Bit o’ This, Bit o’ That

I had another hard tempo run on Saturday: 9-10 miles on the local lanes. There are an abundance of quiet roads and byways north and west of where I live, which are especially useful at this time of year when the days are long. Winter is a different story: it’s very limiting around where I live when it’s dark.

I once more enjoyed the feeling of going fast for a decent period and ran the last mile in about 6:40, which is fast for me.

I ran the Castle Combe Circuit (CCC) on Sunday. It was my first chance to use my new Merrell Trail Gloves (TGs), which Merrell very kindly gave me to aid in my big running summer for Excellent, because I make regular contributions to their Facebook page (general reports on my outdoor activities with mostly praise and a little constructive criticism of their ‘barefoot’ shoes).

I’ll keep using my old pair of TGs, which have far less tread, on firm trail and road runs: when I compared them to the new ones, I was shocked to see how much tread I’d managed to get through. The new ones give a little more confidence in softer going, although much of the CCC was earthy rather than muddy. The luxury of having a ‘good’ pair and a worn down pair is great!

Seeing as Merrell have been so kind to me, I’ll definitely use TGs on the South Downs Way 100 and report back to them on this fairly extreme test.

http://www.justgiving.com/excellentlondonmarathon
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/excellentlondonmarathon

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Gorgeous Gorge and Wonderful Woods

Life seems to have gotten in the way of my blogging recently. This blog is about Sunday; I’ll blog about Monday (an epic run) next.

On Sunday I visited my ‘in-laws’ in Pill, near Bristol, which is at the start of the River Avon Trail. I often run the section from Pill to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The Avon Gorge is spectacular, and the Avon Trail along the south side of the river is well maintained and popular with cyclists and walkers (I don’t see many runners along there though).

I ran 3 miles of so, then turned off into Leigh Woods, an area that is criss-crossed with paths, including bike trails, and is also very popular. I get the feeling that it would take months to get to know all the tracks in there. When I go into it I rely on the lie of the land to guide me: it generally slopes down to the river (no surprise there then), but also has several tributary valleys, so it isn’t too difficult to keep a rough idea of where you’re heading without either getting back to the Avon too quickly of getting lost in the middle! As I usually do in Leigh Woods, I enjoyed a challenging run, with plenty of climbing and some rough terrain.

On the way back I decided to do the return along the Avon Trail as a ‘tempo run’ (ie, fast!) I got to my in-laws’ house suitably exhilarated, and hoping I hadn’t taken too much out of my legs to do justice to my 25+ mile ‘Bath Ten Trigs’ run planned for the next day.

http://www.justgiving.com/excellentlondonmarathon
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/excellentlondonmarathon