Winter Series #5 - the wet and windy one

We've had every weather going for this year's Winter Series, this time is was heavy rain and strong winds with Storm Dennis causing mayhem over the weekend.

Saturday saw most of the local parkruns cancelled because of flooding or high winds, but the final event of the Winter Series went ahead as planned, well the winds had dropped a bit to gusting merely to 42 mph rather than the 56 we'd had on Saturday.

It was quite mild at the sports ground in Illmington at the start of the race as it's fairly sheltered by the hill from westerly winds.  The top of Lark Stoke hill was a different matter! the wind took your breath away and slowed everyone to a crawl.   The rain didn't seem too heavy but it was fairly constant and by the time the 10k was over I was properly wet under my waterproof (though some of that would have blown in and I had the zip partly undone most of the time as it was quite warm plus it's not the most breathable waterproof in the world).

2019 - 20 Hoody

Turning the corner and heading downhill with the wind behind me I clocked my fastest mile time of the year so far - doesn't count really when you're running down a 1 in 6 hill.

Not a big mileage week (just 21 miles) as I'd had two planned rest days, then skipped Friday evenings run on account of the bad weather.  That means overall progress towards John O'Groats has temporarily slowed a bit but still looking like it will be an achievable distance for the year provided I don't get injured.

RED January

I came across RED January at Parkrun - someone had a t-shirt from last year's event.  Run Every Day in January appealed, something different as I normally only run 5 days a week tops.  Some of it has been hard, but as they say 90% of success is in your head.  It's been cold, most days I've run in the dark, or the rain, or it's been blowing a gale - or all of them.

As an example last Wednesday I had two meetings after work the second not finishing until 9.30 pm.  It was nearly 10 by the time I got home and I'd still not been running.  If it had happened on 2nd January I'd have given up there and then and said it was impossible but on the 29th - there was no way I was throwing away 28 days of running.  

Quick change into running gear and head out the door.  Just 20 minutes and a couple of miles.  And Garmin gave me a new badge 😎 

Throw in Parkrun on Saturday and Sunday's 10 miler and I actually ran for 33 days straight.  

Total miles for January - 125.86

The Slippy One

Race 4 of this year's Tempo Events winter series can only be described as "the slippy one!"  It's normal to walk up the hills on this event but this is the first time I've also walked down a hill on a road race.  Now I need to wash the mud off my road shoes where I walked down the muddy grass verge.

On a different subject RED (Run Every Day) January is going ok, with all runs completed.  Runs on what would normally be rest days have been limited to 20 mins easy running.  I've also been focussing on hill repeats since the start of the year.  I'm not sure they are doing any good - I didn't get any further up Campden Hill today than I did a couple of months ago before I resorted to walking.

It's also been particularly wet a couple of times this week resulting in a good soaking while out running.  Still when you watch the Spine Race it all fades into insignificance compared to what those people go through.

Total miles so far this year:  76.54
Elevation gained this year: 1252m (Almost to the top of Mount Vesuvius (1281m)

Dennis

29 March 2004 - 31 December 2019

Mr D, Captain Diddles, who had the roughest, raspiest tongue in the whole world and loved to give licks and bite your nose if you dared to ignore him.

Never put an empty bag or a box down or you'd find Dennis curled up in there.

On a good weather day he'd be sat on the wall outside, getting strokes from anyone who passed the house.  He'd come to greet you as you walked down the lane, tail in the air and the tip curled over to form a question mark while meowing loudly to make sure you'd seen him.  

And when you stroked him he'd stick out his little pink tongue and purr away, then shake his head spraying you with slobber!