My weekend long run took me to the Derwent valley. I wanted to get some consistent distance in my legs, and to do that decided I needed a fairly flat run so I could have a constant pace. Measuring the distance around Ladybower, Derwent and Howden reservoirs I had a good 24km distance to tick off. The weather forecast was unsettled, not really deciding if it would be sunny or heavy downpours - another reason not to punish myself on the hills on this occasion. Thankfully it stayed dry, the rain arriving later in the day. In trail shoes I set off on the west side, heading north...slowly ticking off the kilometres. The road and trail was fairly quiet considering it was a weekend, so I had plenty of time to observe and think about various things.
Something I read recently said that every run should have a purpose. Well this run had one main purpose - a good solid Long Steady Distance run. Over the past few weeks I've built up my distance; last week was 20km, the week before 18km, and before that just over 17km. Given that I was adding a further 4km on this run, keeping the ascent effort to a minimum was a good idea. I'm firmly of the opinion that the body should not be put through too much too soon. So an increase (here of about 20%) in distance should not be accompanied by an increase in exposure to tough terrain or full on effort doing large ascents. It works for me, so I follow this principle.
As I ran northwards, with Derwent reservoir to my right, I meandered into another thought about purposeful running. I was keeping a steady pace, breathing was good, I was slowing slightly for the little rises and stretching my legs on the gentle descents. My mind wandered onto the thought of foot strike. So my secondary purpose to this run became light footsteps. I do this on most runs anyway, but on this day I had the luxury of a consistent terrain and no big climbs or descents to interrupt my thoughts. Every few minutes I would remind myself "light steps" and "less heal, more midfoot"..."lean forwards" and the other phrase which I usually speak to myself on tough runs is that I need to "float like a butterfly"...and so my internal dialogue went on and before I knew it I was on the opposite bank of the reservoir and about 16 or 17 kilometres behind me. The trail was now getting busier with walkers as I neared Fairholmes, but never so busy to cause me any issues...in fact there were some very kind people holding gates open for me, saving me from interrupting my stride.
I'd parked about 1.5km up the road towards Fairholmes. In some ways the thought of having to run north once more, as I'd crossed over Ashopton viaduct seemed to dampen my spirits but I quickly pushed those thoughts out of mind. After all, 24km is still 24km, regardless of where the car is parked! I did in fact run just over 25km, using the last 800m or so to cool down after reaching the car. My average pace was 5:52/km which I am very pleased with, and my average HR 162bpm - bang in the middle of Z3 which I suspect is a little high for an LSD run, but it felt comfortable. A total run time of 2:28:59 and a very happy me.
I had also experimented with food on this run. For a long time now I've stuck to the routine of eating on the first hour after setting off, then every half hour - this is my strategy on long runs. My food of choice has been very much the same thing - geobars (half every half hour) and the occasional small snickers or mars type chocolate bar. Today, I took what I normally would, but also some jam butties and cheese butties. I didn't know how much I'd need, so I did 2 slices of each, cutting them into quarters. I started today's run as always with the half geobar on the first hour, and at the 1:30 mark. I then had some jam butty. Result - went down well, stayed down, only ate half what I thought I would, I could hamster it in my cheeks to eat a short way down the path, but...my hands got sticky. This is a pet hate...so I used a little of my drinking water to clean my hand. Overall, good result on jam butties. Next up geobar, then onto cheese and salad cream - which again made my hand messy but went down ok. Quantity again not half what I thought I would eat. I also need better quality plastic bags - which will probably help with the sticky hand syndrome.
So, all in all a very good run. No stomach problems from the new food experiments and a very happy and tired runner. Copious amounts of tea drinking and sofa sitting commenced once back at home!
No comments:
Post a Comment