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| Summit of Goatfell - stunning views |
I am starting to recognise a pattern in my running. After I’ve had a really good week (last week)
I tend to follow it with a week where my expectations aren’t met. And Monday I had a pretty dire start to my
run. But when I say dire I just mean
that I didn’t do what I set out to do (those dam expectations) and it’s easy to
say it was a ‘bad’ run. But I kept
telling myself, as I virtually crawled the ups on my hands and knees, I was
still out there, in the pouring rain, trying.
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| Wet and miserable |
The thing is it should have been a great run. I was well prepared, I was running after work
and had taken everything with me, including a snack for an hour before (which I
ate), some jelly babies to stop the calorie crash at the end of my run,
waterproofs, and no watch to pressurise my speed (or lack of).
But it was miserable, and the hill I had planned was
shrouded in misty cloud and the up was turning painful. So I changed my plan enroute and decided I’d
take a more scenic trail run through the forest and passed the waterfalls that
were in full spate. Amazing this ‘bad’
run turned into 8.6k of relaxed sogginess and actually a respectable height
gain. So really there is no such thing
as a bad run, if you’re out there it’s a run, and any run is better than no
run, and that’s good.
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| More scenic waterfalls |
I
did decide after this run that maybe I needed a bit of a rest and I have been
trying to work out my optimum break to take before a big run. Two days doesn’t seem to be enough, three is
more promising but I opted to rest for 4 days and then do a long run. As it happened I did have a plan to go up
Goatfell on the following Monday which got cancelled, so my long run on
Saturday turned into a Goatfell day – the weather was glorious and it would
have been a shame to miss it.
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| Another from Goatfell Summit |
I
am still walking large chunks of the up and finding it far from easy, but I did
get to the top (loads of people up there), the veiws were stunning. There were plenty of other runners out, all of
which I saw descending as I was still going up, apart from Jon who caught me up
on the descent and ran and chatted with me for a while before zooming off ahead
(he is an awesome runner). I was amused
again when someone called me a fell runner (still feel like a fraud), obviously
I was going down at the time and actually running. And it wouldn’t be a fell run if Watson didn’t
raid some poor walkers rucksack – I think he did quite well at the summit
today!
So
despite only doing 2 runs this week, I’m fairly content and still very
determined to race.
Weeks activity 3rd – 9th April:
Sunday – Rest
day
Monday – Trail
run 8.6k / 353m height gain
Tuesday – Rest
day
Wednesday – Rest
day
Thursday – Rest
Day
Friday – Rest
Day
Saturday – Trail
run Goatfell 11.14k / 841m height gain
(Goatfell
Race 15.5km / 870m)
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