Granville Colliery/Shropshire 4 miles

description: 4 miles, 2 laps+ round Granville Country Park, Donnington Wood, Telford. A multi-terrain route. time: 28.12 stuff: Granville is close to where I grew up, and also the site of my family's homes at the turn of the 20th Century. Today it's part woods, part reclaimed land, part tidied up and being steadily encroached upon by housing called 'Muxton'. There you go that's the history lesson. it's a lot prettier now than when I was a kid - though nowhere near as much fun! the race: it was a hectic start before the first of 3 climbs up Granville road, which proceeded a long descent down the lane to the Muxton farm/ Shropshire golf club complex, where the race then picked up a trail through the woods back to Granville road. This big loop was done twice, with 3 climbs of the hill in all. My legs, weary from a tough week and a long run at the weekend, gave out on the 3rd climb and as a result I was unable to muster anything other than a feeble challenge on the run-in. But the result does represent progress of sorts and I'm sure there is more to come. Next race in this series is on 27th June at Ironbridge, where by tradition it's either really hot or pouring with rain. Onwards!

unseasonable England

I love the warm weather; I love going for a run. You put the two together and I'll moan and whinge though. This week's long slow run was out and back, 16 miles, and it was about 25 degrees, not a cloud in the sky when I got back. All the energy drained out of me and the last bit was a struggle, as you would expect when upping the miles slightly each week. A worrying thing was at the halfway/ turnround point I had a really bad pain in the back but thankfully it went off once I got going again (or it was masked by the leg pain!!). I'm not convinced that long slow distance over a course with overall climb of probably less than 20ft is the best preparation for a hilly off-road marathon, but it's the best I can do at the moment. Missing the Hills though, I will be back soon :)

it doesn't need a title - the picture says it all

And so marathon training begins in earnest with a 15 mile slog around various communities making up part of the borough. The roads are long, with many a winding turn. This author is apprehensive about the challenge of the marathon, having not completed one for 11 years, but I'm under no illusions that I can get away with minimal training and "it's all right to walk". I want to do my best.

You need to be an orienteer to get round Dawley

This picture is taken from the pit mound that dominates the skyline near Dawley's Phoenix school. In days gone by we would run - well, crawl, really - up the hill during cross-country races. Now it has its own Orienteering course round it. Actually it's quite pretty these days. Phoenix Flyer 5km has a long history - well, the name does. It's been part of the Telford Sexarathon series for years now. In the olden days it was a tough challenge round the streets near the school, running flat out while avoiding kids, dogs, dogshit, buses and cars as well as other runners. But eventually, 'elf and safety took charge, and the race moved on to the fields. This coincided with a fall in numbers which has thankfully been reversed now - there must have been a couple of hundred out last night. Good stuff! The race is one small loop of the sports field, then 2 larger loops of the sports field plus 3 adjoining fields. It's reasonably flat and almost entirely grass, and last night it was pretty good going. I started sort of mid-pack and finished sort of mid-pack with 21.07 which is a pb for me in this age group though the distance was a bit dubious, garmins coming up a wee bit short but I suppose it being MT it would normally be slower. Swings and roundabouts. Nice to see the great Jonathon Pierce out & about and he won a spot prize (but couldn't spend it as he was in a hurry). So that's Phoenix. Next up in this series - Shropshire 4 ml. Now it gets serious! In other news: I have had my entry for the Wenlock Marathon accepted. Gulp. In other other news: Dave met up with our chums from Axe Valley Runners and did their handicap run. 27.54 for 3.6 miles. No details yet of how much beer was drunk in celebration..

from the pen of Imelda

The recent trouble I had with my splooshily new Innov8 shoes left me thinking about running shoes in general.

They're too dear, we should run barefoot. Except we can't run barefoot because the roads hurt our feet. And not all of us can run barefoot anyway. There, that's my contribution to the great shoe debate. Moving swiftly on (as we must) the Innov8 are the latest in a long line of lamentable off roaders I've had in my time. I began with a pair of Hi-Tec somethings, which were like the old Silver Shadows with what felt like fitted crossplys. They were a bit rubbish but I managed to donate them to Wilko who never throws anything away and so probably still has them somewhere. I was then talked into buying a pair of ETA racers, "because they are in the sale" from Bourne Sports. I remember these as being made of cardboard with felt uppers, though I was able to get a few good multi terrain runs out of them before they fell apart. Bourne Sports was also the scene of the next shoe crime, the "Felldancer". It looked the part, it had some tough old studs but boy was it a hard shoe to wear, there wasn't much flexibility in there and after a fell race your feet felt like tinned meat. I began to look adulterously for something else and stopped off briefly at the Saucony Jazz Grid trail. Great shoe - until you wanted to run through any wet mud. Sort of ruins the whole point, really! I did acquire a pair of Walshes for a tenner from TK MAXX - they were white and blue but otherwise ok, they were without doubt the best shoe to date. It was just those colours though! Having not had enough foot misery, I then tried the 'shoe of the moment' the Adidas Swoop. Looked and felt the part, except I kept slipping in them and even worse, my feet were quickly blistered to youknowwhat. Agh. I decided to bite the bullet and so handed over readies to Mr Walsh for some of his finest PB trainers. I bloody loved those shoes, they took me up hill and down dale. Eventually they went to shoe Valhalla after a particularly tough and muddy Leek cross country. I was happy to fork out for a replacement pair though which saw me through another couple of seasons. After a while though those little studs became even littler and by Dec '11 i was a slipping and a-sliding all over the hills. I looked around and spotted the rise of Innov8. Worth a go? seemed a bit dear, but when I got them out of the box my gaze was immediately drawn to the crampons - sorry - studs on the bottom. To date - one race, and one blistered heel.

Route 66

What? a blog about bikes? on the Ercall website? Look, Mike did 107.1 km on the Route 66 Cycle Sportive organised by the Nova Raiders CC yesterday. Which is a big effort by any stretch of the imagination. Good stuff.

3 Peaks Fell Race (Bollington version)

There is Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike. The 3 Peaks. Or, Pen Y Ghent, Whernside & Ingleborough. The 3 Peaks. I went to picturesque Bollington in Cheshire to do Kerridge Hill, White Nancy (pictured) and Nab Hill. The 3 Peaks. Bollington was almost impossibly pretty on a sunny Saturday in May, with a cricket match in full flow on the green and a lovely babbling stream beneath an impressive old viaduct. And a local Brewery, with it's own pub opposite. And some gorgeous woods, and...well, you get the picture. It was nice. To the race. The race started up on the viaduct which I'm assuming was once a railway line. Very impressive. We then worked our way onto a canal towpath before picking up roads and tracks. Most of the early running was flat and quite good to ease the stiff driving muscles into action, but soon we were climbing up narrow footpaths which brought us onto the first hill, Kerridge Hill. Once round the trig point, there was a steep grassy descent into the valley where I lost places as usual due to my lack of fell training. We were soon climbing back up onto the ridge though, we had to traverse a diagonal climb back up to White Nancy, where there was again another sharp drop to the valley floor. Once we hit the road there was a bit of roadwork through a housing estate before getting out onto Nab Hill. Round the trig, and the descent was fast and runnable, we also did a little more road work before getting back on to the towpath again and back to finish next to the cricket field. Came in just under the hour at 56.30 which was ok, I didn't push it much. Biggest issue was the blister I have rubbed on my right heel caused I think by my new fell shoes.

Trail Marathon Madness

After a lot of um-ing and arr-ing I have decided to enter the Wenlock Over the Edge Marathon.

There are some reasons for this. Firstly I'm inspired by by friend Art who has just completed 100 marathons (see earlier post). If he can do 100, I can do 13. Secondly, its only a few miles from home. Thirdly, it's Olympic year and it's in the Wenlock Olympics, inspiration for the modern games. Fourthly, and most importantly, it looks like fun. It's going to be tough though but hopefully the sun will shine and I'll finish with a smile on my face!

East Devon Way Relay 2012

We won't be doing it. It was due to take place this weekend, but has been cancelled due to lack of interest. I think we broke it last year. We. Broke. A. Race. That is all.

100 marathons.

So, knee injury has come back to haunt me again. Sharp pain under the kneecap, depending how I land the foot and usually on a downhill slope. It goes away with rest, but rest I don't want or need. However, it is aggravated by my being so stiff - so I can do some work on flexibility. In other news, a friend of mine has been inducted into the 100 Marathon Club. It is, by any standards, an awesome achievement and one which, for me conjures up several loosely-connected thoughts. Firstly, it's proper 'old-school' running. The members of this club aren't chasing places in London, nor are they great charity fundraisers. They are just as likely - in fact more so - to turn up at a race involving just a couple of dozen people, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but friends and long-suffering family members as support. In that respect they are the latest in a long and honourable British marathon tradition. For example, I used to work with a chap who told us of his exploits in the Liverpool Marathon which had fields of 30-ish and which finished in front of the Kop on a Saturday afternoon. If you dig through archive photos of the times, you may find fading snaps of strange, skinny men running through traffic accompanied by nothing more than kids on bikes. It really was a different world back then.

There is also this obsessive, completist eccentric trait which is classically British. Record collections, label collections, book collections, train numbers, football grounds, real ales, you name it, we've got it. Running 100 marathons fits in well here too. I think you have to take account of all the travelling too. Running 100 marathons means you have to travel to 100 starts and they are all over the country - and other countries, too. I think you need to be determined and organised. Finally, you have to recognise it as a sporting achievement. It's 2620 miles, for goodness' sake! Also what drives a man to recognise that he may not be quick enough to challenge for honours in any single event, but he can change the game completely by being the last man standing. So Well Done Arthur, take a bow. What an awesome achievement.

Sheinton Steeplechase

Sheinton, near Cressage, has a strange name, was mentioned in the Doomsday book, and has a really stiff road climb (if you're on a bike that is) going through it. That has probably exhausted my knowledge of the place, sorry. It is, however, pretty damn pretty. Anyhow, they put on a race there every so often. I thought it was every year, but there have been gaps. I had a trip out there, and for the princely sum of £5.00, you get an old-school paper number (..glad it wasn't raining) and a lovely tour of the local countryside. This was a 3 1/2 -ish mile trip round local farm tracks, through fields, someone's garden (we were warned), alongside streams,

through the obligatory water splash (pic thanks Al Tye) and over several stiles before meandering through the woods, across even more stiles, over even more fields and finally spilling out on to a track... near a road.. near the finish. It was quite a tough and muddy little cross-country run, as all the best ones should be. I have no idea how well things went for me, but I came away feeling slightly disappointed with my efforts. On to the next one..