivalent to running a 15 minute 5k, albeit with about 15 minutes of recoveries along the way.

I didn't write a blog about Monday or Tuesday's runs. On Monday I ran up on the moors past the Swastika Stone & Windgate Nick covering about 13k very slowly. Yesterday was a similar distance covering the course of next week's Harrogate League race in Ilkley with laps around the park at the start & finish.

Same again - only different

Today I ran the same distance as yesterday, about 18.5k at a very similar overall pace, but the two days of running were really very different. Yesterday was the 5k Parkrun in Bradford plus warm up, then a hilly warm down run having a good chat along the way. This afternoon I set off intending to run a steady two bridges run to Addingham & back, but once I got underway I decided on a change of plan.

Instead of turning left over the suspension bridge after Nesfield, I carried straight on to Bolton Bridge. Rather than running the same route on the way back, I reverted to plan A & went over the bridge to Addingham for the return via Low Mill to Ilkley. So I did complete the run that I was intending to do at the start, I just added on an extra 7k or so in the middle.

My pace today was 5:10 minutes per km which is fine for a longish steady run & probably a bit quicker than I would have expected after racing yesterday. Having said that, the race yesterday was more like a fast training run, as I hadn't really prepared for it, with some hard training runs over the previous two weeks.