Morning.
Lyrics - He drinks a Whiskey drink, he drinks a Vodka drink
Stay off your feet today chicksta. Hope you have a great race tomorrow - I'll be thinking of you. What time do you start?
How was your race Hazel?
Anyone else racing this weekend?
I had a rubbish night and don't feel great but if the stress isn't going to stop then I'm just going to have to carry on regardless.
What: MLR/gym
Why: finishing a big mileage week/haven't been this week
Last hard: finding out things with FiL weren't as settled as I thought
Last rest: 27/1
If you think you can or you think you can't you're probably right.
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Comments
Bright and sunny and wind seems to have dropped.
What: gentle parkrun plus a few ks
Why: no point in pushing things when I don't need to
Lyrics: not today
As LMH says, keep off your feet today, Chick!
Looking forward to the report Hazel!
What: parkrun plus a couple of km. Progressive: first k 5:33, last 4:33
Why: it is at the end of my road. Found it quite hard work and couldn't get up the hills. Probably reflects a harder week. Colder than I thought and was glad of two tops and gloves.
Lyrics yes for once
Parkrun this morning and on 25 min pacing duties, so came in 24:59 :-)
Plus a few miles before and after followed by a garage clear out day.
Take care
It was chillier than expected here too Alehouse and quite breezy.
Nice pacing RFJ.
Well, who'd have thunk it - ended my highest mileage week of the year so far (think that will be the last time I say that this side of London) with my fastest paced run in weeks/months. Obviously I just needed more miles and new shoes.
Nice, RFJ!
Why: late night last night as couldn't get OH out of the pub and too much running around garden centres this afternoon.
Last hard: staying on my feet on the steep downhill at the end of yesterday's race
Last rest: today
The Froburg hill race is the first in a 10 race series in the Jura hills and a new race in this series this year. It had snowed quite heavily on Thursday and driving to the location we could see quite a lot of the white stuff on the hill tops so were a bit worried about the conditions but the snow had cleared from the paths and tracks we ran over and was just on the grass to the right and left.
I wasn't sure of my fitness on the hills having mostly trained on flat / undulating ground in the past weeks so I decided to start conservatively towards the rear of the field (around 400 runners). That and the first 200m being up the first climb meant that I didn't for once set off like an idiot and run out of puff after 2km but could settle down into a good rhythm, steadily working my way through the field aiming to pick off as many women (and men) in front of me as possible. I was overtaken as well but not as often as I was overtaking.
The gradient was pretty constant, not too steep but there were few opportunities to take a break on a bit of flat or downhill ground. Past a farmyard full of highland cows who were mooing like they wanted to join in and enjoying the views down into the valley we had started in.
I slowed down a bit over each uphill km but it helped to know that it wasn't all uphill to the finish but I had a 1km descent at the end to look forward to. Had to walk the last bit of the hill as this was on the steepest section of path littered with roots, rocks and Nordic walking participants who had set off earlier. I had to take care on the downhill km that being stony, damp and steep and put the brakes on a bit but the last 100 metres were on tarmac so I was able to put in a sprint.
Quick change of clothes (drop bag gets transported up to the finish), check that my teammates all arrived ok and onto the bus back to the start as it was pretty chilly. Finisher goody of a decent pair of running socks, a free pasta meal and lots of chat with my teammates and others afterwards made it an altogether good outing.
Result: 47:50 and 4th place in my age group - just 6 seconds off of a podium place. Pretty good start to the series, equalling my highest age group placing of the past years in the series and beating a couple of people I am normally always behind.