Fontainebleau 2019

Fontainebleau 2019

Aaah! Holiday time! Yeah, I’m well overdue a blog update, but I’m still not in a blogging mood. It would be a shame however not to capture some notes of how the climbing went while in sunny République française. Day 1: Beauvais Nainville We’ve never made it to Beauvais before, despite it being on Liz’s hit list for a while. It’s a littler further north than we usually head to based on where we’ve been staying, but being in the…

Read More Read More

Overdue update! Some Curbar bouldering

Overdue update! Some Curbar bouldering

I’ve got a bit slack with updating here recently. I’m not sure I’ll get back in track soon but let’s try and get something up about the tiny bit of outdoor bouldering we’ve managed this year. We’ve made it out twice so far this year, which is frankly pathetic! We’ve just been too busy, or the weather has been bad. Must try and remedy this! Both times we made it out though we decided to go to Curbar. Although Curbar…

Read More Read More

Spring Trail Series Finale: Tideswell

Spring Trail Series Finale: Tideswell

Round three of the Dark and White Events Spring Trail Series for 2019. If you need a bit of a recap, checking these posts: Round One at Bakewell and Round Two at Grindleford. The finale of the Spring Trail series was being held in a new location for the Spring Tail Series: Tideswell. This was the race furthest away from where Liz and I lived and presented a new problem for us; no one we knew was running it! This…

Read More Read More

Easter Higgar Tor time

Easter Higgar Tor time

The group decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go climbing, this time up to Higgar Tor. I decided that at about 15km from home, it would make a nice morning run, even if it is nearly a solid 450m climb all the way. I set off a bit later than planned due to being out for a meal the night before and the necessary couple of glasses of red made getting up harder. Consequently, the first 6-7k…

Read More Read More

Well, that was an unexpected PB! Sheffield Half Marathon 2019

Well, that was an unexpected PB! Sheffield Half Marathon 2019

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…

Read More Read More

Spring Trail Series – Grindleford

Spring Trail Series – Grindleford

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…

Read More Read More

Embrace Holiday Round Up

Embrace Holiday Round Up

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

EMBRACE! Targeted Run Day

EMBRACE! Targeted Run Day

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…

Read More Read More

EMBRACE! Luz to Burgau Coastal Trail

EMBRACE! Luz to Burgau Coastal Trail

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…

Read More Read More

EMBRACE! Time for some Punishment.

EMBRACE! Time for some Punishment.

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…

Read More Read More