More hills and thrills

Busy couple of weeks just gone so time for a bit of a catch up. Training has been going well and I've fallen in to a nice rhythm with regards to consistency, having found a level I can maintain easily and still let me balance the workload. Still getting quality sessions in and focusing a little more on that top end power and speed which I'm relishing coming off the back of long, sloggy solo graft. Hopefully this will pay dividends in the races coming up.

So what's been happening? Last week went by reasonably uneventfully. ShUOC hosted  a weekend training for the JROS squads which went really well and then on the sunday I headed up to the Ilkley Moor Fell Race which also doubled up as the Yorkshire senior and u23 champs. I'd pencilled this in to the diary as a bit of a test before the season proper and it didn't disappoint. Bit of a grim day for it, overcast, cold and pretty wet but our car headed up from the Steel City in pretty good spirits about what we were about to do. The course itself was a tough one, a nice mixture of steep and long climbs with variations in surface, but it was still mostly boggy, wet mud. As expected a good field showed up which is what I wanted as a bit of a ranging mission to see where I could compete given my somewhat limited experience in higher level fell running. The start was a bit quicker than I would have liked, with everyone vying for positions on the tight little trod which we cut on to after a very short tarmac section. After a fair bit of jostling I settled in around 10th or 11th behind Rob Little and a couple of the other u23s. It soon became apparent though that there was a bit of a break, with a gap opening up between Tom Adams, Si Bailey and Joe Baxter and the rest of the field and I knew that if I was going to be challenging I'd need to be a bit more aggressive and go with it. Worked my way through the chasing pack to tag on to Joe at the bottom of the first climb up to the Cow and Calf. This is what I really wanted to be testing, whether the hours of bashing up and down the hills in Rivelin had been worth it and it turns out they were! Was blowing a little from having to attack to get up with the front 3 but felt strong moving through, a testament to the hilly tempo work and evening core sessions with Mr. Blomquist. Hitting the top and I felt good, settling in with Joe for a battle for third as Tom had just began to gap and I knew Si would go with it. I'm under no illusions that I could have kept with them and it would have been stupid of me to try. Having said that, I would dare to suggest that I was actually moving better than them on the real steep, wall-like climbs up, which is probably as a result of my recent power work in the gym.

Loved the descent down the narrow valley, steep, technical and slippery which was just a really fun bit of the course. It was slightly soured though by knowing that the next brute of a climb was literally just around the corner. But again, the climbing was good and I hit the flat section at the top with a bit more vigour to try and put a little daylight between me and Steve Franklin, who had managed to gain a bit on the descent.

That face when you have to run back up the hill you just ran down...

 By this point it was just me and Joe racing together with the two red vests of Si and Tom bobbing along ahead of us. Feel like I pushed it a little in to the red on the climb before the long, flat moor section, but cresting the hill I heard some shouts of encouragement from Spongey which was a nice boost and gave me a bit more juice to attack. The rest of the race went well other than the climb to the Badger Stone which felt simply never ending, however I knew after it it was all plain sailing so gritted my teeth and kept working. I'd managed to pull ahead of Joe on the long descent, but a tumble near the end resulted in him getting it back, alongside me being covered head to toe in mud (thank god the Dark Peak vest is brown!). Kept pushing to the finish to claim 4th though. Only a minute and 20 or so down on Tom, 40s~ on Si and a couple on Joe. Generally very pleased with how I ran this and mentally to have kept pushing was a good confidence boost to go in to the season with. Claimed the Yorkshire u23 title and 3rd senior which I'm really happy about! A big old trophy, 2 medals, 14 bottles of beer and a big bag of heroes isn't a bad payout from a day out running either!

The fruits of success

I'm hoping to build on this now going in to the season proper. BUCS orienteering next weekend will be a nice change from recent training, with orienteering unfortunately taking a bit of  a backseat. I've needed that though, especially after JWOC when I wan't sure I ever wanted to pick up a map again! It means I'm enjoying it more when I do it because I want to be, rather than having to be. Recent training's also suggest that the skills I drilled in to myself last year haven't abandoned me, so hopefully I can perform well next weekend.

But the weekend after is the Edale Skyline, which is a whole different kettle of fish. I've never raced more than 10 miles or so, possibly 20k at a big push but I'm really looking forward to the different challenges it poses. I think my training has been good for it and there's no reason I shouldn't be able to compete at that level. But that remains to be seen.

That's all for now, hopefully I'm not boring too many people with this (if anyone even reads it that is!), but tune in again to see what sort of running shenanigans I get up to next!

Mens senior podium