March roars in like a lion

[Charliecat5]

So what about my own running?

Well it ain’t been brilliant, but it ain’t been too bad either.  In-between organising marathons and the usual work stuff, I have managed to get out a bit.

Following the track incident involving the safety pins, I headed out the Saturday before the Moyleman to mark out my section of the course.  In previous years I have biked this, but this year I was on my own two feet, running.  Having marked out from Bo-peep to Glynde, the only way home was over Caburn.  10 miles in the bag, albeit with quite a few stops to nail up Moyleman signs.

On Tuesday I headed out with the herd.  The evening’s entertainment was circuits.  Two intermediate groups headed out… one to run the fire station circuit (a mile circuit on the flat); the other to Houndean Rise which is a smaller circuit but involves a ‘nice little hill’.  I chose the latter.  A fairly sedate run out to the circuit along the south side of town lulled me into false sense of confidence.  As we turned into the Winterbourne, the runner I was running with - a lovely Moyleman runner - suddenly took off heading up the hill.  Bloody ‘ell, so I took off as well.  She had run the Moyleman two days previously… I hadn’t… and it was me struggling to keep up! 

We waited at the top for the others to catch up, she was chatting, and I was trying not to die. 

We then started the evenings exercise.  Tag running around a half-mile circuit.  And yes, you’ve guessed it, I was paired with the Moyleman runner girl.  I like tag running… you each set off in different directions and when you meet you tag and run back the way you came.  It’s good as it matches different runners of different abilities as you only have to run back the distance you ran out.

However, it is in my experience quite competitive, as you: a) want to run more of the circuit than your partner (particularly if you’re a bloke I find – we’re idiots like that); and b) you want to get back before them.  We only did two of these, but mixed in with a further three circuits running as a group, it was surprisingly demanding.

Then this morning was Twitten running… BBG is away, sunning himself in far off places, and as no one else is prepared to get up 45 minutes earlier and come out for a pre-twitten run with me (I have no idea why), I was on my own this morning… three miles around Sweder’s circuit before I joined the gang for the Twittens. 

It has been three weeks since I ran the Twittens and in that time I swear they have grown in length and elevation.  It was tough running this morning with David and Felix hot on my heels as we raced up the hills… no prisoners spared.  A couple of slower runners meant we had a reasonable rest at the top before heading down to do it again.  A coffee and a mile run home means that the last couple of weeks haven’t been that bad.  However, I do need to get out onto the hills and start racking up the miles.   People keep mentioning races to me… and at the moment whilst I’m doing all right with the sub-ten milers… I need to breakout and get some post-ten milers in the bag.
 
On another note, it is time to resurrect the beer/mile ratio (BMR).  I am happy to report that my BMR is somewhere in the region of 2:1… in favour of the beer.  MLCMM will approve.