Hills, hills & more hills

We have had quite opposite extremes of weather this week. After a lovely sunny but cold Sunday run the week has been getting steadily worse! At club on Monday I completed a nice short recovery run with a few friends whilst the rest of club did a pyramid hill session. Tonights longer club run of just over 8 miles was completed from start to finish in a flurry of snowflakes. Linda and I stayed together whilst the faster ones sped off ahead, having got from the bottom to the top of Gaisby Lane at Shipley without stopping I was elated!

Thursday is nearly upon me again and this week on the menu is 'short tempo' so we'll see how that compares to the 'long tempo' of last week.
Fundraising is still quite slow but very steady and if you haven't already, please visit my donation page and pledge your support:
www.justgiving.com/julie-steele

I now have Carr Lane to look forward to on Friday with club and for those of you who are not familiar with Carr Lane it's a really long, steep hill in Shipley, even the buses have trouble getting up Carr Lane!....

Miscalculation......

My Silsden to Rodley run on Sunday with Sharon & Lisa turned into Silsden to Apperley Bridge! The train journey turned into a car journey and dropping Sharon at Saltaire put the tin hat on it! So.... Lisa miscalculated the mileage which meant we didn't need to run to Rodley as this would have raised our mileage by a bigger percentage than necessary, Gill (good friend and fellow runner who works at Bfd Interchange) informed us that the train from Shipley wasn't until much later than we'd planned to set off so we had to get a lift by car, not nearly as exciting (it's years since I've been on a train!) but very much appreciated (thanks Steve)!

The run went very well, the sun shone on what was essentially a very cold and frosty morning - the canal had a thin covering of ice which provided much amusement as I watched the swans bobbing up and down trying to 'swim' through it. What seemed no time at all we arrived at Saltaire where Sharon was to depart as she hadn't wanted to do the full distance. I think this played some part in the depletion of my morale during the final 4 or so miles, I now know how those runners felt at Nottingham when they described what it felt like when the people completing the half marathon turned off to their finish and those doing the Marathon had to carry on! I felt more and more tired as I approached Apperley Bridge, I have never been so happy to get back to the car park at Rawdon Meadows!

Once back though I was happy with the realisation that I had completed my longest run to date and am now looking forward to raising the game further this coming Sunday!

Thanks to this week's star donaters - Helen, Sue and quite a few customers at work filling in my sponsor sheet - it's all good!

So far, so good : )

Another week nearly done, they are flying by :O Training 5 times a week is extremely time consuming but so far so good. Being used to training for the Great North Run late in the year emphasises how early in the year the marathon really is!

Incidentally we learned this week that neither I nor Martin have gained places in the GNR ballot :-(

However, undeterred I have had another great week of training, managing a speed & hills session on Monday with club, a 7 mile steady run on Wednesday, again with club, and week 3 of my distance training course was again another fantastic session. I had been apprehensive of the subject matter of this weeks session, long tempo, erm...long tempo? Well it turned out that Mick had calculated what our pace should be in accordance of what race we are training for, so mine being London, mine was marathon pace, jogging down to Gain Lane and then setting off towards Woodhall Lane (big downhill!), the plan was to keep the set pace and after 35 minutes turn around and go back i.e 35 minutes there and 35 minutes back. I had thought there was no way I would get down to the bottom of Woodhall Lane in that time, however, sadly mistaken I was at the New Inn in Calverley before the time came to turn round and go back up the big hill! I surprised myself by getting back to the start point in 72 minutes. Just 2 minutes outside the set time! I had also not faired too badly with the minutes per mile either! Result!

Fundraising hasn't really taken off despite my efforts but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve so fingers crossed! Apparently I need to wait until my Justgiving page catches fire!

So to finish off this week I have club run this evening, REST on Saturday (yay!)and a field trip to Silsden on Sunday, with the intention of running back along the canal to Rodley - just over 14 miles apparently. Bring it on......

Going up....the mileage that is!

Everything went to plan last week except for the reappearance of snow on Wednesday! A great session at distance training on Thursday, a steady run with club on Friday, another 10 + mile run on Saturday with Lisa & Jo and the Dewsbury 10k on Sunday. The little hiccups inbetween are now a distant memory, the long slog all the way up Hollings Hill, sampling carb gels which were positively horrible as I continue the battle of working out how to fuel my increase in mileage (I'd lost 4 1/2lb when I got on the scales midweek), going out Saturday night and not getting home until the small hours then having to get up at 6 am to be in Saltaire for 7.15 to get to Dewsbury for the 9 am start - at least that's what I'm telling myself!

The start of week 5 on the training plan and I'm now feeling really positive as I've got the races I had entered out of the way and can stick to my training plan more rigidly. Now looking forward to being able to get back to Saturdays being rest days and long runs on Sundays - two more races of 20 miles and 17 miles will not be anything like races as these are intended to assist in raising the mileage nearer the marathon distance.

Slushy Snow? No deterrent!

I was extremely pleased that distance training wasn't cancelled due to the weather tonight after the disappointment of nobody turning up to club last night, although we didn't stick exactly to Mick's programme.

We began with our warm up drills and dynamic stretches then a steady jog to Peel Park which turned out to be too dark to see anything! He then decided we would do Lister Lane hill reps- phew! A longer way back to the club totalled up to 6 miles finishing with cool down dynamic stretches made for a really enjoyable if slightly slushy session.

Looking forward to a club run tomorrow night, a long run with the Girls on Saturday and the Dewsbury 10k on Sunday!

Donations are going well considering my Justgiving page has only been up and running for a few days,thanks to Martin, Sophie & Chris, some customers have also sponsored me on my sponsor sheet which I have put out at work!

Wii Yoga

Yoga on the wii fit+ last night was all very new to me but I really enjoyed it and I'm going to try and stick to doing it two or three times a week.
Alas a little snow on the ground tonight and not a soul turned up to club except Helen who wasn't running anyway : ( I took myself off home with the intention of going on the treadmill and I'm still sat here at 8.50.....I hate the treadmill......

Hello Sunshine : )

Well here we are in February already! Training went well last week and I was able to complete exactly what I set out to do. Friday's club run was nice and steady, it was freezing but had a nice run with club members old and new. Saturday was a lovely sunny day and I ran with Lisa as planned - we set off from Apperley bridge up through Woodlands drive out to Horsforth then down to Rawdon and Guiseley, through the woods to Esholt Village and then out onto Baildon Bottom to take a rocky path down onto the canal to take us back to Apperley Bridge clocking up nearly 10 and half miles. Sunday was again a lovely sunny day but the frozen ground made it difficult under foot for the 4th of this year's Peco XC league races. I finished the course in a respectable (for me!)43:44 How a little sunshine makes you feel on top of the world even though it's still cold.
Whilst I have been sticking to my training plan loosely - I have entered the Dewsbury 10k on Sunday which means another long run on Saturday meaning that I am running 5 days in a row again, due to a meeting last night Monday and Tuesday are set to be rest days. Whilst that felt ok last week I'm not sure that it's the right thing to do. Tonight I am going to try cross training on the Wii fit+ Hmmm Yoga me thinks.....