The Perfect Storm

Flushed with the "success" from running a decent 600 on the Thursday, Saturday saw me revisiting the M4 via  the infamous 14 locks canal, this time my daughter came along for her first experience of Hills.  Being as this is Wales in November, the nights were drawing in and we were a bit late back from the cinema, not idea preparation for training and it was wet and windy. Just as we got ready to depart the BBC were good enough to issue an amber warning for the high winds and heavy rain due to hit the UK once again. True enough the run down was dreadful in the rapidly fading light, so much so we had to abandon the canal tow path due to flooding and use the access road to get halfway down before circumventing a newly acquired pond and completing the final drop to the M4.

14 Locks canal network

The weather had fooled us into thinking it would be just heavy rain, we headed back up and I discovered my friend the bear had traded his fridge for a bath, after 10m we were soaked through. We made it to the halfway pond/bridge (not sure which) and turned to run uphill into a 60mph gale laced with horizontal rain and a rapidly disappearing lane. Needless to say neither of us made the top, collapsing onto the fence in the now pitch black private lane. Effort was redoubled and my girl took the pace for the last half mile home through the monsoon, never was a front door so welcome, I made it as far as the stairs before the legs gave way whilst my poor daughter collapsed once more in the downstairs loo. Recuperation was clearly going to involve consumption of spirit from north of the border.

Sunday's session was another tough one so I drafted in my youngster again in an attempt to get a pacemaker rather than having one fitted. We were aiming to do 5x1Km road runs around our estate which just happens to be about 1000m according to Google Earth, in about 4 mins 30. Sadly the Welsh weather was being as uncooperative as ever, rain and gale force winds once more. So needless to say the first one was dreadfully slow, but nobody died despite the efforts of the local drivers and the attention the odd rabid dog. I barely made 5 minutes in all that, so the next had to be faster despite us only having a 5 minute gasp before the off again. The session was completed at the 4:45-ish pace from then on though, my daughter managed 4 including some entertaining yelps as all semblance of breathing left us in the latter stages. By now I was planning my assault on the single malt selection before I remembered we were going out to some dim-wits wedding party and I was driving. Driving! I can barely stand! Look dancing has never been my forte, but with even less physical coordination than normal, I was in trouble. We left early that's all I'm saying.

I can't say I'd really recovered by Tuesday but I still went training, the weather was making a special effort that day, above and beyond the usual wind and rain, so I was damp before arriving at the track. My new training partner, the Doc, and I worked our way through 6x300m reps, and initially set off on a 55 second schedule with 3 minutes recovery, somewhat ambitious on my part I have to say. Times dropped to 58 by the 4th one so we had to have a 5 minute break for snot removal and Quinine ingestion, along with excuse revision as to why things were not going to plan. The last 2 went without too much of a problem, though the Doc's hamstring pulled him up short on the last one and I had to abort the warm down as cramp broke out in the lower legs.

Thursday saw me pretending to be a coach as I did one of the preparation sessions for my UK Athletics Coaching award. This involved standing freezing my nu fingers off whilst trying to get some puzzled teenagers to learn the shot from someone who can't throw it either, many thanks to Rob Eales for avoiding a total disaster for me.

After a hour of confusion we called it a day and I foolishly embarked on 2x3x200m reps with 60 second recoveries - I call them turnabouts as that what you do when you cross the finish each time. First one was fine and in 32 secs to my surprise, during the second I noticed a furry creature standing along side a fridge - 35 seconds??? Needless to say bear and his fridge were not needed as I ran the 3rd one like a three legged dog going backwards through treacle. The second set was more even paced due to carrying the bear and his flaming fridge, I have to say my left calf was not enjoying life at this time, nor was my head and it took me so long to recover afterwards that the lights went off in the stadium to leave me to finish changing by the light of a mobile phone, OK I get the message.