Today, I Have Been Mostly... by Rob_Barber

I took advantage of the opportunity to get out in daylight and went for a lovely walk in the sunshine today over Moel Famau and across to Moel Arthur - I love going over that way, as much as anything for the view it affords of the mountains of Snowdonia. It did not dissapoint, the snow line over there lending extra majesty to those great mounds of rock rising out of the distant horizon, beautiful .

My plan was to walk over Moel Famau, run for about 20 minutes which is where I'm capping myself at the moment so as not to aggrevate my achilles, walk the rest of the way to and around Moel Arthur, then run the same stretch back again.

I was never going to run down the steep steps that take you down to the Moel Arthur car park, but had arrived there in just under 18 minutes from my starting point. I did not expect to have got as far as that. 

I ran as I have been trying to since I started back at it this year. I'm only doing a couple of runs a week, and my focus is entirely on trying to stay relaxed, especially in my legs. I decided that continually battling to strengthen my calves and achilles is not the way forward, that what I should be doing is trying to run in a way that minimises the amount of work they have to do. I may run through the finer points of my new technique in a future blog.

You just might be interested. Especially when I tell you that, on this undulating trail, the distance I covered (measured it on mapmyrun, I felt I had reason to want to know) was 3 miles !! just consider that for a moment, 3 miles, rough and undulating ground, running relaxed, not pushing the effort, not driving or striving in any way for any kind of fast time, and I covered it in 17:43. Thats quicker than 6 minute miles!!

I have run this way before, several times, the fastest I've ever gone before would be somewhere in the region of 8 minute miles, albeit running a greater distance overall. The thing is, I worked hard for those 8 minute miles. 6 minute miles, and all I've done is concentrate on staying relaxed. How can this be?

Whatever it is, I'm doing something right. After a walk around Moel Arthur, my return journey, the running part of it, took just under 22 minutes, but I ran further, an extra 4/10ths of a mile, and, its generally more uphill on the way back. It still works out at under 6:30 per mile.

It should be impossible for me to be moving this quickly, especially when you consider that this bit of running today took me to 25 miles - for the year !!

Before anyone says it, I've checked and re-checked my mapping on mapmyrun. I've used the satellite imaging, I know my landmarks, I know the route, and I knew I wanted to check it because I was certain that I'd covered more than 5 miles on the ground, but on time thought it should be about that.

6.4 miles total in 39:44. 

First chance I get, I'm off to Bramhall parkrun to see whats what. It can't really be as good as all this, can it? 

Or could it be that cycling is really very good for your running? 

Now if I had my Garmin, I'd know.