Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold

I haven’t put the miles in this week – I’ve been feeling under the weather. I was worn out from the national cross country championships in the early part of the week, but felt that a run might perk me up. I was wrong. On Tuesday I ran from home to The Edge for our running club session and then trotted round with group 3. Seemed like I made the right choice of group as group 4 had what sounds like a challenging run. I ran just short of 13 miles in two hours and it wore me out. I’ll need to get a decent long run in this weekend if I’m to give of my best at Trimpell a week on Sunday. Longest run to date is fifteen miles as a combination of poor weather, the nationals, a lunatic driving her car through my front wall and now a dripping cold have put paid to my training schedule.

I thought I’d try some other exercise as I wasn’t up to running. You know what it’s like when everyone else uses a phrase, but you haven’t a clue what it means? Cross-training is something that I wasn’t familiar with until recently. For me a cross trainer was one of those elliptical machines in the gym that you do Nordic skiing style movement on. Leaves you completely knackered after about three minutes. Couldn’t really figure it out when someone said they were going swimming as they fancied a spot of cross training. I’ve got it now, and I think I may have done some cross training this week. I’m not up to cycling or swimming though – just walking. I’m not sure whether you use different muscle groups when you walk rather than run, but I’m not safe on a bike and the sight of me in my budgie-smugglers would clear the pool, so walking it is.

Thought I’d go up a couple of hills and go at a fair clip just to make sure some calories got burned. On Thursday I climbed out of Settle up to Attermire Scar and then back to Settle via Langcliffe. It was a gorgeous afternoon, and if I’d known that Friday was going to be rainy, I would have extended the walk. I walked 4.25 miles in 1 hour 15 minutes, including stopping to admire the views from time to time. On Friday I parked in Horton and did a circular walk of Pen-y-ghent. Just over 6 miles in 1 hour and 50 minutes. Plenty of stops to get my breath back and clean my glasses. It was low cloud and I could see bugger all from about half way up. I was going to walk either Whernside or Ingleborough, but there was no point as the visibility was so limited.

Feeling much better now. On with the training.


http://www.justgiving.com/LizJones1.