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CC2 - Good work. I purchased some new spikes end of season and used them for a few track races before the next XC season came round. They're still going strong after three seasons, but only because I'm using studs whenever it looks like the ground will mangle up a spike plate.
Jools - Solid result.
Jooligan - There's a distance I've not done. Excellent run, looking very promising.
Southern XC at Parly Hill for me on Saturday. Somehow or other (mainly due to injury and illness) I've not actually done this particular 15k mud-fest since Ronnie O'Sullivan beat me in 2008, and thankfully conditions were a lot firmer than I remember that horrible day. Still some muddy sections but altogether quite runnable, which suits me. I thought I had a good start, keeping up initially with some club mates who usually beat me, before they pulled away half way round the first lap - about the time I got overtaken by the man himself, Simon Coombes
- but I managed to settle into a rhythm during the second lap whilst overtaking people fairly constantly. Finding out that I was in our team's final sixth scoring position also kept the pace pretty honest. Into the final lap of three I was having a good tussle with a couple of SC's club mates, which actually helped me bring him back in sight. With just a mile to go, I managed to catch him on one of the firmer sections and attempted to surge past, but he obviously hadn't been trying hard enough 
because he managed to keep up and pass me again shortly afterwards. Mud and downhill finishes aren't my forte, so I wasn't going to catch him again - although my Strava log suggests I managed 5:10 pace for the final 0.1 mile effort. But we did finish 9th team, one point in front of the HH boys. 
Final position 138th, which I was happy with since my finger-in-air target was top 150. (Previous best Southern XC position was 182 at Brighton, 2015.) Good to bump into fred legends CW and TT at various points. See you in the Red Lion if not before, fellas! 
And 18 miles at a very easy post-XC-beasting pace this morning. Felt surprisingly unbattered.
Top cross country work from Jools, CC2, PP and SC2! Sounds like you were all pleased with your results as well which is great to hear.
Nice racing also Jooligan and you seem to be in good shape.
20M for me today to round off an 89M week which is my highest ever weekly total. I actually felt pretty good all things considered and managed to just beat my previous best time for 20 in this campaign. Tough times coming up though as I head into the uncharted territory of 90+M weeks!
Good to see you yesterday PP, and congrats on a very nice run!
Sounds like good xc races for both Jools and CC2, and o the road for Jooligan.
Nice mileage ES!
Parliament Hill didn't quite go to plan for me. Obviously I had no expectations for this given no training, anaemia, etc. Started off comfortably and got to 2m feeling far too good. Started to crank it up a little and was actually moving quite nicely, and closing up rapidly on a club-mate when I planted in ankle deep mud just before 4m, slipped sideways, and done the outside of my ankle, leaving my shoe behind in the mud. Lost about a minute retrieving and retying my shoe and tried to get going again, but couldn't do any more than a jog, and even that was painful, so I stepped off just after 5m.
First ever DNF wasn't quite how I'd intended to mark my 40th birthday, but not much I can do about it. It's still swollen today, but much improved, so hopefully it'll be ok asap.
TT, aaaargh really bad luck. Rest and ice and hopefully it will heal quickly.
Sorry you didn't have the birthday you had planned TT. Hope the ankle is soon 100%.
A collective 'well done at the x-country'.
Nice position to be in Jooligan.
Sounds promising ES.
Sounds like a good battle PP and SC, including in the team competition!
Jooligan - that's good news, sounds like you're in top form. Just need to maintain it now for the marathon and not do anything stupid in the meantime!
Jools/CC2 - very nice running at the Midlands. Sounds like a tough course!
TT - unlucky, there are some dodgy parts at Parliament Hill with soft mud but some solid things underneath that can be bad on ankles. Did you manage to have a decent night out anyway?
The weekend felt like my first of "proper" training in a long time. Parkrun on Saturday in 16:33 - that was on the proper tarmac course but I spent a lot of time running on slippery mud while lapping people which I guess would have cost me 15s or so.
Then a local 12M "VLM training run" yesterday - ran most of it with a couple of clubmates. 3M along a towpath at 6:2x pace, then a big uphill (7:0x), 5M all in 6:1x then sub-6 for the last 3M (although there was a big downhill in there. I felt remarkably decent considering I haven't hit double figures for a while.
Plus a few miles with the dog each morning gave me 24M for the weekend and 53M for the week, my highest since June. Off on hols tomorrow evening - not sure if that will mean more or less training, but looking forward to it anyway.
Anyway, did a cross country yesterday. It was the lower standard league - ran with the lead group for the first short lap, then it was soon down to 2 of us, then I pushed on with about 2M to go and won reasonably comfortably. Very hilly course so only averaged about 6:15s for 5.4M.
Who did Wokingham?
Well briefly then, congratulations on the win Padams, and hope you had a blinder Dachs.
I did a totally rubbish training marathon yesterday, a large number of grass loops. For some reason I just got slower and slower, and only finished at all out of sheer imbuggerance. Hopefully reminded my muscles about endurance again, if it had any value at all.
Wokingham mini-report repost from yesterday on the 'old' forum....
72:55 on the watch today, not sure where that came from.... a PB by over 30 seconds
Went out at the front for a bit of a drag along for the 1st mile, then watched Dachs and the rest of the front pack gradually disappear up the road. thought it might turn into a lonely race, but thankfully got gradually caught by a group of 5 a mile or so later (which I later found out contained occasional fred poster Tom13), I promptly latched onto and stuck with for most of the race. Miles 2-6 seem to take forever, but we were ticking along at sub HM PB pace! The group separated out around mile 9-10, by that point I was fully expecting my legs to start complaining but, despite a stitch which started to come on, I held things together (the M4 up and over in mile 11 was hard and resulted in a 5:50 mile) and got a wiggle on in the final 2M to squeeze over the line sub 73... Looking forward to seeing how I go at Bath in 4 weeks time now!
Caught up with Dachs pre and post race, afterwards he was very happy and deservedly so
. Also nice to have a quick chat with Joolska in the pre-run warm-up, well run today!
Dachs, though I haven't actually seen your post, I gather you had an absolute blinder at Wokingham so congratulations.
CD - likewise - congrats on the bling.
PP - fingers crossed it's a short-term visit to the bench!
I missed my scheduled 2hr run last Monday, but made up for it across the rest of the week, running 103m in 6 days (mainly jogging/easy). This afternoon I got the long run monkey off of my back with a 21 - first 10 very easy (7:36), last 11 easy (7:07). That is, my accidental marathon in Lanzarote aside, my first long run since London last year. It also makes 124m in the last 7 days. Surprisingly my legs don't feel too bad (as in they are sore, but haven't fallen off yet!).
Really not liking the new layout or font.
No idea how but I seem to have kept my avatar - so far at least.
Nice casual win Padams.
Dachs, AlP: Congrats on the PBs at the sharp end of the thread
Padams: well done on the win.
Anyway, ran Wokingham yesterday with many others. 1:21:21 and reasonably pleased, despite almost no fast running over the last month the legs knew what to do after a 6:30 first mile to warm up. More fun having the first mile the slowest as well. Always a good runners race and so that placed me 120th or so. Even though it starts and finishes at the same place it somehow feels that there are more downhills than up.
Nice to see Jools briefly at the start and end.
Quite a thread day out at Wokingham then. Good work Jools, piscator, verry nice PB for Al_P (sub-72 Bath??) and absolutely bonkers run from Dachs. I heard your training was going well but that's a huge break-through performance. Does this work? :y:
Padams - Congrats on the XC win.
TT - Tasty mileage!
ES - Good shout on the heel drops, thanks...
...One sign of progress from yesterday is that I can now (just about) get on tip-toes on the left foot, so hopefully not far off being able to do effective exercises on it. I've got a physio appointment tomorrow morning, so we'll see what comes of that. The only x-training I've managed today was putting up some new blinds in the kitchen.
It's been a while since I was last here, heck, I've even got a new washing machine and didn't consult the experts! Hoover it was, mainly because I was limited on space as I needed a slim depth one. It appears to be washing my clothes ok and it's getting a good workout as I seem to be wearing far too many layers these days.
Great to see the standards are still a mix of 3 hours and a shed load below 3 hours, nicely illustrated by Dach's sub 70 (looks like my clubmate and 2:25 marathoner finished metres ahead of you!).
As usual I'm getting a little busier with the races and I seem to be using my fred contacts to hook me up these days, first it was Padams who came to the rescue at his local club 10 miler and then DanA put in a good word for me to get in to the Worthing Half on the weekend. Had I looked at the website a little better I would have seen they were offering free entry to sub 72 anyway but always good fun to pester Dan every now and then! I've got a few more halves lined up and may look to do Trafford 10.1km (surely they will over compensate after years of being 9.9km!) to see if I can get anywhere near my pb. No doubt loads of you were at Parliament Hill for the Southerns? I had a good run but I was getting destroyed on the uphills and I just couldn't hold on so a lack of hill training and XC probably cost me a place or 2 (or 3 on a good day!). Still, 15 odd km of XC at 5:25ish pace is a decent workout!
Will no doubt see a few of you around at various races, I'll be the homeless looking guy hopefully close to the front!
Oh and I recognise ES's avatar from Strava, very TResque!
Merry Valentine's to the fred
Great training race/day ES, reminiscent of my FPK-based trip to the Southerns XC recently...
PP -- oh no, were you injured on the "old" forum? Good luck.
Hi Marders, I saw a touching B&W photo of you and the winner after the Southerns (congrats on that and all your other recent successes). Interesting about wearing lots of layers, I'm doing overdressed heat acclimatisation a couple of days a week having learnt from my clubmate advocate Christof Schwiening.
General pattern is loads of weekday miles now, all pretty slow, then a day off before a more sporty long run at the weekend. OK my long run wasn't at all sporty on Sunday, but never mind... and the Cambridge half in 3 weeks, so I'll have a big cut-back/taper week before that.
Saw Dachs result at Wokey - that is well rapid. Are you marathoning this spring? Sub 2h30?
Some other great results about too. Hope the Red Lion is well stocked with champers this year.
Had to miss Wokingham due to helping out at the Marathon Talk run camp in the New Forest. Managed a decent parkrun on Sat (17.35 for a rare 80+% age grade, and was only about 10s behind a 2h30 guy from Bournemouth AC which was pleasing). Then we had a fun race on the Sunday. 10 mile hilly trail run - you had predict your time to start as late as possible whenever you liked, so long as you were finished by 12 noon.
I set off around 10.56 and finished at 15 secs past midday and was instantly disqualified
Dan - well parkrun there (MVCP one I assume?)
Marders - seen your string of recent results on Strava, as usual "in awe" falls a fair way short of my reaction!
CW - I assume your club mate who had a great run at Wokey, was the one who finished about 30s infront of me? We had a good chat post finish if it was... Decent distance to travel for a race!
Legs fairing ok here post Sunday. Straight back at it with 14+7M easy yesterday and a 15M easy early doors today. Off to Copenhagen for a quick work trip now, so might not get a second run in today, but hopefully a nice bit of early city run tourism tomorrow...
marders - I saw you whizzing about Parliament Hill after I dnf'd. With your current look I kind of assumed you could just float up hills as well as walking on water!
pisc - good run at Wokingham.
I hope the physio appointment went well PP?
Dan - nice parkrun, but interesting idea on the trail race. Was the winner the one who finished closest to their prediction or closest to midday?
Nice mileage Al_P.
Half-term so I only had time for the one run today, but wasn't feeling too stiff after yesterday's (almost) maiden long run, so a solid easy 10m bagged. Definitely starting to feel a bit of rhythm coming back.
Physio appointment appears to have gone well this morning. I saw the same guy almost exactly a year ago (I remember missing the Southern XC last year with the injury), and he reckons it's a slightly different symptom of the same thing, namely misalignment caused by tightening of the psoas muscle. Cue lots of pummeling of lower back, left foot, left calf, both IT bands... Everything immediately feels looser, and the tip-toe test has improved significantly from not happening at all (Sunday) to just about possible with some limited movement and pain (this morning) to virtually normal (straight after pummeling).
The only significant injury-prevention advice I've been given is a curious looking stretch to get at the psoas, which involves lying face down on the bed, knees out and feet together, pressing the hips into the bed, in a sort of tortured-frog pose. Insofar as the dodgy achilles was just a sympton of something that should now be straightened out, he reckons I'm OK to get back to running virtually straight away, but just take the day off to let things settle. I'll be cautious w.r.t. intensity, probably a 5 mile test run tomorrow, and just further easy running / x-training till the weekend when I'll try a long run, but avoid harder sessions till next week. 29 miles round trip on the bike today to avoid another blank on the training log.