Walkies

Went out for a walk of one of my running routes with Ffin on wednesday, ended up pretty knackered (me that is). We also had a run in with a water filled cattle grid, which resulted in much mirth and soggyness.


Nice path down near Wash.

Stream was full from all the rain.

Pennine bridleway towards South Head, nice for Ffin to be let off and run about. She especially like reeds for rolling about on, not sure why.

Stay still dammit!

Coming down Beet lane before our cattle grid encounter.

Evening South Head Excursion

Did a short loop with Steve this week, up South head after work. After the lovely weather I was hoping for some nice photos but it started off very grey and flat.


Mint sauce!

Steve surmounting South Head with Brown Knoll and Swines back in the background.

Finally on the way down the sun briefly came out a nice rainbow appeared over South Head, nice!

Dogs dogs dogs

Last week we went for a little walk around Macclesfield forest, with a few of Ffins family. Walking around the woods with 6 dogs four of whom are mental puppies is fun.. except when they all go to say hello to someone who was happily walking along one moment in a dog free world, only to be surrounded by panting maniacs the next.

Anyway here are some photos for your approval (I have forgotten ALL the names so I have made them up):


Barry with his stick, he liked sticks.

Little Artist formerly known as Prince got stuck in a gate.

Barry with another stick.

Puppies!

Dog cam with Fredrick the third.

Lots of dogs.

Dogs sitting for a treat.

Ffin was the only one that kept jumping up.. the shame.

Barry expands his stick collection.

More treats plaz

Mallorca 312

So a week last Saturday was my big goal for this Spring, the Mallorca 312. We arrived on the wednesday night to heavy winds and rain, which pretty much continued until we left! The race day itself was a mix of cloudy and heavy rain through the mountains and also later on. I managed it in 13:50 hrs, ten minutes under the cut off. My compadres managed it in 17 hours (two finishing and one abandoning after oh only 250km - cycling on spanish roads in the rain and dark is one thing, doing it when your lights die is one step too far!). I was planning to write a nice proper write up of the route but I seem to have contracted writers block so I'm going to just blurt out some impressions i had.

- Cycling in Mallorca is nice, the km's just seem to fly by on the smooth roads, even in foul weather it was pretty good.
- To get under 14 hours in the 312 you had to be part of a group unless you were some kind of double hard turbo nutter.
- Cycling in Mallorca in a group of 30+ riders is FUN and also FAST, especially with a police escort.
- The group does not slow down when you want to get a gel out.
- The group does not slow down even when you're so tired you go temporarily blind and start believing in god.
- The group does stop for nice long stops at the designated stations (this is how i leapfrogged one or two groups!)
- Spanish riders are cool and very vocal, no idea what they were saying but pretty sure it was all pretty positive.
- Swiss riders don't like being called German.
- 13km descents are exciting, when you factor in coaches and rain, possibly too exciting.
- When going out for a nice 20km spin the day after an event, take a puncture repair kit.
- When totally rain-soaked and having a sneaky wee stop, take care not to wee down your leg and into your shoe and also onto your water bottle.
- Always demand your finishers t-shirt (i failed in this aspect).
- Taking your own bike on holiday is great and surprisingly easy.

Erm thats about it for now, maybe i will remember more as time passes by. It's all getting a bit rosy to be honest, but I'm pretty sure it was quite hard. What next i wonder?

Kinder Downfall Race

So ran the Kinder Downfall race on Sunday... was hoping for a good time despite having done no running recently (but a reasonable amount on the bike).

After a bit of hanging around at the start and a nice pep talk from the organiser then off we went up the first hill to the shooting cabin. My previous experience with this race has taught me not to go off to fast here, so I plodded along trying to keep my pace steady and to avoid chasing people who were clearly much faster. This worked out pretty well and I got to the moor around the shooting cabin feeling pretty fresh, then the quick run down to the bottom of william clough before more steady pacing up meant I was feeling pretty pleased with myself towards the the first checkpoint at the top of the clough.

As we got to the top a brisk wind was blowing, which was fine.. been up on kinder many a time in a gale. What I hadn't counted on however was my fancy new glasses. Turns out they are less aerodynamic and prone to catching the wind than my old pair. Sure enough a little further on a big gust blew them clear off my face into a large pile of snow. Now being pretty blind without them I set about staggering about trying to locate them but to no avail... luckily for me a few other runners had detected my plight and come to help and the glasses were soon found. I'm not sure you get this kind of willingness to lose seconds helping a fellow runner out in other sports but it seems common in fell races.. brilliant.

Anyway after many profuse thank you's and kissing of shoes I set off again, but the glasses were not staying on.. so I decided to ask a couple of hardy spectators who were hiding behind a medium sized rock (yes it was very windy) if they had some string. Brilliantly they did and I spent some time behind the rock fashioning a device to keep me specs on me head.

By this point i had pretty much given up the concept of getting a good time but I was pretty keen to get round without ending up in Edale so set off again. The wind was ferocious and kept blowing my glassess off (luckily caught by my string device). This made progress slow and some experiments with running glassess-less proved a little risky. Still the sight of the downfall blowing upwards spurred me on and soon I was passing under the spray and finally turning head on into the wind towards kinder low. It was a pleasure to not have to worry about my glasses any more and I must admit i did do a bit of slipstreaming behind some bigger chaps. Usually this part is the hardest for me but after all my resting and falling over and general blundering I was still quite fresh.. brilliant.

On reaching kinder low I started the long fast descent.. usually where i get overtaken a lot.. however this time I seemed to have a bit more in the tank than those around me and I started to pick off people one by one. This felt good and it continued until the last flat road section, where I tried my best to immitate a road runner and managed to drop a few more people and overtake a few. Before I knew it I was coming through the playground and ahhh it's all over. Time of around 1:35, which is four minutes or so off my best but I like to think with all the blind staggering and wind that it was pretty good. A pint of beer and then back on the bike for the short ride up to peep o day to home and I was back on the sofa pretty well knackered but very happy. What a great race the Downfall is!

Here's the strava wotsit:

Snowmageddon

Got lots of snow this weekend, but I've been shut inside with a severe bout of Alun-flu... managed to get out for a short walk with Alex this morning though... serious amounts of snow drifting about!

Dog enjoying the snow, she loves snuffling around in it trying to find treats/pieces of metal/stones/anything that would be bad if she swallowed.

Lane up from Wash, not really passable in anything.

Good for being silly though, if you catch my drift.

I am actually hovering here, snow joke.

Tiny bit of blue sky about, I'm expecting a flurry of emails about this post.

Alex using the official method for crossing a deep drift... erm I've run out of snow puns now.

This is a gate, under lots of snow.

You can see how it's drifted behind walls here, not too deep in exposed places.

More Mr Whippy.

Wolf's Pit Fell Race

Ran the Wolf's Pit Fell Race on Sunday, which was pretty fun. I'm meant to be training on the bike at the moment for the Majorca 312km ride in late April, so I thought I'd cycle there and back too. This turned out to be a good idea as I was nice and warmed up when I got there and met a couple of friends also running.

I found the running ok actually, the bike fitness must do some good. After the initial steep climb I toddled along the moorland paths, just keeping pace with the people around me. I should have pushed harder in this section as it's flat but the excuse of 'i should be bike training' was enough to stop me trying too hard.

Good thing too really as the second half is the harder part, with a couple of ups and downs, which were pretty muddy and therefore quite sapping. You feel like you're not making very good progress although the people around you also seem to suffer which is helpful! By the end of the final ascent I was glad I'd taken it easier earlier and managed to pull away from a few around me towards the top. However as is usual on the last descent they all came whistling back past me. The added problem of an untying shoelace meant I lost a few seconds. No bother though as I came in at a reasonable 71/286 in 51:55 minutes.

The cycle back was very cold as I'd cooled down a lot in the chilly wind after the race, but a slow grind up winnats pass soon warmed me back up and gave me the warm glow of thinking I'd actually done some bike training! I then buggered up all the good work by drinking too much beer watching the Milan san Remo and then visiting the pub, which meant I suffered the next couple of days with the nasty 'fighting off a cold' feeling. Seem to be better now after a rest day on wednesday though so back to training.. By training of course I mean cycling to work and maybe doing a slow longer ride at the weekend. Watch out wiggo!

Here's the GPS of the run:

Monday Evening Run

Numbingly cold on Monday, with temperatures just below zero and a howling wind. Perfect for some nice piccies from my new camera though. Sorry there is loads but hey, I like stopping.


Flurry moving across Chapel.

For the full experience look at this photo while sticking your head out the car window on a frosty commute.

Cowering from the wind produces a nice angle.

Taken in between South Head and Mount Famine, feckin freezing!

Some peakenglow for Kev.

Downfall doesn't look in (not surprisingly), hope these key words point loads of climbers from ukclimbing to my blog.

Kinder Low and other bits like Sandy Heys.

Sun setting over chinley churnish kind of area.

These clouds have almost exhausted their supply of snow, thought they looked a bit like jellyfish.

Bonus picture illustrating how I can survive arctic conditions without losing my flair for style.

Week off/mountain biking

So I just had a week off to look after Ffin, and have decided it's a rest week from road biking so have been doing a bit of mountain biking. Went out a few times, below are some photos from wednesdays ride.. not very spectacular but wanted to try out the new camera.


Kinder resevoir.. misty and dull.

Looking towards Hayfield, wish camera had arrived on Monday, the views were sponktacular.

The sun making a lame effort to break through.

Twenty trees. At this stage i had a made a small error of letting most of the air out of my front suspension in a quest for more squishyness. Not being the sort to carry a shock pump around with me meant the bike rode not entirely well all the way home.

New camera AND DOG

So I splashed out and got the middle of the range Olympus Tough TG-820 camera, which seems to be jolly good and all that. Just in time to take millions of photos of our new puppy- Ffin, who is currently on a campaign to destroy household and persons via teethy doom.


Perhaps i will poo in front of the telly next then eat it.

Destroying heather on a typicial rampage.

Need a new camera

So on the last day of the NZ holiday I snorkeled to such immense depths the camera imploded and now is more composed of salt than electronics. If I am ever to start my blog up again.. which i want to as we have a new puppy who will hopefully want to come running with me... then I need a new camera.

Am thinking about getting one of the Olympus ones like this TG-1... unfortunately they're a bit expensive...


I should probably just splash out as time is a wasting.. Unfortunately the other thing which the NZ holiday cost me was all my money so I need to find some way to finance this investment...

In other news.. I have nearly captioned all the NZ photos we took.. will post up the link here when I've done it (probably sometime mid-June)