The February sunshine

[Charliecat5]

Good God man… who in their right mind decided that it would be a grand idea to do a pre-Twitten run, run?  And what sort of beleaguered idiot elects to run said pre-Twitten run by running up steep muddy hills and along lung busting, feet imbibing, wet, horrible trails?  

More to the point what sort of fool chooses to join me…?

Me and him ran five muddy, energy sapping miles this morning before we even made the start of the weekly Twitten extravaganza.  We started behind the prison with a gentle run up the Spital track before launching ourselves down the steep, sloppy hill to Houndean Farm…  a sharp right then took us along the farm track to the bottom of Sweder’s hill… BUT, said hill wasn’t on the menu this morning… instead I wanted to introduce the big man to another route; so we turned left and headed out towards the woods. 

The run through the woods is beautiful… a lovely dusty path, dappled in glorious sunlight with enough incline to really get the heart pumping.  Sorry, my mind wandered to the heady days of spring and summer. In the winter it's a soddin' mud-fest... every step drives you backwards with arms flailing to catch something to hold onto.  It’s hard, it’s steep but it makes you smile, particularly when looking back every now and again to spot the pink panther* grinding and puffing up behind me.

Eventually the top was conquered and soon he trundled around the corner carrying an expression that was both smiling and saying: ‘I’m going to kill you’ at the same time.  Not a moment to hang around, so we kicked off following the course of the old race track.  Although now on a flat(ish) section, the track was as slippy as hell, making any kind of reasonable pace difficult.  Eventually we turned and found a relatively reasonable surface which led to a notable increase in speed.  After a while of matching his pace, he gave me permission to push ahead (thanks – I was quite happy as I was), so I launched forward determined to hit an 8min/mi pace before I reached the end of the path. 

The fun over, we re-joined the Spital track and headed back to civilisation… running down the high street, five miles in the bag to start the Twitten run.   

By the time I fell back into the loving arms of my family, we had knocked off just over nine miles… and not just any nine miles… nine bloody hard miles.  These were not junk miles. 

*I believe there is a UN resolution outlawing his choice of running wear.  



January: 57 miles
February so far: 18 miles

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I thought the Twittens were appropriately named ... what then are you going to call these pre-Twitten outings?

Lunattens, perhaps?

[Charliecat5]

My running has hit dark times…  we should have set off a bit earlier for Blackcap… then we might have returned home in the light.  At least I had BGG’s socks shining like a couple of beacons to guide me home.

February hasn’t seen a great deal of running due to a little foray into the Alps for a week’s flinging myself down steep snowy mountains.  However, what February has achieved is to show me, in no uncertain terms, how one little thing can lead to a whole world of pain.

We’ve got into the habit of warming up ahead of the Twitten running malarkey by getting a few Downland miles in first thing on a Sunday morning… this can range from three to five miles depending how mean I’m feeling.  I’ve enjoyed these excursions, but ground conditions have been a little challenging (soddin’ muddy) and as a result my lovely red runners had turned a lovely brown (shity) colour.  I’m not one for worrying about the state of my footwear, but these were getting pretty bad, so three weeks ago I hosed them down and then put them under the radiator to dry.

We now come forward three weeks and I have arranged to meet Sweder for a Friday evening ‘dusky’ run up to Blackcap.  When slipping my feet into the red runners I noted a slight resistance… nothing to worry about I thought.  But a mile in and I could feel my right shoe starting to bite a little.  A niggle, nothing else, so I kept forging on.  A couple more miles we were at the top of Blackcap and it was starting to hurt a little.  However, short of calling the air ambulance, there was nothing for it but to ‘suck it up’ and run home.  By this time, we were running through the dark so I had other things to worry about… like the local ninja sheep and losing my night vision to the Goat’s socks.

Just over six miles later I was home, happily in the bosom of my family, supping on a lovely beer the big man had given me and nurturing a big fat blister on my right foot...  Bugger.   More worrying though was my left hammy which was also hurting a bit… this is unusual for me.  My calf muscles can be a bastard, but I’ve never had any jip from my hammies.  Still, it was the first run for three weeks and we did set a decent pace, so hay ho!

Sunday morning arrives and we have a three mile warm up planned ahead of the Twitten run.  I strapped up the blister and headed out.  Almost immediately my left hammy was calling out… by the time I met up with BBG it was singing like a taut piano wire… only one thing for it… run it out. 

We set off at an easy pace down the road towards the A27 before turning right onto the farm track for the bottom of Sweder’s hill.  The hammy was moaning, but it was a low level moan… then we turned to climb the hill!  Buggery bugger… it was now screaming like a jet plane hammering down the runway.  A few stretches at the top and we headed back to town to start the Twittens… four miles already bagged.

What I should have done at this point is gone and sat in the coffee shop for a brew.  But no, not me… not old stoopid… I ran.  After a while the blister stopped hurting (turned to pulp),  but my left hammy was soon joined by a popping left calf… which after a while (fortunately on the home run) was joined in sympathy by my right calf. 

By the time I reached home with eight miles under the belt, my leg and foot was a bloody mess (literally). 

So what have I learnt, other the fact I’m an idiot!  Well, the key lesson here is never to wash my runners again.  Washing the runners caused them to shrink slightly and lose some flexibility.  This resulted in a blister.  The blister resulted in a change in running gait which didn’t go down well with my hammy… and never ones to miss an opportunity to moan, my calf muscles joined in.

On a positive note, I am travelling all week so no running until the weekend.
 

[Bierzo Baggie]

A similarly bizarre chain of events led to me straining a calf muscle this morning. You see our paths are intertwined.

Did the hamstring last Summer after a drunken game of football and it took me a few weeks to get it right again. I did discover El Bierzo's first ever locally produced real ale that evening, so I suppose it was worth it...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Drink more beer, boys, that's the solution.