Training: week ending 23 April

Essential stats

Weekly reflections

It would be far too easy to concentrate on how generally bollocksed¹ I was on my long run this week. I didn’t have the legs at all and it was all a bit of a struggle. Yet, looking at the numbers I can maybe see what was going on. There was a lot of climbing this week - that rate of 52.8m/km is a lot of elevation to get through.

I was tired on the long Sunday run and didn’t go quite as far as I hoped but I also enjoyed a couple of storming runs earlier in the week. Writing that now, I realise I may have hit on another reason why I was lacking bounce on Sunday.

Sunday’s run

It was 27.7km (1485m) in 4h:51m so just 5.7km/h and an elevation profile of 53.6m/km. That elevation along with quite a bit of rough ground and it’s perhaps not surprising that I wasn’t skipping along. It is certainly not terribly CWU specific but I’m trying to persuade myself that it will be good for leg strength and for coping with the pathless CWU sections.

The route took me over Winder and then over the Calf. I was distinctly bloody freezing over the tops and had to go full waterproofs and buff in the clag.

I then headed north, skirted around Simon’s Seat, and visited Middleton trig. As mentioned last week, it sits rather lonesome and doesn’t get much traffic.

I then dropped steeply into the remarkable U-shaped valley of Langdale. It is quite a sight and typical of the Howgills. Needless to say the only other souls up there with me were sheepy ones. The Howgills sit in the Yorkshire Dales, just 20 minutes west of Kendal, but get a bare fraction of the foot traffic the honeypots of the Lakes endure enjoy. Perfect if you like the hills to yourself and if you really don’t like to risk seeing anyone then take a hike over to Middleton trig and drop into Langdale.

The only paths are the sheep trails and it was an odd mix of flat grass, if a little tussocky, and tedious boggy sections. Classic off trail territory really where you can’t ever switch off the brain and there is a constant cognitive effort to watch one’s feet and try to pick out the most economical line. Absorbing and enjoyable but undeniably wearying as well.

Yes, I felt a bit leggy for this run but it was a great outing visiting an obscure corner. A fine microadventure.