Running For Fun by klebe

If somebody has just had a really strange message from me.... I apologise, I was trying to add a post!!!!!!

What have they done to Realbuzz, why can't I find "general running" Where has everybody gone.

Have we all been stripped of our identities and been simply hurled into a pot full of runners.

Feeling like Robinsoe Crusoe.... hope Friday comes along soon !!!

It’s quite amazing, on my right arm midway up the forearm, by a small freckle there is a patch of skin and muscle about 2 inches square… that doesn’t ache !!!! The rest of the body is a blob of pain!!!

The training weekend away in Wales was really tough, but superb and  the achilles held up under the strain thanks to Ibuprofen Gel, Ibuprofen tablets and some prescription strength pain killers donated by my middle daughter.

Saturday was 5 hours of running across and through sand-dunes (well, some it was running !!).  I did attempt to jog up the biggest sand-dune I’ve ever seen, but half way up, with leg muscles pumping battery acid through them I had to slow to a gasping trudge. We then raced down at full pelt, with arms windmilling like crazy, which was great fun, if not a little bit scary.

Sunday was another superb day but couldn’t help thinking that it was going to be far too hot for all those marathon runners down in London. We did conventional courses up in the mountains near to Abergavenny. Mine was 8.8 km if you take the straight line between points, if you took the route I took it was a damn sight longer with some wicked climbs. I’d been going great up until checkpoint 19 then just lost it. Physically I was shattered, mentally I was exhausted and even once I’d worked out where I was, after making a huge navigation mistake, I just could not summon up the energy, or will, (mainly will) to go back and spike the control. Attempted to finish the final 4 controls, got one of them, struggled with the next and finally called it a day and trudged back to the finish pretty despondent.

It’s amazing the difference a litre of water and a couple of butties make, because once I’d had them I looked back on what I did and how I did it and was pretty pleased with my efforts.

Time to take a breather now and get this ankle sorted out. No plans to do any running this next week or so and see how things feel by the end of the Easter weekend, which will be busy anyway as it’s my mum and dads Diamond Wedding Anniversary (60yrs) and we’ve a whole load of family things planned.

 Title just about sums up my recent progress, and the lack of blogs reflects it.

On a positive note, I’d started getting back out and about then a couple of weeks ago had a good run at a local orienteering event. (if you ignore the slow start to the first 2 controls). Once I’d attached the thinking head instead of just the running head I found myself consistently running in the right direction at a good speed even  over rough ground.

Suffered a little for the next few days with a sore achilles, but undeterred went out for an evening training run with the orienteering club. It was described as hill training, and hill training it was. Not those easy long steady uphill pulls but short sharp lung busting roller coasters. As if that wasn’t enough, it was against the clock, then the whole thing was repeated as a 2 man (or person to be pc) relay race.  (all done under the watching gaze of our lady coach – the purple haired torturer – or maybe it was burgundy!!).

Remarkably, my legs felt ok the next day, but the achilles has been painful ever since, so I’ve been icing it and keeping away from the trainers in a desperate attempt to get it put right for the weekend.

See, while thousands of runners are tootling around the joyous streets of London, I’ll be up in the mountains of Wales on an orienteering training weekend which also takes in big sand-dune runs at Merthyr Mawr, seemingly the biggest sand dune in the UK… joy, I really cannot wait. !!!!!!! Just hoping the ankle holds out and the ibuprofen works its magic!

This does mean I’ll miss the London marathon from my usual comfy spot on the sofa… It’s a tough job but somebody has to do it!! But to all you LM’ers all the very best of luck and hope you all have the runs that you want and deserve after all the hours of training you’ve put in. Good Luck, I’ll be thinking of you.

And it’s time to crawl back out from under my stone. I am really not sure what has been going on but the days seem to fly past and there are just not enough minutes in the day, before I know it another week has passed me by. (alternative definition…my time management has gone out of the window!).

All is not lost though, well not quite… I have been managing one run a week of around 4 miles in anywhere between 8.3 and 9.3 min mile pace. On the plus side, I’ve squeezed in a holiday booking to Oz for the autumn (sorry GNRers, you’re on your own this year!) and have just got back from a superb long weekend of walking up in the Peak district at Castleton. (where I did a 1 mile run in full hiking gear and boots thanks to realising I’d left the heater on in the caravan and had to go back to switch it off while the rest of the party carried on.  Apart from sore shins – hiking boots really are not designed for running in, the legs did not suffer from a couple of long hilly walks).

Really must get back into proper running and start building the fitness up again.

PS - great to see some fantastic times being posted and some good runs being had. Also good to see some old faces back too.