Ups and Downs

Once again a while since my last post and a five more races (maybe 4 in 8 days was a bit excessive) completed. After the Black Combe race I decided to do more fells as part of my general training. As it happened the West Cumberland Orienteering Club (WCOC) Warriors Holidays series was about to start – A series of six short fell races held on Thursday evenings with the competition of four of the six needed to qualify for the competition. This looked perfect as part of my training so enter into the unknown I did.

A familiar sight

Warriors Holiday Series – Leaps Lowp



The first run in the series Leaps Lowp was held in rapidly dropping temperatures and diminishing light and being only 2.8 miles was hard to pace. Gavin Patterson of Ellenbrough set of at a storming pace one I knew there was no way I could match so I let him go with Chris Knowles of CFR and Richard McGrath also of Ellenbrough. It turned out the pace was too much for Gavin whom I past before the second check point. The basic plan had been to keep the leaders in sight and follow them! This was going fine until rounding the corner before the climb to the final check point they had gone. Luckily Harry Jarret was there and pointed me in the right direction up a trod through the trees and I caught site of Chris ahead once more. My lack of climbing speed showed and the two leaders gradually pulled away on the final accent up Knock Murton. Richard pulled away from Chris on the final decent coming in first with Chris next and me a minute later in third. All in all a good night out and next week was on my home turf up the Hay.


Thursday 17^th March 02:00 and the sickness started, although it lasted only 12 hours or so the Hays Ho Down race was not going to happen for me and worse still the Workington to Keswick “walk” was only three days away.

Workington to Keswick Charity Walk

Would two days of carb loading be enough to restock the glycogen stores? A gentle run on the Saturday suggested maybe; but when the energy would go, as go it would, was hard to judge. The timings had been calculated for all the checkpoints and the organisers informed of the target time of around 3 hours 35 minutes now the only thing left to do was the run. So on a tepid, breezy damp morning at the legion in Workington I set off on the approximately 30 mile route to Keswick Moot hall. By the first checkpoint at Ullock, eight miles in I was ahead of schedule by three minutes (to be expected due to adrenaline) this was slowly increased to 4:30 minutes by the Loweswater checkpoint. Rounding the corner to towards Crummock the head wind hit with force this kept up with occasional showers all the way down Crummock and Buttermere until the start of Honister pass. This made the going tough but although I stopped gaining time, no time was lost. The ascent of Honister was not too bad until the last bit but my trusty support team supplied encouragement energy drinks and a banana for the walk up the last bit before the decent. This was the telling bit as it was hard to keep the pace up going down with tired legs especially after 22 miles covered. The last bit from Rosstwaite to Keswick felt like a slog but just managed to nip in under 3:30 with the official time of 3:29 (I made it 3:32…). Quite a good confidence boost for the rest of the season.

Silly Time

The Thursday after was the third in the WCOC Warriors series up Crag Fell which I ran on still tired legs on a glorious evening with an unfortunately poor turn out. Chris Knowles took some photos of the event but was saving himself for Causey Pike…



Deccent of Crag Fell



Causey Pike was on the Saturday with the usual high standard of runners and friendly supporters including Stu and Steve. Once again another totally different fell race the accent up rolling end was on all fours in parts followed by a brief reprise then onwards and upwards to Causey and the final scramble to the summit. The decent to the old mining road was too steep for my still weary legs with three runners passing me but on reaching the road the terrain turned to my favour being a gentle gradient and trail, I quickly re-passed the three but didn’t have quite enough to close the gap on anyone else. Pippa Maddams once again ran a superb race breaking the record by 12 seconds!



View from Causey on previous reccy



By the Sunday and the Grizedale Trail race I’d resigned myself to a slow time having run three races in the previous seven days. The weather was ideal with a light breeze, clear day for excellent views, no rain and a slight nip in the air. The race went well with the ups being hard as expected but the downs being easier than expected, so to come in eleventh just over the hour for the 9.5 mile course was an excellent result!

And Then...

Monday was a day off then on Tuesday a walk round Buttermere with Harry taking five and a half hours while trying to fill the lake with stones and sticks...

Robbinson in the distance?

The training is still not structured enough; with sporadic racing, intervals and temp runs but not enough long runs. Though it seams to be working OK for now with times still coming down… There are still over fifty days until Edinburgh and the 2:45 target which means a 6:15 pace on the Garmin. Before then there are 11 races or maybe I should call them tempo runs with a competitive edge as to race them all would be far from sensible – do I have it in me to hold back on some of them?

Some change will happen from this week with some pace structure being put into the training with the unfortunate consequence that I’ll have to miss some of the club nights. I missed the hill session with Tri-lakeland tonight as tomorrows fell run up Robinson will fit that training requirement! The session was substituted with a ten mile marathon paced run following the Cumberland Ale 10 route. The average pace of 6:19 was about right considering the 200m+ accent.

Marching into March

Second post and over two weeks since the last, no surprise there! Since the Buttermere round, just before the first post, I’ve eased off a bit with a recovery week (31 miles) followed by an easy week (57 miles), but now we are into march it’s time to ramp it back up again putting in some proper miles and more intense interval and tempo sessions etc.

So far this year I’ve taken part in nine races with a lot more pre-entered later in the year including 4 marathons (two trail) and seven trail races. There will hopefully be a lot of fell races in there too, though since they tend to be entered on the day and there are so many of them near to home I am far from decided which ones to do! The races I’ve done to date this year are:

Nine Standards Fell race – held on New Years day.

First ever fell race which included a lot of road so was a good way to ease myself into this new discipline, the climb was hard and my legs felt very heavy for the majority of it, reaching the top in 18^th. By that time my legs were starting to behave themselves letting me open out on the decent reeling in runner by runner to end up in eleventh though behind Stu. Not a bad start – Lesson need to rest more before hitting the fells and practice on the hills more.

Keswick cross county on 8^th January

Four laps of a relatively flat but frozen course. The plan had been to take the first two laps steady and pick it up over the second two. It was all going to plan with the gap closing between Stu and I when the dreaded runner’s trots reared there ugly heads from below just before the end of lap three. The pace suffered and Stu pulled away again so beaten twice in two weekend’s. The lesson this time? – sort out what is causing the trots and make my bowels did not cooperate

Brass Monkey half marathon – 23^rd January

A very flat race in York in which I manage to stick to my pace plan almost perfectly with each mile except the first (intentionally faster) being between 5:53 an 5:58 pace. I went through 5K @ 17:55, 10K @ 36:15 and 10 miles @ 58:47 all inside my PBs at those distances finishing in a PB time of 1:17:30 – Lesson here that my pacing is good, the flat course showed this!

That’s Lyth – 30^th January – LDWA 23.5 mile “walk” over mixed terrain.

Managed to nip under three hours but suffered badly due to lack of rest before the event slipping from second to fourth over the last five miles – lesson here was not to do a month of miles (368) and try to do a long race at pace at the end of it!

Jarret;s Jaunt – 6^th February

Second fell race of the year this time a fully marked handicap race. But what should my handicap be? Looking down the list I saw the name of a guy (Simon Hunter) I’d been 10 seconds ahead of in another race so though that should do… The race was going very well until the last turn about half a mile from the finish where I went wrong in the mist and carried on straight instead of bearing right (turned out I was far from the only one), when I couldn’t see many trail shoe marks on the path nor runners ahead as the mist thinned I knew something was wrong then woods appeared ahead on the right when they should have been on the left. A quick re-orientation and direction change and found the course again but by the end the 4.5 mile course had become a 5.2 one, probably costing me second place. No lessons here other than a reccy which I didn’t’ have time for anyway!

Buttermere round – 13^th February

The first real test of how my training was going as I’d run this one in 2010 admittedly a slightly longer version due to the floods of November 2009 meaning a 400m detour. The plan this time was to go under 2.5 hours, and hopefully ten minutes faster than the previous time. When I was 3 minutes up by the bottom of Honister Pass I thought maybe the initial pace had been too much especially in the gusty rainy conditions, it turned out that it was but only slightly as my finishing time of 2:22:37 was over 16 minutes faster than 2010 meaning my training was coming on much better than anticipated.

Leeds parkrun – 19^th February

This was meant to be a PB race while visiting my brother in York, unfortunately it decided to snow before the timed 5K event. No PB but a respectable time in the conditions with road shoes but impossible to judge how my race pace was going. Because of the disappointment ended up doing a tempo run that evening in a snow less York at a pace of 9 seconds a mile faster than in the race. Lesson – you can’t control the conditions only yourself

Black Combe – 5^th March

A proper fell race and first time running as a member of Cumberland Fell Runners (CFR), my second club. My loyalties still lie with Derwent AC Cockermouth (DAC) but it made sense to be a member of a fell running club when my intention is to make the gradual transition from mainly road to mainly fell running over the next 14 months. The race itself taught me a lot about the variation within the sport. This was my third fell race of the year and so different form the other two: very little marking, electronic check points and no flat to speak of. The first four miles I raced then eased of a bit to save myself for the following days pacing of a fellow Derwent AC member at Haweswater. I slipped from 14^th down to 19^th over the second half. Lessons were many fold – it’s good to walk, you will pass and be passed back by runners who are better or worse decenders or climbers, some climbs will be at what appear to be ridiculously slow paces but nearly everyone will be that slow and I need much more real fell practice before the BGR.

Haweswater Half Marathon – 6^th March

Rather than race this one I helped pace Phil Cueto from DAC around to try for a PB, he kept to the pace very well: 21:20 at 5K, 42:20 at 10K and 67:45 at 10 miles. He digged deep at the end to beat his previous PB by over a minute finishing in 1:27:21 - well done Phil! The other reason for this pace was it is my intended pace for the Workington to Keswick Charity “walk” on 20^th March so it helped us both.

The next targets are a good time on the Workington to Keswick Charity “walk” and Edinburgh marathon on 22^nd May. Then the real fell training starts…

Next time maybe less statistics and more substance…