Challenges new, Sunny España and the KMF Double
Argh! Well overdue for a blog post. I started this thinking I could just update about the two races I’d just done, but I’ve realised my last post was for Font last year and there has actually been quite a bit happen since then!
So, what’s happened?
Climbing
I’m been taking advantage of my part-time work life and have been doing quite a bit of indoor roped climbing. Not really sure if I’d mentioned this on here, but pretty much for the last year or so, I’ve been walking into the Foundry on Monday and Wednesday mornings and doing a bunch of climbing on their auto belays. It didn’t take too long to get back into the rhythm of Sport Climbing and at some point last year I was back up at about the 7a grade on the autobelays. I think I managed at 7b+ at one point, which is the toughest lead I’ve managed. (A nails crimpy yet occasionally burly thing up the middle of the Furnace wall with a “clock” sequence on the head wall). Since my running routine has taken a bit of an aggressive change at the start of this year, my volume has dropped a little bit so I’m not quite at that grade still, but did flash a 7a the other day there.
In December, Liz and I went to Spain for some winter sport climbing with Rowan, Anya, Gem and Simon again. Benidorm this time, which was fab. The hotel, from the same group as last time, was pretty much opposite the beach so we also snuck in a quick dip!
As with the last trip, the weather was lovely and warm, considering it was the first week in December, but I guess that’s Spain! Over the week we climbed at Sella twice, Echo Valley and went on a bit of an adventure to Castellets. This was Liz’s first time doing outdoor rope climbing and she managed to complete a couple of routes, including her first lead. Stand out routes for me were:
- She’s got it All: 2 star 6a+ at Sella which really did seem to have all the climbing moves in it. Fab.
- Cosmos: 4+ or 6a (depending on if you believe the local guide or UKC) at Castellets. A long arrete which just seemed to be hanging over a big drop which made it feel fruitier than it really was
- Grillos Navajeros: 6c. Dogged my way up this sharp beast over the course of about an hour! Hard going but fulfilling.
We haven’t got outside at all this year, due to a combination of it being terribly wet most of the year so far, and now that the sun has come out, being a bit too busy There was some talk about a plan to go to Font in the Spring, but we couldn’t make that happen, so instead we’ve booked our usual trip in September again.
I’m pretty hopeful we’ll go to Spain again too. It’s so much fun and really quite a good chill out holiday. Perhaps this time I’ll focus more on the harder stuff?
Running
So, what was the last running thing I wrote about? Ah yes, the Scafell Skyrace. Just thinking about that starts to give me heatstroke nausea!
Post Scafell a couple of things happened. The main one was that I changed running coaches. I have a running coach to keep me honest with my running really. Having someone looking at what I’m doing adds that bit of pressure meaning I go out and do the horrible workouts, rather than something more fun (like staying in bed). I’ve been training with Neil Aiken of Embrace Sports for probably about 3 years and he had decided to wind down his coaching work. So, I needed to find another coach!
I decided to try with Accelerate, a local running store which focuses more on the trail side and ended up working with Paddy Wright who started out doing some form and strength work with me. Being able to see him in face to face, rather than remote as it was with Neil has meant it’s a bit easy for checking how I was running and Paddy decided I needed a bit of form improvement!
Paddy took over the run planning in June and started the process of getting me back to fitness for the next races in the calendar. First was the Sheffield 10k in September and then the Anglesey Half Marathon in November.
Liz and I quite like doing the Sheffield 10k race and its always a pb target race for me, but things have consistently got in the way… injury, COVID and this case, getting back from Font the week before. I’d not really been doing any speed work that would help for this either, mostly having just been recovering from Scafell and only just getting started with the new training plan. I finished up with what I considered a disappointing 41:55 but on reflection wasn’t that bad. It’s not a walk in the park race with a reasonable hill in.
Maybe this year instead?
Next up, back to Angelsey.
We’d had this in the calendar for ages, as Liz really wanted to run it. Unfortunately, an injury meant she downgraded to the 10k instead. I was a bit nervy starting it, but in the end it was a great race.
I can’t really remember much of details now, but I started really well and feeling pretty good, but about 10k in I started to get stomach cramps. Ugh. I felt like it slowed me up a bit but I still came in with 1:39:05 which I was really surprised by and happy with. Not too bad really for a bumpy trail with some sand! The last 1k felt like about 3 miles though… 4th v40!
Bigger questions
The big question I needed to answer myself though was what was my aim right now? What did I want to do? I was still a bit reeling from my Scafell experience to be honest, but part of me really still wanted to do the mountain style races. But what about those annoying desires to do sub 40 10k and sub 1:30 hm? Aaargh.
I’d at the same time been nursing this romantic idea of the multi-day / fastpack style running trips, just being able to load up a big pack and go somewhere. This, combined with continued Facebook bombardment of the Ring Of Fire adverts meant something broke and I actually started considering signing up for it.
Really? A 3 day ultra race? For your first multi? With the second day over 100k? Are you mad?
It turns out yes I am :/. I chatted about it with Liz a bit, and with Paddy. What kinda clinched it was that Liz and I had decided to go to Keswick Mountain Festival in May and I realised that it would be possible to complete both the 25k and the 50k races over that weekend which would be a good first attempt at a multiday.
The convo with Paddy was pretty funny. He started sounding like it was a terrible idea, but the conversation, lead by him mostly, transformed into a “yeah, you should do it, it’s totally possible” conversation. I guess having some “official”, so to speak, confidence convinced me to take the plunge and buy in. And then buy the entries for the two KMF races. OMG, £370… that’s a lot of money to spend on races.
Paddy started plugging in the plan from the start of the year and the mileage ramped up pretty quickly. Pretty much the first prescribed work out was a crazy sounding hill reps session which I did in the absolute pissing rain up back edge. 15 mins warm up and then 10 x 3 min zone 4 reps up the hill with 4 min recoveries back down. Unfortunately, something had gone wrong with charging my watch so it was on about 25% (which should have been fine) and it just randomly turned off after the first rep. I had no idea how long each rep needed to be! So, I just made it up and then tried to plot out the distance later. Turned out, I did about a 20k hill rep session (including the warm up/cool down/recoveries) in probably the heaviest rain I’d ever ran in. Parts of the Back Edge trail were about 5 inches deep, which is a bit odd when you think about it being the top of a hill. But anyway.
That kicked off the training and pretty much set the scene going forward. Quite a few hill rep sessions of varying lengths, and double weekends where I’d end up running around 40-45k across the weekend, mostly in some sort of interval shape. My weekly mileage hopped up a bit to between 60-90k over the month and a half until some meanie gave me the flu the week after a recovery week, which knocked me in bed for a week and a week to build back from mileage from.
The later phases after then didn’t have quite as much distance in them, instead swapping in a set of weekly Wednesday trips to Win Hill to get some vert done. Reps up Parkin Clough are never that easy but add pretty much constant rain most of the and you get a real slippery mud fest. I discovered that my VJs Ultra shoes, although useless for any distances above 15km (seriously misnamed…) excelled on wet muddy rocks making the horrible descent significantly quicker. The hill climbing was also great for remembering that running poles are actually brilliant if you can deal with the hassle.
The double weekends are often being done at higher paces/effort levels than I was doing my normal “long run weekend” runs which was interesting, and the constant having to get up the day after a longer, harder run and then do another one started to build some confidence in the whole multi-day thing. It’s working!
Keswick Mountain Festival
It didn’t seem to take long for May to roll around, despite all the grim rain we’ve had this year and suddenly I had to do the Keswick races. Argh!
We travelled up on the Friday as soon as Andy could get out of his work commitments that day and got there shortly after Liz had travelled up with Ed and Kelly. We unpacked and scoffed a large pasta filled meal and after a short relax, a few us headed down to find the festival site as we’d arrived too late to check it out. We’d managed to leave just enough light left of the day to get a gorgeous view across Derwent Water and the islands to the hills in the background.
I went to be bed pretty wound up though, meaning I don’t think I got a wink of sleep that night. Oh well, you don’t need sleep for running apparently!
Dragged my tired carcass out of bed earlier than I needed though as I wanted to head down to the festival to register for the races, rather than do it straight before my wave time. Picking up my numbers for both races, the guy I was talking to was pretty incredulous about me doing both runs. Yeah, I know I’m daft, but there are reasons!
Adidas Terrex Half Marathon Trail Run (25k….)
Wind on a few hours later, Kelly and I made our way back to the start and waited for our wave to start. They were a little delayed, but soon enough we headed off through the start line, across the field and into a little wood. The 25k was split into waves due to quite a busy road crossing about a 1k into the run meaning they needed to control the numbers of runners hitting that point. We’d selected a midpack start wave as neither of us were really sure how fast we were going to be.
Chatting with Paddy earlier, I’d upgraded my pace estimates a bit, after initially expecting to just try and coast both runs and see how I got on, instead he told me to try and stay in zone 2 all the way on the 25k to see how it goes! This was a bit of a change from my intended plan on just slowly bimbling along to make sure I made both runs!
Kelly and I stuck together for the first half of the race, taking a pretty easy pace. We started to see quite a bit of yoyoing from other people at this pace, where people might overtake us on the hillier sections as I slowed down a bit to keep the hr in the zone, but then we left them for dust once we flattened out or on the smaller descents in the second half. Once we got the poles out on some of the bigger climbs, we were moving quite a bit faster than most people around us.
This run was also a bit of a fueling test, as I was using Tailwind for the first time in anger. I’d used it a bit before on training runs and it seemed to work out ok, but this would be the first race I’d used it. It was pretty hot, so I was aiming to try and get through a 500ml flask an hour with it as my primary fuel source. Early on it definitely seemed to go to plan as I refilled my spare flask (I was carrying 3, two filled, one empty) as I was almost done on the first once we reached the first check point about 50mins in at Ashness Bridge.
This first bit had been a really lovely trail run through the trees beneath Walla Crag. Once at the checkpoint, it changed to a road where we had to negotiate a bit of traffic, as well as trek up a bit of a steeper hill. Eventually we passed a pretty spot which I think is called Surprise View, before heading off the road to the right onto a track. This eventually took us to Watendlath Beck with it on our left hand side. In the sun, it was a beautiful run along a reasonably technical track. I was glad I was in my Merrell Longsky 2’s as the grip and protection was really useful!
It was a tough run along here, very similar to the Rivelin valley where the hidden overall gradient saps you along with the changing technical terrain. Eventually we finished the trail as Watendlath Tarn appeared on our left and we started a steep ascent up some stairs. We paused to get our poles out again, and I was swifty realising a problem with my harrier gear!
The Harrier Poles I’ve got are pretty good (once I got my 3rd pair which actually worked…. the first set had a button which wouldn’t pop out and keep them open, the second set seemed to snag internally meaning you couldn’t open them enough to lock them!) but because they are adjustable in height, the extra bits on the side of the poles mean you can’t easily get them in and out of the Salomon Quiver I’ve got. Basically, I needed to stop and take my pack off to retreive them or put them away. This is REAL KILLER for pole usage, as there isn’t any point in bringing them if you don’t actually get them out, and having this getting in the way meant I’d be likely to put it off! I think I’ll get some Salomon ones once I’ve some spare cash.
Once at the top of these stairs, which Kelly and I breezed past a lots of people with our poles out, it was 5mins of nice easy rolling running along the top, including a little pause for me to put the poles away again awkwardly, before we hit the only real downhill on the race. It was about a 1k down towards the checkpoint at Rosthwaite and Kelly and I tried to push it a bit as it’s hard to keep the HR up on downhills!
The downhill was pretty steppy and quite crowded meaning we had to make a few deviations around people as we overtook them and it took us about 6minutes or so to get to the bottom. On arriving at Rosthwaite as I swapped out my flasks I realised that the faster downhilling might have been a mistake as I realised my thighs were really feeling it! Oops.
At this point, we’d pretty much done all the elevation in the run (~450m), with the remaining half a lot flatter (~190m) as we swung westwards and eventually north back to Derwent Water. I let Kelly know that was I was sticking to the zone 2 plan, but this might mean I’d either fall back, or pull away from here as the hills ended and got my head down and kept to it!
My pace picked up, from around an average of 8-8:30min/km on the trails and hills, to around 6:30min/km meaning I was chasing down quite a few people and feeling pretty good. I can’t remember much of the race from this point, mostly just that I was just focused on trying to strike the balance between keeping my heart rate were I wanted it, keeping the pace up and not tripping!
There was a point which sticks out in my memory through where I remember crossing a field and a stile and popping out from a line of trees to seeing in front me of the ground shooting away into the sky to what I think was up to Narrow Moor/Maiden Moor. My immediate reaction was one of despair, thinking that I’d have to climb it, but actually we swung right and followed the river north. If this was either of the Sky Races I’d done previous, we’d have been trekking up there! Thankfully not!
Soon enough we were running through the woods on the western shore of Derwent water, and eventually out on the road through the village to the North West of Keswick. It was around here that I picked up a triathlete who was really struggling to keep going. I’m not actually sure what he’d been up to, but I got the impression he’;’d done the a swim earlier, was now doing the 25k and was going to do a 100km cycle afterwards! He was really struggling with cramps, so at that point I just start to lead him a bit to try and keep his pace up and get him home, including holding gates for him. There was a lot of swearing!
This set the pace a little higher than it should have been really, meaning the heart rate crept up, but I figured we were nearly back so it was fine. The finish meandered around the site a bit meaning it was longer than expected though!
Soon enough, we came to the finish, which was up a hill, the meanies! Once I dragged the triathlete to the finish, I met up with Ed and Liz who were at the finish waiting, grabbed a drink and walked back a bit to get out of the hot sun and wait for Kelly to finish.
We grabbed a burger and chips and a drink and enjoyed a bit of the sun a little before I headed back to the get my stuff prepared for the 50k tomorrow!
Adidas Terrex 50km Trail Ultra Marathon
Ugh! 6am start? With a briefing at 5:45? Which means getting up at 4:30 so I can eat and get ready and stuff? Who makes this up?
Luckily, we’d got the downstairs bedroom meaning I could hide away from everyone and try and get to sleep early to catch up on the no sleep from the night before. Amazingly, it seemed to work: I guess I was tired! 😉
Similarly to yesterday, I was wearing my Merrell Longsky 2s with Injinji toe socks and shorts and teeshirt, meaning it was pretty nippy in the morning, but it was going to be even warmer today than on the 25k so I was actually feeling pretty happy once I’d woken up a bit.
Food wise, I’d taking a bunch of Tailwind sachets, along with hummus and cheese sandwiches and a bunch of gels, just to see what worked.
The start was reasonably subdued and followed the first 2k of the 25k so was nice and familiar. I chugged along at a similar pace to the 25, but was a bit less impacted by traffic as the race wasn’t as busy. Soon enough we moved onto a new route and started to climb the hills to above Walla Crag, whereas before we went under it. I was very careful to make myself stop and get out the poles when needed, and put them away, meaning I was again doing quite a bit of boomeranging around people as they passed me, and I passed them again. It was pretty nippy on the top of the hill, but we were rewarded with some great views and an official photographer!
Sometime at this point I started to get a niggle in the outside of my left foot under my ankle; just randomly hurty in a hard to describe way. This had happened two weeks ago at the end of a trail hill rep session and was really quite painful, but settled down after a few days. This time it flared up, being sore to land on the foot for a few minutes, then went away. Weird. I hope that doesn’t come back. (Ed: It does 🙁 )
After the great views, we descended back down the hill (really can’t remember that!) before rejoining the previous route at the first CP for the 25. No check point for us, although there was someone there cheering us on and handing out Haribo hearts! Our first CP was the 2nd CP for the 25 in Rosthwaite, so we had quite a bit more to go!
From now it was the same route as on the 25k, along the Watendlath up to the Tarn. It was gorgeous again, with lovely clear skies, and because it was only about 7am, lovely and cool.
Nothing new to report along here, just making sure to have the poles ready for the climb up from the Tarn and then put away while we decend down towards Rosthwaite and the checkpoint as well as trying to drink and eat a little bit. I think I might have had a gel along here?
Getting to the checkpoint, I refilled flasks and made a little video, an attempt for me to log what I was eating and drinking for review later. The aim was to do this at each checkpoint, but my getting rather doddery phone failed at check point two so I don’t really have the full story!
Anyway, as I say in the video, I hadn’t really drunk enough by this point, although I suspect that was down to it being chillier and would improve as it got hotter.
Leaving the checkpoint, latched on to a bunch of people as we followed the road and turned off up a lane. Oh, hang, on…
Gah! Deja vu of the Scafell Sky Race where I followed someone the wrong way when approaching Seathwaite farm, I just followed a pack along what was the 25k route from yesterday for about 600-700m until I realised we hadn’t seen a marker… that’s a reasonable distance back to the route! It’s really easy just to locked into a group running and assume they are doing the right direction, even with your watch beeping at you!
An annoyed plod back to CP, and then turning right and following some roads, paths and gentle trails to the start of the 4k climb up to the top of Honister Pass. I thought this might be the toughest part of the run, but I fell in with another runner, slowed to his pace and just chatting my way up. It felt like it took no time at all!
Now, this guy had reccied the race in two halves already, and he had the welcome news that the second half of the race was easier than the first, that once you’d got to the top of Honister Pass, you’d pretty much broken the back of it. This was welcome news, as I was still feeling pretty fresh
Soon enough we were at the CP2 halfway up and I swapped out water/topping up with Tailwind etc. I recorded a video, which didn’t work meaning I can’t upload it, and made recounting how much I’d drunk a little but more difficult!
It was starting to feel warm now, but I was honestly feeling pretty great! From here it was a bit of a slower trek up some steps before cresting over the top and starting the descent past a whole bunch of old mining buildings in various levels of repair. The descent was initially a bit technical and not fast, but we soon swung to the right and started a much easier, lovely descent which included a fantastic view down the valley to Buttermere and Crummock water glistening in the distance.
I’d left the previous guy I was chatting to at the top of the pass on the descent, and was pretty much running solo for the whole of the way down. There was a section at the bottom of the hill where I felt completely on my own as I headed towards Buttermere, which felt lovely, and it was only once I swung left at Gatesgarth to start running alongside the lake where I bumped into people again.
The run along Buttermere and Crummock Water looked like it was going to be the easiest part of the race from the maps and the elevation charts, but as usual, that was a bit of a red herring. The paths were fine, but it was bumpy and certainly towards the end of the section next to Crummock Water I was starting to get a bit fed up of it, really needing the “section change” once I got to the check point at the north end of Crummock Water.
Still, it was bloody gorgeous
I had quite a LOONG change over at the check point, chatting to one of the guys there who though I looked really fresh. (I didn’t feel fresh by this point!) It was about 10:40, quite a way under the 12pm cut off, so loads of time so I was pretty relaxed though! I think I was on my 4th Tailwind by this point, with the heat starting to pick up which was helping me get through it, and I’d eaten my humous sandwiches, which I think are great on long runs as long as you aren’t feeling too sick as they do cut through the sweetness of gels/sugary drinks a bit.
The guy at the checkpoint started asking me how I was finding the Tailwind, as he was saying that he just didn’t get enough sugar from them. In truth, I was starting to wonder if they weren’t right for me as they were both feeling a bit too sweet, and also they were giving me a little bit of acidic burps which you really don’t want when your working hard! He recommended I try out Maurten instead, so I mentally filled that way and started out for the next section.
Leaving the CP, we joined a road, turned right and started heading southish. I recorded my CP3 video, and then realised I had no idea if I was on the right path. I appeared to be off the path a bit on my watch, but that’s often the case due to the GPS drift. I didn’t remember seeing any turn offs, or signs, so I pushed ahead a bit, every now and then pausing and looking confused. Eventually someone caught me up who I asked and they had no idea either!
We pushed on a bit and were finally rewarded with another race marker! I guess because you were just following a roady/track they assumed you wouldn’t need any for a bit but it’s a bit worrying when they seem to disappear on you!
The route then disappeared over a fence into a wood, where there were two runners coming in the other direction looking confused! Turns out they’d spent 30mins wandering around in there being lost! Uh oh!
Checking my watch, the route definitely went in there so I told them they were on the right track and went in. We dropped down a small hill, then an arrow pointed left taking us back up a slight climb. We followed it, seeing another arrow giving us confidence and then follow the path which continued uphill swinging right. As we climbed the hill to a field edge, the two guys said “and this is where we got lost” and my watch beeped “Off course”. What? By now there were about 7 of us milling about looking confused. The arrows had definitely led us up here. Looking at the breadcrumb trail we didn’t seem too far off and the path ahead of us forked with no arrows in sight. The right hand fork however took us back downhill and seemed to be heading in the directon back to the breadcrumb so I made an executive decision and called out “This way!” and headed off and everyone followed me.
Quite a lovely downhill later, the path swung more rightwards and spat us back out onto the path, complete with an older runner looking at us confusedly. “Why did you go up there?” he asked. Well, yeah…
Picked up a bit of pace now I was confidently back on the path and left the trees into a field when BANG my ankle started screaming at me. I hobbled to a stop, trying to work out what was going on and couldn’t put my foot down at all. Shit. On reflection, I think there was a bit of a camber here and this might have been what causing it, but I was in a bit of a panic mode and couldn’t work it out.
The pack caught me up, and overtook as I decided to get my poles out and used them to hobble along a bit. The path followed the bottom of a couple of fields before heading back up to a road where there was a couple of people chilling out in the sun just across the road. I handed some litter to them which I’d picked up on the field (they were happy to take it up from me) and then started up the gradual grassy climb up to a river crossing where the final big climb started. At some point, the ankle just stopped complaining completely and I never heard from it again!…
This climb was going to be easy right? NOOOOOooooooo. It was baking hot now, and it just went on FOREVER. That sort of gradient where it feels manageable but it saps the strength from your legs so you end up slowing to a bit of a stomp. The trail climbed to the corner of the hill, then swung around it’s middle to the left, contouring around it. It was a strange view, being half way up the hills in a valley with a road at about the same height on the opposite side.
As I came around the corner, two runners ahead let me past as I jogged along saying I was faster. I was, for about two minutes when the legs just gave up and they caught me back up and overtook me again. We dropped down the thin track to another river, switching left and then a slippery crossing, where the pair from before were having a sit down and cooling their feet in the water. I moved on, contouring around the next hill, climbing a little to another left turn and stream crossing before the final bit of the climb lay ahead.
I’m pretty sure at this point I broke out the cheese sandwiches! Yum! A mature cheese is surprisingly good for getting through the cloying sweetness of the drinks! I suspect there was a little bit too much cheese so I found the end of it hard going but it did hit the spot really.
Soon enough, I topped out the climb and was rewarded with a bloody amazing downhill. 3k of really really good slightly technical downhill and I overtook LOADS of people who weren’t comfy with it. I’m just gutted that the bottom of here wasn’t the end! We had another aid station though!
8k to go from here and the sun was right overhead so it was really baking hot by now. My watch recorded it in the mid 30s, so it was probably over 26 degrees now. I decided to give up on the Tailwind now, a few too many acidy burps and I just really wanted water to be honest, so filled both my flasks up and grabbed some sweets I think and set off.
I had to ask which direction I was heading now as it wasn’t actually clear, but we followed a road right, slightly downhill and then started yet another tough little climb up a hill. It wasn’t a particularly nice hill either! I dropped to a walk taking the opportunity to get some water in me, and even eventually found my running again as the gradient evened out a bit. Soon we exited the road again and ran along a really good little track running in the shadow of Cat Bells (which I didn’t realise at the time!) till we were spat out at Skegill. Back on the road a bit and we were then at CP5 which I decided just to ignore. I still had plenty of water and snacks and I just wanted to get this done!
Part of the reason for just getting my head down and pushing on was that my feet were starting to kill me. Although the Long Skys had frankly been amazing on this run, the soles of my feet were really starting to hurt from the hammer of the tarmac at this point. There was a brief respite from it just after the CP, but soon I was back out on the road. Head down, I almost went wrong again having latched onto a pack of 5 runners who turned right off the route into the Lingholm Estate. They spotted me following them correct me as thet weren’t actually running the race, despite wearing all the gear!
This whole section was just a repeat of the 25k finish, but this time without a triathlete to drag and with feet on fire. It was pretty horrible to be honest and the last few k just seem to take forever. I was trying to keep running but slowing to walk every now and then but eventually it was time for the final climb to the finish.
Race reflections
Post race I actually didn’t feel too bad. Obviously the feet hurt, and I’d blistered on the bottom of my little toes which made walking a bit annoying.
So, what worked and what didn’t:
- New pack was good, but a bit warmer than the previous one
- The Merrell Longskys bossed most of the route, but really hurt the soles of my feet on too much tarmac
- Tailwind is ok and I can run with it, but I might need to try something else to avoid the burps
- I CAN do 79k in a weekend and not be completely dead
- Hummous and cheese sandwiches work
- I can run faster on these longer runs than I expect
- I need to work out why I’m suddenly getting little toe blisters! This is new. Perhaps it’s the toe socks as they will be taking up more space in the shoe?
- Poles are FAB but I need to get some without the adjustable dohickies on the sides which mean they don’t fit in my quiver properly
- Don’t trust other runners to a) know the route and b) actually have good intel on the hard bits
It didn’t take me too long to recover as well. Despite the sore toes, Liz and I went for a short walk to check out the Castlehead view point on Monday and then we took advantage of the really nice weather on Tuesday for a boat right out to Hawse End and took a walk up Catbells. It absolutely pissed it down the next day on Wednesday, but by Thursday my blisters had recovered enough for Kelly and I to go out and do a run of the George Fisher Espresso Round, which was a brilliant way to top off a great week of running! It was very wet, so was a great test of the waterproofing of my jacket. (It was great 🙂 )
Next on the list: A weekend in Anglesey to do some recciing!