"Stoneyfold Lane - The Perfect Hill"

The best training week of the year so far with five runs and a bike ride for a total of 41 miles. A mixture of speed, distance (14 miles along the Macclesfield Canal and Middlewood Way) hills, bike and recovery runs.

The track session was a killer of 6 x 400/800 with a minute recovery between reps and three between sets. With a group of nineteen athletes including a couple of international fell runners it was tough to keep up on the 4's but impossible on the 800's. The weather on a slippery track again dropped to freezing but really added to what was a great workout.

The other highlight of the week was the first real hill session of the year up what I regard as the "perfect hill". Stoneyfold Lane, just off the Buxton Road on the way out of Macclesfield is a gradual climb of around 75 seconds to complete at a good tempo. Five repeats with a jog recovery were followed by five short but faster climbs to the half way point aptly named "Middlehills". With a one mile warm up and cool down, the last ascent at the end of the session was run in a lung bursting 60 seconds flat, with the consequent results of dizziness and lactic pain in equal measure! What this session showed was that I really need a lot more hills before the track session gets into full swing.

Weekly mileage 41.

Annual mileage 109 (week three).

Races 2.