Signs of Spring

Beautiful day, lovely run home.

Usual route, lots of little babies, baby ducks, baby geese and a coot riding a goose...

Long Run Home

A little bit different from the last long run home, three weeks ago, when it rained, and was cold, and I got lost, and it got dark, and there were dragons, and it was scary... (ok I made the bit about dragons up).

Dorset Days

So the plan was to head down to Dorset over the Easter Bank Holiday, visit the parents, visit the grandparents, get some runs in, get a swim in and get a ton of bike mileage in. 5 birds, 1 stone!

It all started of a bit poorly, late out of London, late to Mel's parents, stuck in traffic all the way to Dorchester. We did however manage to pick up a chocolate egg and two chocolate bunnies at Mel's parents, so, score on the feeding front.

It was a bit rainy when we got to Dorchester but all in all, didn't look too bad, Dave suggested a route for us out to the grandparents and we headed up to visit them. Simnel cake and tea with them took a half hour or so (score 2 on the food front) and then Dave joined us and we headed up and out.

The route back involved a rather steep and sustained climb (yay!). Followed by an utterly terrifying descent round blind bends over pot holed roads where Dave really showed us what proper bike handling skills look like as he disappeared with “watch out for pot holes on the way down” over his shoulder at what seemed like 100km/h.

We returned to my parents to discover 2 more chocolate eggs (score 3 for food!), lemon drizzle cake (my favourite!) and coffee.

Saturday was a washout, rain, rain, rain, and we're not hard enough to go running and cycling in the rain for fun so we bailed and did yoga and swimming instead. The local pool was like swimming in a bath, the sign on the front desk said training pool – 24 C, and I can believe it.

Sunday was beautiful, a few puffy clouds, a brisk wind and pretty villages. Dave showed us the way down to Upwey through back roads and then we headed down to Weymouth to visit my other grandma. A half dozen chocolate biscuits later we were back on the road, climbing the sharp route out of Sutton Poyntz. The hill was seriously steep, as in, very nearly forced me off my bike steep but relatively short and pretty views at the top made up for it. A wiggly windy route back took us up to Tincleton, into Piddlevalley to Puddletown (formerly Piddletown – yes really! I love Dorset names.)

Altitude Training

Or a skiing holiday.



But we did get some training in. Day 3 was about 30km of cross country trails with about 500m of climbing - surprisingly hard work.






Day 6 was an 8000m day of down hill, which included going through the Tunnel no less than 3 times, my quads can still feel the moguls 2 days later!





We did tend to end the day very well though. This might be a better post "work out" treat than the cinny rolls.

What's this?

Cinnamon rolls!

The perfect post-run snack!

Perfect Day, Perfect Month

So today was perfect, everyone got a PB in today's 5k. It was a wee bit drizzly looking so I was quite surprised to see YB and JW show up given their usual reluctance to endure anything other than perfect weather.

JC showed up, but then she's hard core. The surprising thing was that a) – she had had plenty of sleep the night before AND b) wasn't knackered from some ridiculously long run the week before.

So all in all it looked pretty good.

I was intending to run a negative split, but everyone went out so fast that I couldn't find anyone to pace off and what I thought was a moderate pace actually turned out to be a 9.50ish first half split.

Of course, when I saw that I thought, hmm.. PB? Sub 20? It turned out not to be sub 20 but I was pretty happy with 20.13. Even more so that my times this month have gone 21:00, 20:45, 20:38 and then 20:13 so a PB every week!

But, to top a perfect month, JC pulled out a massive PB, YB came across the line next with a new PB, then JW punched in a new PB and so too did Mel with 26.40. A perfect record for my Parkrunners! :-)

And now, to top it all of Mel is making cinnyrolls (inspired by this post: ).

Dorney Lake Duathlon Series Race 2 21 February 2010

So, race 2 of the series. The last race was HARD. Duathlons hurt, there's no two ways about it.

It didn't help when we woke up, looked out the window and saw the rain. The temptation to roll over and go back to bed was almost too much to resist but we'd talked JC into her first multisport race so out into the rain we ventured.

So we picked up JC and drove up in convoy to lovely sunny Dorney Lake.

It didn't seem too rainy when we got there, and unlike last time we got there with plenty of time to spare, register, go to the loo, put the bikes together, go to the loo, rack the bikes, go to the loo, show JC how transition works, go to the loo and get ourselves sorted out.

And then the rain started to really come down. So in between going to the loo the rain jackets went on.

It was pretty cold when we started and did I mention that it was raining? No? Well it was. It was the same course as last time, and I still think that the track was harder than ordinary tarmac. I'd love to describe it as a rolling romp through beautiful countryside, but its pan flat for miles around, it was cold, grey and drizzly. I was running with a grin on my face.

Eventually I rolled into T1 and with all the rain coming down I thought “well, ok, its raining, I'll take my time, keep my feet dry and get out on the bike”. Somehow I managed to take 1:18 to change my shoes and put my helmet on, I think I could have had a coffee and a sandwich too!

Of course all that time carefully keeping my feet dry did no good. 30 seconds into the ride my feet were soaked. In fact I had so much water in my shoes that I thought if I got the cadence right I could set up a feedback loop that would make the whole thing a lot easier – it didn't work, but thinking about it did make it all a bit more fun.

I had my pretty new aerobars on Jezebel so we were enjoying it all the same. It's a bit difficult getting the balance right so there was a few wobbles, and I forgot to set my speedo so I had to count laps. Counting isn't my strong suit so I was a bit uncertain coming into the last loop if it was my last one or if I'd already done 6. When in doubt do the extra loop. I passed Mel and she was on her penultimate loop so I'd done it right.

Pulling into T2 my feet were numb, my hands were numb, and the rain was still pounding down. Apparently it was so cold the lake had ice all over it.

I've discovered that numb feet don't like running. I would have thought that numb feed wouldn't feel the road, but they do, and they hurt. I couldn't decide if there was something wrong with my socks, shoes, the road or with my feet. Eventually I got passed by someone after trying to sort it all out so I decided it was time to HTFU and just get on with it. It was a good decision, by half way my feet started to sort themselves out and I finished the race in a time of 1:18:56 – which would be a PB, except I'm pretty sure they shortened the run course, even on the flat there's no way I can run a 19 minute 5k!