Some Stuff About Me ......

I live in Harrogate, North Yorkshire with my wonderful wife and soul-mate Helen. I have two incredible sons - Evan and Matthew - who are occasionally show up at home, usually when they're hungry or need money. The three of them are the best thing that ever happened to me and I love them all. I spent over 24 years in the Royal Navy, but since I packed it all in and got a proper job my life has gone from strength to strength and I've never looked back. I am a die-hard soul music fan, but my heart truly belongs in the fells of Northern England, it's what I was made for. Please read about my adventures and experiences ....

Sunday 11 March 2012

A Quick Recap .....

Been busy. Work has been manic and this, coupled with the general rigours of life and my enhanced training schedule, has meant precious little time to draw breath. Done some big runs of late, the first was last weekend when I was flying solo for the weekend (Helen was out on a Hen do somewhere) and went out with pals Mark, Chris and H. for a little run around the Blubberhouses 25 course. Nice run, done at a fairly aggressive training pace but highly enjoyable. It's a funny thing - I know all the route but have never strung it together as one, will defo be doing that one again.

Last Wednesday both of us had the day off work, so decided to head up to Horton and do the Three Peaks [of Yorkshire]. I'm ashamed to say that I've never actually done the full course before ..... don't ask me why when it's practically on my doorstep, just one of those things I never got round to. I now understand what people mean about the long drag between Pen-y-Ghent and Whernside, it's just boggy and horrible. We got every extreme of weather possible, from gale force wind to sunshine and then snow and hail  What can I say, it kept me on my toes .... anyhow, I don't know if it's a good idea given the circumstances [forthcoming BGR etc], but I do have a race entry for the Three Peaks and as of now intend to do it. I might just do it as a training run and seek to finish inside the cut-offs, we'll see.

Yesterday was Trollers Trot and I didn't expect miracles, given some pretty tired legs. In the event it wasn't so bad, we ran it together and made good progress, it was a bit bottlenecked up to the first checkpoint (must have lost 5 minutes there), but from then on we steadily made our way through the field and picked off loads of runners, in fact I can only recall one runner coming past us during the entire race - must have done something right!

Reached the end feeling a bit knackered and I must confess that once we got home I spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nowt. Not like me at all, but I really needed it .... such weekly mileages are a bit alien hereabouts. I feel OK though, I think the reason for this is that courses like Blubberhouses and the Three Peaks, Trollers etc are long enough for sure, but they're really just trail races and have very benign and forgiving terrain compared with what you get up in the Lakes. Not as hard on the body and that's probably a good thing at this stage. The Lakes part of my training schedule will come soon enough

In other news, I have sold my little MX-5. I'm sad to see it go, but it really wasn't doing much around here .... I checked the mileage before I parted with it and have done just 400 miles since last October, it needs a home where it will be driven more  It's the only brand new car I've ever bought and financially was a total disaster, a sobering lesson there. I'm hoping the next car will be a much more sensible and viable proposition.

1 comment:

Jackie Buxton said...

Hi M, thought I'd check in, see how you're doing. Looks like training's going very well indeed and to have nobody pass you in the whole race smacks of consistently fast to me. Keep up the great work. Oh, and smart cars? Seriously over-rated. Good decision to get rid ;)