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Short and Fast, Long and Slow

Stanwick Lakes. 10km. Sunday

Woke up on Sunday to the sound of wind and rain so really wasn't hopefully of a good day, however as the day progressed the wind dropped a little, along with the temperature, but more importantly the rain cleared and by afternoon the sky was blue and the sun out.

The course was a flat, with two laps around the lake and although billed a trail was actually on a very well maintained cycle track, so with a field of only about 200 it was going to be a fast run. The plan was for Louise and me to start at a sensible pace and then push on for about 52 mins. However after a mid-week run where I could not keep anywhere close to the pace that Louise was setting I was not at all hopefully. I planned to try and stay with Louise until about 6km, let here know the pace timing and then drop off the pace. However, as always the plan and reality never seem to match up. Straight off the line we set a slightly fast than expected face and ever a problem with Louise's stop watch didn't slow us down. I managed to find myself just ahead of Louise and as I was feeling OK tried to keep a fast pace, which was probably a little too fast as by about 4km I had dropped Louise but was still feeling strong and continued to push. The back loop was tough was this was into the wind but I didn't drop too much time and managed to catch it back on the next section where the wind was behind me. The last 2km were very tough with both the sun (now very low) and the wind right in our faces but I managed to hold the pace to finish unexpected fast in 51:28 with Louise coming in at 51:54.

Icknield Way. 50km, 1800ft – Night Run. Monday.

The Icknield Way passes very close to our house but other than small sections had never run much of it so as my new OMM Last Drop rucksack was delivered last week I decided to take a long run out towards Royston, pick up an extended loop around the Hertfordshire Way and Therfield Heath and then back on the Icknield Way again. As it was going to be dark right through the run navigation was going to be a problem so I didn't really bother about the time.

First few km were fine, the path is easy to follow and mainly on grass once Baldock is left behind so I kept up a good pace for quite a while. The pace dropped going through Wallington and Roe Green mainly due to problems navigating and finding the styles to get out of the fields. However beyond Stanton the ground was firm and the path good and the pace picked up through to Therfield Heath.

As soon as I got to the Heath (daytime picture) the light drizzle suddenly turned into a downpour and it felt like the temperature dropped a few degrees. The going got very tough with a lot of mud that just clung to my shoes and made the going very slow, finally I managed to find the way of the Heath and had a long climb back up onto the Hertfordshire Way to head back to the Icknield Way and home.

Things were going well but soon the path became hard to follow, mainly as it went across the middle of fields which was probably OK in summer but in winter, in the dark, in the rain, it was too heavy and muddy to even try and run so pace dropped badly for the next 8 km or so until I hit the Icknield Way. Once I got back on the main path I did pick up the pace but the mud had taken a lot out of my legs so I dropped the pace and started to walk the steeper (and by the end most) hills to converse energy.

Overall a very tough run, route finding and the mud kept the pace low but I still felt very tired at the end. However by keeping the pace down I did manage to concentrate a lot more on getting nutrition right and was able to eat a lot more the normal so didn't feel sick at all. The new rucksack really worked well and was perfectly stable but the pockets for the bottles were not very easy to get to and would be a really problem if moving quickly – that might be because the bottles I were using are a little bigger than the OMM ones so I'll wait for the OMM bottles I have on order to see if that helps.