Mrs Noel does Shepherd's Skyline

Mrs Noel has been building up her expectations of winning something at every race. This is because she has had a run of about 8 races where this has been proved true. However, we were in no doubt that Shepherd's Skyline was a race where she was unlikely to win anything.

It had been very wet the days before the race and it was predictably cold and windswept as the runners set off. Mrs Noel was a bit nervous about doing a race of this length. I know it's not a long race (only 6 miles), but Mrs Noel doesn't really do races above about 5 miles. She also does no long slow runs in training, so has never build up her stamina. We're two peas in a pod in this respect.

In the end Mrs Noel finished 13th out of 76 lady runners, and was third LV40. She's slowly warming to the idea of doing a bit more stamina work, so watch out for next year!

3 miles, 2 stags and a lake

Another lunchtime run today. I was out for 30 minutes, which I guess is about 3 or 3.5 miles. It's building up slowly after my start-of-autumn blues.

There were two big stags with full pointy antlers in the middle of the path. When I was in Scotland I was really pleased to see red deer from about half a mile away through binoculars. Today I had to run round them in the path and was less pleased to see them.

This disparity is because they are not wild and are kept in Tatton Park just like the sheep are. This makes me think they're less good to see, which is a bit weird. Surely they should either be nice to see or not. It's funny how perceptions can play with our sense of aesthetics to such an extent.

I've just noticed, I'd added the lake in the title. This was a poor attempt to make a 4 weddings and a funeral style title. There was actually no reason to include it other than I also ran past the lake.

Note to self: Run with camera. Stags would be great for blog photos.

P.S. Mrs Noel has just suggested I plan future runs (and blog entries about them) around other film titles. I'll have a go...

Yet more swimming revelations

After my 'pretend to be superman' revelation a few months ago, I've been doing very little swimming. This has mainly been due to running a lot, but I haven't got that excuse any more. So... back to the pool for me.

I went once last week and was mainly rubbish, then I went yesterday. One thing I notice when swimming is that I get very bad trapped wind for a few hours after swimming. At first I thought this was probably a reaction to using muscles I wasn't used to. However, after a bit of trawling through swimming forums for similar complaints, I'm convinced it's because I'm overbreathing. Instead of just taking in enough air on every third stroke, I am gulping down to much air too quickly. It can't all go into my lungs, so the excess goes into my stomach. Hence trapped wind.

Yesterday I remembered something my total immersion swimming instructor said: "If you breath out enough, you won't need to worry about breathing in, it will just happen." So I tried this, and it worked. Instead of going huh [breathe out] arrrrhh [breath in] every time I stick my face out of the water. I now just go [huh] and forget about breathing in. Obviously, I must be breathing in enough, since I don't go blue and sink to the bottom and die. I also get less tired, which is great.

Having said that, you must be reading this and imagining me like some sort of half-decent swimmer. Just to put it into perspective, there was a lady in the lane next to me doing bad front crawl (even I could tell this). Her arms were dragging the water while they were coming over, and her stroke length was quite short. Despite this, she kept going and looked like she was doing a lot of lengths over the lunchtime period. On one of my lengths (in a set of 8) we were swimming next to each other and it became clear she was faster than I was.

I think I need a few more revelations, and a lot more hard work before I can pretend to be a proper swimmer. I'm idly thinking about an olympic distance triathlon next year, so that can be my training goal. Luckily, I can only get better.

Driving rain - but fun

"...and now the weather. It'll be very wet and windy, especially in the morning around Wincle". Forewarned in forearmed, so I put on all my warm running kit (including my new Aldi leggings, which are great) and set off with the dog.

Max, the dog, is getting old, so is pretty stiff most of the time, and doesn't normally want to come running with me. However, when he gets too stiff, we give him some magic dog drugs, and he turns into a young dog again. He's just been dosed up so should have been raring to go. But he's not stupid and he could see it was horrible weather. He was doing his best to hide from me.

I eventually got him out of the house and ran to Danebridge via Hangingstone. It was great to be out running as long as I kept going. I think it was about 6 miles and about 1000 feet. The long bath when I got home felt like heaven, and to quote that Blur song [add cockney accent] "then I'm happy for the rest of the day".

First 'run' in about a month

I finally decided I should go for a gentle lunchtime run yesterday. It's been about a month since my last run, which was Scafell Pike Fell Race. Jogging for twenty minutes around a town and a nice park couldn't have been more different to my previous outing.

Having said that, it made all the difference to how I was feeling. My recent lack of running and the shorter days has been really getting to me. And although I can't count my gentle jog as any form of training, it sorted me out for the day.

I think Noel's training blog is going to become Noel's lunchtime jogs and occasional leisurely lunchtime swims. I'll have to work hard in the Spring to get my viewing figures back up to the heady heights of this summer ;)

Scafell Pike - a different league

I like steep fell races. I generally avoid ones that don't have a sufficient amount of height. And I've done some good steep ones in my time. Ones like Buckden Pike, Mount Famine and even Shutlingsloe.

However, nothing could prepare me for Scafell Pike fell race. It was steep, but never steeper than other things I've done. But it was the length of ascent (and more worryingly descent) that I couldn't cope with. No amount of reps could prepare me for 3000 feet of downhill in one go. I've never before done a race where my legs hurt for two days after the race.

The race went reasonably well, I was in a good position at the top, but lost about 40 seconds after reaching the summit as I couldn't tell which way to go in the thin mist. I was asking myself "how can I get lost in a there-and-back race?" Well, there seemed to have been a gap of about a minute between me and the guys behind, and there was a gap of about a minute in the stream of runners coming up the summit. These two gaps somehow managed to coincide. Add my natural inability to remember which way I've run, and I was temporarily lost.

Luckily I then saw the stream of runners coming up and could slowly boulder-hop down the way they were coming up. After a minute or so of this, Fleeter shot past me and I said "that's what I need - a pacer. Go on Fleeter". Unfortunately, Fleeter's downhill pace was way too fast for me, and I lost another few places on the long descent. I finished in 1:06:30 (ish), which was faster than my target time of 1:07:00.

Despite me beating my target time, I have mixed feelings about this race. I would like to return and do it justice. I feel like I could have been a few places higher if I had trained a bit harder. But the real killer was not having the stamina or technique to descend a mountain (as opposed to the hills we have in the Peaks). I would get genuine satisfaction from being able to say I ran this race well.

Next year? I'll have to see how things work out. It is a long way to travel for a 4.5 mile fell race. I certainly feel I have unfinished business with this mountain. And I'm slowly coming round to the idea that the best way to train for Lakes races, is to do more of them. Is this a statement of intent, or a pipe dream? Time will tell...

Ready for Scafell?

I'm pretty sure I haven't run enough in the last few weeks to consider myself ready for Scafell Pike fell race. It's because the days are so short. If I work over a bit, or if Mrs Noel fancies a run, there's no daylight left. I should probably get into this headtorch running nonsense, otherwise this blog will rapidly deteriorate (if that's possible). I did one tempo run this week, and one recovery run. That's a fair way short of the 30 miles I should be doing.