5 seconds from my target

I was turning the corner of the field with the finish in sight and looked at my watch to see I had 10 seconds to run the last 100 metres in order to get my target time. I did my best but sadly my olympic standard sprinting is not up to much after nearly 10 miles. Still, my finishing time of 1 hour 17 and 5 seconds was very pleasing. That's more than two minutes off my PB.

I stuck to my normal race plan off setting off like an idiot and then dying on the second half of the race. I was 12th at the summit and finished 17th. I suspect if I had been 15th at the summit I might have finished in 15th, but as I'm a better climber than a descender, it always seems foolish not getting the advantage when I can.

That completes another 30-mile week for me. Another 3 or 4 of these and I'll be properly in the swing of things. It's starting to get a bit hectic now. I think I've got about 10 races in May! However, three of these are over 3 days. May will be interesting - it's hard to plan in a steady 10-miler in the two days between races.

NEWS UPDATE: I've just looked at the results for Kinder downfall, and despite me hearing them say "1,17,05" my official time is dead on 1 hour 17 minutes. I'm glad I tried to do a sprint finish now.

Onion holder

That's right. It lets you chop an onion without getting onion juice on your hands. Here it is being demonstrated by my mum. For those who read my previous blog and doubted that there were more kitchen utensils than there are famous people, here is your evidence - onion holder!!!

I should probably add something about fell running too. It's Kinder Downfall this Sunday, so I'm hoping to finish in about 1 hour 17 minutes. That would be a new personal best for me, but it's very dry at the moment and that normally makes for fast times. Also, I seem to be going OK at the moment, so I should aim high.

I'm a kitchen utensil

For those not aware of this game, it's like twenty questions. But instead of being a famous person or a type of animal, you have to pick kitchen utensils. This version of the game became a favourite of mine after I realised that there are more types of kitchen utensils than there are famous people in the world or types of animal (that people know about).

Anyway, I was at my parents' house over the weekend and spotted a new type of kitchen utensil. I realise a blog is not the best medium for a game that's essentially twenty questions, so I've also included a picture. Can you guess what it is? Even with seeing it, I was none the wiser. It hasn't got any moving parts it is just a lot of spikes in a row on a handle.

I suppose I should also post something about my fell running training. Here's what I've done over the last few weeks:

Saturday: 9 miles

Sunday: 4 miles hill reps

Monday: 4 miles steady

Tuesday: No running (Mrs Noel at Bjorn Again!)

Wednesday: No running (Mrs Noel's fell race - Herod Farm - 3rd lady and 1st LV40)

Thursday: 10 miles

Friday: 3 miles

Weekly total: 30 miles

Saturday: 5 miles

Sunday: 8.5 miles

Monday: 3 miles (hill sprint reps)

Tonight: 6 miles

Here's a picture from one of my runs. It's the steaming slurry heap from one of the local farms amid Saturday's early-morning frost. It's a glamorous life this fell running.

Cross training

When athletes reach their peak fitness level and want to make new improvements they turn to cross training. I am not an athlete, and have not reached my peak fitness level. So here is my cross training over the last 2 weeks, which have largely been spent in Mallorca

Cross training 1: building sand castles
If I am ever in a fell race where I have to run up a long sandy incline, I now think I will be better at judging how steep it gets before it starts to slip down hill under its own weight. We also briefly tried to build sand bridges, but I can see why this idea never really took off.
Usefulness for fell running: 2/10

Cross training 2: road running
Although there are lots of mountains in Mallorca, most are too far to drive from the villa when the kids are asleep. So we did a fair bit of nice road runs.
Usefulness for fell running: 7/10 (but it's probably not really cross training)

Cross training 3: snorkeling
If I ever see some small fish on a fell race...
Usefulness for fell running: 1/10

Cross training 4: mountaing running
We did get one day without the kids to run up Massanella which is Mallorca's highest accessible peak (the highest one has a military base on it). It was good training running up but very sharp and stony to run down. We were also a bit lost with navigating from a walking guide without a map.
Usefulness for fell running: 8/10

Cross training 5: road biking
I hired a road bike made out of expensivium and carbon and we headed off for what seemed like an ambitious but feasible 85 miles. However, after 60 miles, I remembered that biking stamina does not rely on memory, and I should have done some biking in the last 6 months. This sort of training probably would be useful, except I can't think of any training programme that tells you to completely deplete your legs' supply of glycogen and then do another 30 miles.
Usefulness for fell running: 7/10

Cross training 6: drinking beer and eating chorizo
I could probably argue that alcohol is a carbohydrate and therefore I was 'carbo loading', or that chorizo is an excellent protein source to build bigger muscles. Again, I can't find any training programmes based around this.
Usefulness for fell running: -2/10

I'm now feeling slightly behind schedule, so might have to concentrate on some training rather than cross training.

Dry season

It's been amazingly dry for the last few weeks. Although there is still snow on the ground in places, the bits that have drained are as dry as they normally are in the summer months. One of the local farmers even took the chance to burn some gorse and bracken off his land (I assume that's why they do it - feel free to correct me if not).

Then today we finally had some rain. I took this opportunity to run to the summit of Axe Edge. This hill is long and pretty flat and is the source of about 5 rivers. So it's no surprise that it was very boggy. In fact many of the wetter patches had their own mallards! Here's the trig point at the summit.

The route was just under 11 miles, and will probably be a welcome addition to my set of routes once I work out the details a bit better. As it was it satisfied my need for longer slow runs, as it took me about 2 hours.

Tomorrow, I plan to cheer on the runners taking part in the Edale Skyline fell race. There are a few Fat Boys (the running club I am in) running it. I think the ascent of Lose Hill is probably the best place to watch it. Otherwise they go past too quickly. This way, I should have a chance to heckle and they'll be too tired to answer.

Wolf Spit

I have been counting down the weeks and days until my first fell race of the year. It was today, and I hoped I had got my training right in the final few days before the race. I went for a hard and hilly 8-miler on Thursday, followed by two gentle recovery runs on Friday and Saturday.

Wolf's Pit is 5.8 miles with 1600 feet of ascent (and descent), so is among the steeper of the Peak District fell races. It runs up the hill behind Mrs Noel in the photograph, which is, of course, steeper than it looks here. I had been looking at last year's results and thought I could do faster than 49 minutes. Mrs Noel was sagely pointing out that I haven't done that much training so should be taking it easy! Imagine - taking it easy in a fell race!

There was also the added spice that I knew my long-time training partner Dave would be trying to beat me up the first hill. While I tried to put such things out of my mind, it was quite tricky. Especially after his demolition of my hill climbing ability 4 weeks ago on a training run.

We set off quickly and I was feeling confident until we turned for the first climb. I heard a "Come on Noel!" from the spectators - thanks whoever it was. This shout was followed a few seconds later by "Come on Dave!" My fears were confirmed when Dave smoothly accelerated past me up the first climb. I was full of friendly advice befitting such a situation, "Take is easy" and "It's a marathon not a sprint", but these thinly veiled taunts were dismissed as they should have been. Luckily my hilly training seemed to have paid off and I managed to sneak a slender lead by the top of the first climb, which I managed to hold on to for the remainder of the race.

Surprisingly, my descending seems to have improved. I actually made up a few places on the downhill sections, which is not my normal form. I managed to finish in 48 minutes 40 seconds. So was very pleased to be ahead of my target time.

Mrs Noel was also pleased with her day. She was third lady, for which she got a prize. She was also first lady vet40, for which she got another prize. She was very pleased that one of the prizes was garden centre vouchers. It's as if the organisers knew her.

Once we'd had our free soup and roll (thanks to the organisers), we all huddled round the boards showing the results. Stuart Bond won it by a street. A mere 14 places and over 8 minutes (!!) ahead of me. I can only imagine how fast that must feel.

Mrs Noel's birthday run

It was Mrs Noel's birthday over the weekend. So we decided she needed a more special run than our usual circuits. So we ran from Bingley (where my parents live) via Saltaire, to Ilkley. I think it was about 7 miles. It's amazing how much ground you can cover when you're only running in one direction. My parents had very kindly agreed to take the kids over to meet us.

Our imagination was somewhat fired by the idea that we would be running past the twelve apostles stone circle.

We had high hopes of something wondrous (like the picture). But instead, what we actually got was quite small and it seemed some of the apostles were lying down.

It was also pretty murky as you can see in the photograph. It's not a complicated route but we had to check a few times using my compass. We eventually got to Ilkley and had a nice pub lunch and a pint. Birthdays are made for this. We tried our best to get Mrs Noel to buy something. But despite being led into her favourite clothes shops and even the running shop, she was uninspired. Feel free to make suggestions as to what she might like, as I was hoping to get an extra something for her in Ilkley.

Then after Saturday's murk, it was glorious on Sunday (but I didn't take my camera out - sorry). I was trying one of my local loops at race pace. I always do this when it's early season and convince myself I'm running really quickly and have somehow changed into some sort of fell running god in a kind of boyhood superhero style. Then comes the first race and I realise (a) I have not been bitten by a radioactive fell running spider without knowing it, or hit by a strange comet-like thing from the planet Fell Running, and (b) those people who I used to be close to in races, but who have trained over the winter, are now a bit faster than I am. The first race is this weekend, all being well, so I'm looking forward to going through this cycle of naivety and mild disappointment all over again during the race.