Sand Dunes and Sillyness

Sometimes its really satisfying to go running and pretend you're an aeroplane.
I don't mind admitting that.
It's the child inside me that needs to escape.
If you ever run with me on the hill it's something I may mention, or cajole you into doing.
It's fun.
And that's what getting out on the hill is all about to me.

Over Easter I was in Wales and could see sand dunes on the coast about 6km from the cottage we stay at. Even at that distance they look big. Up close they're massive. I've run in sand dunes before but these were by far the biggest I've seen in the UK.

Me and Tim headed down to the beach early, getting there before the families would be down to build sand castles and break the peace of having the beach to yourself. Parts of the beach were comparable in softness to the terrain in the Peak District, but other bits were so soft it made running much harder. What I liked was being able to see our footprints in the sand. My forefoot running technique has really improved over the past four months and stopping to observe footprints made it evident I was sustaining the technique well. My calves have obviously developed good strength with all the barefoot running and calf strengthening I've been doing.

View of the sand dunes from the cottage

Easter in Wales

Our Easter break was spent with family in the Rhinogs, Wales. We headed down Friday and returned on Tuesday so had four full days to relax and enjoy the peace and quiet at the family cottage. The company was great and the food plentiful (thanks Sue and Gilly). I spent a lot of time just sitting, listening to the birds, watching the wind blow the trees, hearing the lambs in the surrounding fields bleating. I also took a large quantity of photographs, mostly of lovely little things for my collection - more of those later, but here's a select few to enjoy for now.

Saturday morning recce of the Ras Y Moelwyn race start/finish with Tim

Tim's race report can be found over on his blog, TestedToDestruction. 

That lovely little bird, perched in the centre of the white stone chimney, is a barn owl. He or she is living in the old chimney at the family's cottage and comes out to go hunting most evenings....we were really lucky to spend over half an hour watching him perched, looking around.  Sorry it's a poor quality photo; it was taken on my phone, through a window and the bit with the owl in shot is actually a mirror tilted on the wall..

Looking back to the cottage from the nearby fields

Buzzard, saw three at the same time one day and could hear them calling 

Peacock butterfly

Lovely flowers with lots of bumble bees buzzing around

Sheep and lambs in fields around the cottage

Spot the chaffinch

Robin

Me running with Foel Fras in the background

Long view from the cottage down to the sand dunes and sea

Last morning....early start to have the beach (almost) to ourselves

Along with the barn owl we saw buzzards, a bunny rabbit (on Easter Sunday), wrens (who are the noisiest bird of all), sheep and lambs, cows and calves, red starts, blue tits, great tits, numerous moths and butterfly's, loads of other birds and I heard the local cuckoo off in the distance.

Sand dunes

I'm including specific training into my schedule to develop various hill running skills. Not that I profess to be any sort of high level master fell runner, but I do feel I've reached a level where I'm able to run and think about technique now I've a year of fell running experience under my feet.

Morfa Bychan beach, just by Porthmadog golf club - our venue for the session

One thing I am not brilliant at is downhill running - I have an overactive internal voice that just doesn't want to risk falling over. The voices inside constantly battle between 'just-let-go-brain-off-brakes-off' and 'whoooah-your-gonna-fall-over-and-hurt-yourself-slow-down'. Inevitably the latter wins the battle, I slow and end up going at pretty much walking pace on downhill sections.

I'm not one to simply accept that I will always be rubbish at running downhill. Therefore, something needs to change for improvement to be gained. To develop skills and get me more confident at going downhill we headed to the sand dunes at Porthmadog whilst on holiday in the Rhinogs last week. Here's me on the highest jump...leaping off the grassy tufts at around 6 feet high.

At the start of the training session I looked over the edge saying I'd never do it....then  changed that attitude to 'let's start smaller and build up then take another look'. It worked, obviously from the pictures above. I jumped this one three or four times, growing in confidence each time.

The build up to it had been a series of tiny jumps, runs into tiny jumps, and gradually building up the height of each drop. Sometimes continuing to run down to the flat sand below to work on foot placement....or the acceptance that you're going to slide and slip whilst vaguely holding control and doing what I want to be able to do....just let go! Exactly what I need to feel more confident on with the mud and bogs we get up on Kinder and Bleaklow.

After a while we switched focus to doing some forefoot, or mid foot striking down the beach...easy to keep an eye on your footprints and see how you're doing with this technique on a beach. This was my first go at leaning forwards and not heal striking. I think I did OK, it definitely felt an easier position to be running in, and felt like I was moving faster, and with less effort. Conscious that new skills and technique need to be introduced slowly we kept the distance short.  We didn't get any pictures of this bit, but here's a couple of me running round some rocks...

I thoroughly enjoyed training on the beach, it's a tough terrain to work on and I'm sure I'll be finding sand in my shoes for months to come.