After a couple weeks of constant racing it was back to putting some training miles in the tank. Regular racing, particularly over the fells has highlighted what happens when you ignore regular hill rep sessions (and also the track) both of which I "avoided" these last few weeks and paid the price. Although my race times were no worse than last year and in some cases faster I really lost out on both short and long climbs. So this week has included a sprint session of 19 x 1 min (30 secs recovery) and earlier today a hill session on the 300 metre steady incline of Stoneyfold Lane including 5 x full hill (70 secs), 5 x half hill (35 secs) and 5 x one third hill (23 secs) all at increasing pace and with 90 seconds recovery between sets for a totally knackering 30 minutes of work!Glorious weather yesterday saw me out on the mountain bike for some cross training and a couple of hours over the local hills, but disaster struck on the fast technical descent of the boulder strewn Oakenbank Lane in Rainow where first the rear tyre shredded followed by the wheel deciding to change shape! With no mobile phone signal it was a long walk home with the bike over my shoulder but the sunset made it worth the effort. Thank heavens for lightweight aluminium frames!
Weekly mileage 28. Annual mileage 625 (week 23)
With the temperature again over 25c this run over six tough country miles and with over 1800 feet of ascent this race has it all - a fast start, murderous early climb, river crossing, drop round the famous Hanging Stone and fast last mile descent (where I have previously broken my collar bone in an argument with a dry stone wall!) completed by a run in supported by several hundred visitors to the local fete which the race forms one of the main attractions.