Long Mynd Valleys race and week round up

The early part of the week, I was away and the later part of the week I was resting for the Long Mynd Valleys race, but still managed 8,500ft of climb.

Monday : rest

Tuesday : 2000ft hill fort to bus stop reps

wednesday : away with work

Thursday : away with work

Friday : 2000ft hill fort to bus stop reps

Saturday : rest

Sunday : Long Mynd Valleys race 12 miles, 4,500ft

This is a good race for me in terms of location as it is 1/2 way between where I live and where my brother lives. Uncle and auntie get to see the small people, I get a race in and mum gets some quiet time. A win all round.

Conditions were misty on the top, but it did not cause a navigation problem. Still easier to route find than 10 days previous when I ran it at night.

I was really please with a time of 2:24:53 and 91st overall. A little better than 1/2 way down the field and about 1/2 way down the class which for those of us lacking in ability is quite pleasing. Conditions were a bit faster than last year, so the 12 minute improvement was not just down to getting fitter, but I think most of it was. One of my tests was did numerous people pass me on the last 2 hills as occurred last year? Nope. I made a few places on each of the last 2 hills and did not back off in effort terms at all.

So to have managed under 2.20 what would I have needed to do? I probably lost at least 2 minutes by falling over going along the relatively flat (hence fast) before the last hill. This resulted in a bang on the knee, 4 small holes in knees, elbow and hand which leaked some claret, a strange pinch mark on my stomach which makes no sense at all and a painful shoulder. One of the really nice things is that each person who saw it happen made sure to ask if I was OK as I was winding myself back up again to run. One kind chap even commented that he did not expect me to get up from the fall, let alone run. Only took a couple of seconds loss of concentration as I started to think about the last ascent and I was over. I am no shrinking violet when it comes to descending. Each of the down hill sections I would pass between 5 and 10 runners (some of which would pass me on the next hill, but on aggregate it was good for gaining places). For this fall, I was probably lucky not to get hurt seriously.

So 10,000ft a weeks seems to be working. I might be a little faster on the fast section than last year, but the hills were faster and I felt I passed more people on the steep downhill sections than last year. Given I am not training specifically for this type of even, I was really pleased with the outcome. I also recovered much faster than last year at the finish.