Thursday 24 September 2015

My 2 invisible friends

I just did something amazing, I ran 100 miles in under 24 hours at Equinox24
How?
How did I get around that 10 km course 16 times with out losing my mind? 
Well, training, I trained on a similar course of 5.6 miles, running Parkrun first then setting off on loops of Studley Deer Park on already tired legs. This helped cope with running on tired legs as well as running laps.
But the main weapon in my armoury is my two friends Just and Only, you can't see them but they are with me all the time and on tough days they help me get through.  At Equinox they were an enormous help, "I JUST need to get to the top of this hill and then I ONLY need to do it x more times" JUST along there and that will be another lap complete" "ONLY another 6 hours to go" and so on and so forth. 
A positive mental attitude allowed my brain to take control of my body.
ONLY 359 days to Equinox24, can't wait.


Sunday 6 September 2015

Two Weeks to Equinox


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So last big week of running complete, it was noticeably easier though this week without any cycling, I did a little swim at the start of the week but the rest of the week was running walking and strength and conditioning.
So Monday, Wednesday and Friday were relative rest days, 1.7 miles of running each day for Runstreak followed by squats and roller work. Tuesday was a 15 miler, Thursday a 10 miler and Saturday and Sunday 15 miles each.
15 miles is getting to be an easier distance but it's a long way from 100.

I have tried to get elevation into my runs to make up for lack of mileage so on Saturday my run had 1500 ft of elevation on a mainly road route. That did however impact on today's run which I did in laps, the first lap was good, the second was aweful and the third ok as I counted the miles down.

The thing that is difficult to balence when you train daily and often for 3 hours or more, is family. Fortunately Billy has the fitness bug too, but we don't get to see our eldest son, his girlfriend and our Grandaughter enough. Today we took our son and Grandaughter to the Yorkshire Sulpture Park to see the Poppy Wave. We have never been there before and were shocked at the £8 carpark charge, but happier when we realised that that was all we paid there was no entrance charge. It was very busy as it was such lovely weather, people were wandering and picnicking around the sculptures.
We walked miles, it was a fantastic afternoon and the Poppy wave was lovely.
Like a river of blood the poppies tumbled over the bridge.