I spent a bit of 2018 and early 2019 feeling a bit like my PBs were behind me. 2018 feels on reflection a little lack lustre compared with the avalanche of PBs I got in 2017 due to the training for the Amsterdam marathon. Since then, progress, and consistency was kinda sparse. My running picked up at the end of 2018 specifically just so I could hit the arbitrary km target I’d set, but I did manage to maintain that…
Time for round two, this time a little closer to home than Bakewell. This race, Liz was hale and hearty and was going to run it! Yay! She was going to be accompanied by Martin (who really needs to update his blog…) as she was a bit nervous of a self navigated trail run, especially after my mishaps last time… This meant we got a lift from Martin, which was really handy. It was only a 30 minute drive to…
Just a quick post to list together the blog posts I made about my recent Embrace running holiday: Day one – Arriving and Mile Reps on the wooden boardwalk at Portimao Day two – The endurance session around the Woodland trails at Mata Nacional do Barão de São João Day three – Track day at the Lagos athletics track. Day four – Hill Reps at Praia da Boca do Rio and on The Punisher
The last day of running in what has been a fairly full on little holiday. Starting from Saturday when we arrived I’ve done around 75k and it’s not finished yet! Today is the Lagos Town targeted run. It’s a 5mile/8k figure of 8 loop, with an aid station in the middle of it. This means you can do any number of full or partial laps and be supported for whatever you’re aiming for. The coaches work with you to take…
All the hard week over the week has been done. We’ve done endurance in the woods, speed on the track and strength on the hills. Today was purely about a beautiful, coastal run along bright red clay trail between two little seaside beach villages, Luz and Burgau. This run is super high on my list of all time favourites. The trail is technical enough to be interesting, but not a pain in the arse, long enough to be a decent…
Today was Hell On The Hills which is everything as tough as it sounds! Seven hill reps in the sun and then a steady climb up the Punisher, a 20% hill out near Praia da Boca do Rio a tiny little gorgeous looking beach roughly halfway between Lagos and Sagres. We were lucky to have the sun back this morning, with temperature around the 20 mark, but a strong wind was coming up off the coast, making the sea look…
After a 5kish recovery run last night down the hill to the Lagos Marina (and back up the hill again through the old town!), we stuffed our faces with beef bourguignon, mash, beer and red wine and then headed to bed earlyish (10pm OMG!) so we could be up and ready for today. Monday was the Woodland Trail Endurance run. This is probably my favourite run of the weekend; 1-4 laps of a 5ish mile woodland trail under the soothing…
This year I managed to sign up for the full Spring Trail Series hosted by Dark and White Events. This is three 15k-ish up and down the hills in the Peak District during the spring. I’ve run a couple of their events before, and was really looking forward do this. Last year, I ran the last event in the series at Low Bradfield and came well into the “Gold” pace bracket, setting me up for what I hoped would be…
I’m out in Portugal on another Embrace Sports running holiday. I’ve been out here twice before, but never managed to really write about it beyond the odd mention in summary posts. Let’s see if I can do the holiday a bit of justice. Liz and I flew out yesterday (Saturday) after a pretty over crowded train journey to Manchester airport. Why can’t Virgin trains get their act together so getting to the airport with luggage isn’t a complete nightmare? The…
and I still haven’t…! But before that, the first “race” since my last update: Just a Hillsborough Parkrun, but it was on the Sheffield Running Club championship calendar, so counts for their competition. Annoyingly I’d succumbed to the lurg at the back end of January, which included a couple of days struck down on the sofa. Although I’d resurfaced from that mostly, it appeared that I caught another cold! 🙁 This meant that instead of getting a good chance to…