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..

inspiration

I've been running for over 20 years. Blimey. I would have been running for longer, but I stopped in my early '20s just as I was getting into it. What keeps you going for that long? Health, fitness, competition, looking at the scenery, fresh air, company, laughs, seeing places you wouldn't see normally...lots of those things and more, probably different things at different times. I know, for instance, that i have spent an entire day of my life doing London Marathon(s), and outside of that race I can only remember a couple of short trips to London. I've been to the top of some of the highest UK mountains, and been privileged enough to run on some of the Uk's iconic athletics tracks. And I've had some running heroes too. Here are three.

1. Ron Hill. Everyone who has been running distances in the UK knows of Ron. His world records, his medals, his invention of modern running kit, and of course his running streak. My first experience of Ron was listening on the radio as a kid in 1972 as he finished 5th in the Olympic marathon in Munich and being very disappointed with him. It wasn't until many years later, reading his epic book 'The Long Hard Road' (or, as some put it 'The Long Hard Read') that I understood the full story. He is a legend and I met him once and was just about to have a chat when he was whisked away at the end of the Tour of Tameside to do a TV interview, but i have seen him several times since at many North-West races. And he's still going, into his 70's. Class act.

2. Steve Ovett. Ridiculously good at anything he deigned to enter, he won races from short sprints up to a half-marathon, often without seemingly breaking into a sweat. I loved his anti-establishment stance, the way he ran in a Soviet Vest, the ILU sign as he crossed the line in yet another victory, and the sheer raw power and grace of his running. If you were in front with 200m to go and he was on your tail, he would hunt you down like a deer and smash past you on his way to the line. His career faded in the '80s, blighted by illness and injury, and his attempt to become the first v40 to go under 4 minutes for the Mile was ended with a bizarre training accident. Of course he doesn't grab the modern headlines, unlike his former nemesis. But then, who needs to when you're as good as Steve Ovett, thanks Steve for being the difference between 146th and 147th place in many a race :))

3. Alf Tupper. He's not real, I hear you say. Yeah, but when you're a kid, he IS real. Alf is perhaps Ron and Steve combined, with a bit of 1950's/60's 'Angry Young Men' thrown in for good measure. He would think nothing of a 48-hour shift as a welder, sleeping in the bath before a fish supper, hitchhiking to the White City before running a new world record against some sneaky Cold War agents who had secretly tried to sabotage him somewhere along the way. Or maybe he was running cross country, stopped to save someone trapped in a demolished building, rejoined the course to be the last counter and save the day for his club. Or, famously, winning the 1970 Commonwealth games for Tristan da Cunha (sorry Ron, if you thought it was really you). His biggest battles were always reserved for the establishment, and he always finished a race with "I run 'im". I wanted to write a contemporary Alf story, and one day I will, it's all up in my head..

ironbridge

Over the years, I've grown to really like Ironbridge. There was a time when I though the place was some unnecessary model village, stamping the life and history out of our local towns in order to create some corporate-style museum, and there's still some of that as far as I'm concerned, but the town is so damned pretty, and on a Spring evening the air is thick, sweet with the perfume of blossom, and oxygen-rich, the river, though slightly flooded, looks and moves like builder's tea running along the Gorge. For a while, the Ercall Stompers have been meeting up at Coalbrookdale for a stonking little run then retiring to the Dale Inn to tell tall stories. Start up by Cherry Tree hill, run down into the Dale, along and across the iconic Bridge, pick up the Severn Valley Way to the War memorial footbridge by The Boat, cross and over, back towards Ironbridge but then up the steep, steep climb at the back of the Golden Ball to Jockey Bank. From there, more climbing along Belmont, through the 'back streets' of Ironbridge, picking up Lincoln Hill and turning off for the White Horse pub ( I navigate by pubs). From there it's an eyeball-out descent down Church Hill which brings you out on the Dale road just by the Coalbrookdale pub and home. It's a sliver under 6 miles but an excellent route, covering industry, rivers, railways, war history, churches and chapels, football (Billy Wright's house) pubs and much more besides. Fab run on Tuesday, chaps :)

bluebells and running

Bluebells feature in this weekends running post. I love bluebells, they seem like the quiet angelic blue carpet of the Spring flower world, they sneak up on you, they are no-where to be seen and bam! suddenly they are everywhere - but only in those quiet, out-of-the way places which they happily share with you and your thoughts. The bluebells in this picture are on the Wrekin hill (not my picture sadly, but I know exactly where it is and yes, this hasn't been photoshopped). I decided to begin training properly again, it's been long enough after the Exe to Axe and though the holiday was lovely, after a while you need the feeling of moving along the road and paths (and hills, yes, etc etc). Goodness knows what i'll do when it's time to pack it all in, but I suppose I'll know its the right time so that will be fine. So with a spring in my step I set out for a 10-ish tour of the local countryside in bright Spring sunshine. It was so warm, I soon stripped down to my vest top at the Bluebell crossroads (like what I did there?)and i found myself putting extra on to the end of the run to take it over 10 miles, I was enjoying it so much. I quite like the idea of making it up as i go along. 10 miles in the weekend bank, and I gave up some essential VLM viewing to go on the slopes of the Ercall and path round the Wrekin on Sunday with my good friends. Apart from jarring my knee again, it was a lovely run, great that the mud is back and that the bluebells are out in force (but not as magnificent as 2011). 17.5 this weekend, mojo intact, scouring the websites for races. Normal service resumed. Next race may be the Wrekin Streak though I will have to see how the knee is before committing to this brutal little thing. Happy times.

rain

'I can't stand the rain, against my window', so sang Ann Peebles (thanks Wiki :) )

What makes a man go out to a 5-mile road race in the pouring spring rain? It can't be the course. No, not even the thrill of running down (and then up) the driveway of a former stately home and one of the UK's most iconic sporting training camps (Lilleshall National Sports Centre). It can't be the challenge of a good time, three weeks after Exe to Axe and the holiday has taken it's heavy toll. I suppose it must be the guilt of pre-entering a race and wanting to get value for money !! Anyhow, it was very wet. I set a PB for stops to tie my shoelaces, I got my feet very wet, and there was a lot of huffing and puffing in the gloom. Oh, the gloom. It was dark before we started. On the whole though, i was happy to get the Lilleshall 5 miles done and I'm hoping for a big improvement in May over the wide-open savannahs of Dawley.

that dingling feeling in my toes

ever been to Loamhole Dingle? we ran round there today. It's like a lost world - a steep sided valley with a stream (Lydebrook/ Loamhole Brook) running through the bottom and eventually to the Severn. The nice people at Severn Gorge Countryside Trust have lined the valley with a boardwalk which goes up, up, up then down, down, down. One of my favourite places round here.

'till you die...

We came back from a nice week in Cyprus to find we were all extremely tired for days afterwards; I hadn't done any training due to not feeling well while I was out there so I couldn't blame that, although we were bitten to pieces by mozzies I don't think it's malaria, and I'm fairly convinced it's not alcoholic poisoning, so it leaves the ubiquitous 'a bug' which we could have picked up on the plane back. Who knows? Anyway, we got back early Thursday and by Saturday I was no better. But today, Sunday, I woke with more of a spring in my step, singing 'Play that funky music' round the house and warming up for a nice trot round the Wrekin etc. by watching the Paris marathon. My last words as i left home being 'his last words before he left for the Wrekin were 'till you die'..'
Anyway. It was clear, cold, but I trotted comfortably to the top where the view was as good as ever. Although there were lots of cars around it was only busy on the hill and by the time we had made it to Willowmoor, we were on our own again to enjoy the peace of the woods. Nice to be home and even better to be feeling good again :0)

April, come she will.

The Exe to Axe is a 20ish mile run from Exmouth to Seaton in Devon, is a navigation event with over 4000 ft of climb following the South West Coast Path and is, by general agreement, a bit tough. I made the trip down there last year with friend and venerable club man David 'Grizzly' Arnold. Regular readers of the blog will note that we do a few trips like this, so it was no surprise that 2012 was back on the agenda following a successful Grizzly outing earlier this year.
Anyway, enough of that. We went down on Saturday as neither of us fancied the 5am start this year. The only reasonably-priced place to stay though was in Exeter YHA. We kipped in a dorm which had an air of the film The Great Escape about it - on closer inspection the bunk beds would appear to have had some of the slats removed, presumably for the tunnel (which we never found..)

Still, a few beers seemed to make it all go quite swimmingly and take the pain away!!
Up early, and after a hearty YHA breakfast we went to the race.









We were doing it as a relay, neither of us fancied or had trained for the whole race. Dave tried to convince me that the 2nd leg (Sidmouth - Seaton) was about the same length and difficulty as the 1st leg (Exmouth - Sidmouth) but the organiser laid waste to that hopeful claim by telling the assembled company at the start that this wasn't so and that the 2nd half was quite a bit harder(insert smiley with sticky-out tongue) (ah yes, this one )



Due to Dave's recent battle with injury, his chances of beating last year's time of about 1.57 were very low but with an optimistic heart and under the bluest of skies and seas he set to his task, while I was left to dash to Budleigh Salterton (4 miles) where I was to provide drinks, camera and, if needed, a motivational speech. He got to Budleigh in good spirits, I began to get a little concerned he may have gone off TOO quickly and the wheels were going to come off. I zoomed off to Sidmouth and the start of my bit.
As my estimated start time loomed, I began to get a little worried for him but I needn't have - he came bounding along the prom almost a minute up on last year's time. We had a chance of beating the 2011 time after all!
I set off immediately uphill, then on to the cliffs where it just seemed like climb after climb, many on steep steps which was hard to get any running rhythm at all. There was a steep drop to the beach with a ridiculously but mercifully short stretch on the pebbles before a stiff climb back up. But hills aside, it was dry, the running was good and I was reeling the others in and feeling pretty good. At the drinks table at Branscombe I made the mistake of taking orange juice which aggrevated my asthma a bit but I pressed on, knowing that Seaton, and the finish was just round the next bay. By the village of Beer, all was going well and I stopped for a brief chat with a very excited Dave who was positively jumping at the prospect of beating 2011's time . Just the steep steps and climb out of Beer, and once at the top it was almost downhill all the way to the finish. I misjudged the last half mile along the prom a bit, I picked it up a bit without knowing where the finish was (novice mistake ) but anyway I got in in good order. I checked the watch and to my amazement I had knocked 14 minutes off my time for last year, we were 15 minutes quicker in total. Wow.
So, we were in celebratory mood all day. This was made even better, if that were possible, by our finishing 3rd relay team overall, a virtual podium finish made even sweeter by the fact that my running partner is (a very young) 65 years old. But as he's only 18 in his head, he's talking about going back next year to challenge again...
all my pictures are here on photobucket

March. It came, it went

The planned trip to cloud 9 fell race never came off. Injury and bad weather put an end to that. However, I did manage a trip to Devon (Seaton) for the Grizzly (cub run). I had to drop out of the main Grizzly as, well it was too long and hard for my level of training. However, the cub run was very pleasant indeed. Add to that some lovely sunny & warm weather and it was a pretty good day out. Here I am right at the finish, all big smiles and that. Lovely!

Happy New Year

Crikey, it's nearly March and it's all gone quiet over here. Thought I'd do a race update of what has happened so far in '12 in order of toughness.

(1) Stourbridge Stagger 10 (Feb) I was looking forward to a good run but I was let down badly by ice & snow which made it treacherous (for me). Always a toughie.
(2) Tough Ten, W-S-M. (last week). A bit uninspiring, to be honest. It had all the feel of a 'big' race but never quite got out of 1st gear, a bit like me I suppose. 10 miles of which the majority was off road, either along the beach or in the woods. The woods were quite hard going up & down.
(3) Blymhill 10k MT tough, windy, lots of off road, much like Pattingham. Liked it a lot.
(3) Shifnal 10k MT Not much MT but fast finish.

next up: Cloud 9 Fell Race. Yippee!

Proper Chrimbo and a challenge.

Happy Christmas to anyone reading (ok, that is MAINLY me. I know)
Some thoughts on the Wrekin Hills Challenge:
Take several points on a trip round the Wrekin, and provided you visit them all, you knit together a very nice - and challenging - little challenge.
Starting & finishing at the gate at the foot of the main path, visit these points in any order:
Wrekin * Ercall * Lawrence Hill * Maddocks Hill * Little Hill * Willowmoor Ridge *

I'm working on the grid refs at the moment, will add them later.
Do it, record the route, record your time and join the "club" :-)

Mortimer Forest 11/12/11

I had a bad experience at MF in '09 which resulted in my damaging my ankle and being out for most of '10, leaving me fat and demotivated. I'm still a bit fat and demotivated but at least I'm running better now, though I have a problem with slippy downhills and my stud-less Walshes don't help me at all and I'm only running in them out of a misguided sense of loyalty :-)

So.. those are the excuses posted; actually Mortimer Forest '11 was a good run. Tough as ever. The first real climb is a hands& knees scramble up a muddy bank, if you don't get well up the field it's very slow progress. That is then followed by a lot of trail running which was quite muddy in places. There is a sequence of small hills near the water facility which were not a lot of fun for the weak & feeble rubbish slidey man. I was running very well on climbs, but once on the slippery stuff all bets were off and I reckon it cost me about 10 minutes. The 2nd climb was tough as usual and by High Vinalls there were lots of hands on knees. Saw my friend Colin hiding from the elements in the trees with a camera; in any other circumstances this is slightly deviant behaviour but Colin laughs in the face of convention and anyway he would have been freezin' up there. One tortuous descent through the trees later and I was on the road home but feeling not a little disappointed that I hadn't done myself justice. But on reflection I finished in good order with no aches and pains at all so I feel I've gained revenge on this tough race. What's next? new shoe investment, for sure. Thx to Al Tye for the lovely pic :-)

Gravy Pud Fell Race 4/11

It was undeniably grim yesterday. We left home early to visit Gill's mum and for me to escape to go and run the imaginitively-titled NorthernBoysLoveGravy Gravy Pud Fell Race

.

I had planned the trip to th 'Nth' degree, even going on to Google streetview to see what the road turns looked like, where the best place was for car parking etc.

This wasn't really the issue, the issue was the weather. As we approached Stockport it began to rain a little, the nearer to Tintwistle I got, the lower the temperature was and the more the rain intensified. It went dark, and the warning signs indicating whether it was safe to use the Woodhead Pass looked like they were twitching into action. I parked up safely near the village hall which was very small an

d had more of a hint of a caravan about it. I sent a text to some friends which had more than a hint of a last will & testament about it.

All the time, rain poured off the slate roofs and ran down the m

ain street. Oh, well, I'd better find the pub then.

The pub was a very pleasant little place, just off a green space/war memorial which on a summer's day would have been very lovely. But on a day like today, well I just wanted to get inside. Every one was very friendly inside, they had the fire going etc. Top stuff! There were the day's papers to have a browse through and in the corner one intrepid runner was carbo loading with a pint before the race. Which is a bit 'ard.

To the race. The start (and finish) was along a cobbled lane which took us out onto the moor. Once upon the moor there was a sharp climb on a trail and then a drop to a narrow wooded bridge. This was not good, as not having local knowledge and being a bit of a girl I lost about 20 places cos I didn't cut the corner. Grr.

I made a few back on the climb away from the stream, and normal order was resumed until the real big climb of the day which was a hands & knees scramble up to a little cairn(Lees Hill). By this time it was hailing into the rain and stinging every part of the body not covered by cloth, and even some that was.

On the grass was a sparse covering of - yes - snow. Eek! Over the top we go - and a long, fast descent which wasn't as quick as it should have been, because of the deep slippy mud that was fast becoming a feature of the run. But I got going ok, and didn't lose any places. Yet more climb, then a patch though some trees and deep, deep water puddles/mud as we dropped down to the reservoir. I was going really well here and reeled a few in. I steeled myself for the inevitable collapse as we climbed back up to the start lane but found that once I was up the climb, though the taps were full on, I was able to maintain it all the way to the finish. Not a brilliant finish position - but I'm sure the performance is a considerable improvement on recent showings. It felt good and strong.

This was a brilliant race. My only regret is not stopping for a pint, but as hypothermia was a real prospect, it was a quick jog back to the car and true warmth :)

Winter Sun

I was out on the hill today.

The sun was shining in all its Winter glory.

The dark days are now upon us and the Winter Sun is so different to her Summer counterpart. There is no warmth in the Winter sun. She wears a coat and scarf, not a dress.

Her rays are low, bright and they bleach the landscape; green is grey, grey is black, brown is black too.

The sheep are blurred and uninterested, barely lifting their heads. The wind is sharp and it cuts through you if you're daft enough to stand still.

Your ears hurt, your toes are cold and your nose runs all the time.

Even the birds say "why me?" as they look for some shelter in the bare trees.

But the holly leaves have hardened up now in time for Christmas and the Mistletoe, well yes, that looks good too. If you see a Robin, that's a welcome dash of red.

And in a few days, the nights will start drawing out again....