Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

After a wet and windy week of either (a) running with tired legs from biking or (b) biking with tired legs from running I did not exactly feel ready for a trail race. Mr M assured me that (a) based on what I had done this week I was supposed to have tired legs and he also reminded me that (b) I never feel ready for a race anyhow.

Going long is a hard challenge but going fast is harder and both are needed in the search for that endurance Holy Grail of long AND fast. This week was therefore shock treatment for my legs with shorter faster runs and then a 6.5 mile trail race to test what was current scared rabbit pace.

The weather on race day delivered yet more wind and rain but there were quite a few keen souls who were up for it and with three distances (5.4km/10.4km/15.4km) on course at the same time there was always someone to chase. Now, even though I can run over the Malverns for a couple of hours no problem, a shorter faster run was really dishing me out some pain and there were honestly a couple of moments when I just wanted to stop. But I didn't ;)

Bearing in mind the baseline I am starting from I was chuffed with more or less bang on 7.30 pace and once I'd got my breath back at the finish I was greeted by Mr M who had gone for the 15.4km and come away with second overall. Surprise of the day (and I'm not sure which of us was most shocked) had to be finding out that the 10.4km had this result.

Needless to say it was definitely a Leffe night :)

Still an awful lot of work to do to get back to my twenty-something glory days of around 6.10 pace but I am starting to feel that at least there is a glimmer of hope of getting some pace back :)

Twin Peaks

Quite often when you say you bike and run folks assume that multisport events will appeal but for me personally I enjoy biking and running for entirely separate reasons and therefore merging them into a combined pursuit would actually dilute my enjoyment of each. This, in essence, cut's a long story short as to how 2010 came to contain two parallel goals comprising of this and this with lots of other stepping stone events to be had along the way.

Each was entered as soon as registration opened and each, in their own way, will be a metaphorical (and actual) mountain to climb. The former because even though I've ridden further, this is about racing 100 hilly miles off-road at a pace that deserves serious respect - last year's results belie the fact that around a third of the entries didn't finish. The latter because I've never run anything like that far before and the course profile gives a clue that this is not a pan flat marathon delivering the third big climb of the day at around the 21 mile mark. Ouch.

Motivation = setting goals you're uncertain you can even achieve :)

Unexpected AirCon

We popped down to the Forest of Dean recently to check out whether we could remember some of our playgrounds of old. Haven't been there for quite some while so we just wanted to make sure that we had some reasonable fun bits that would survive the rain for when we met up with some of our AQR gang for a playday over the weekend. Wow. It was leafy :)

It was also week nine of being told what to do by Mr M and he decided that it was time I needed a shock reminder of why I used to come here to try and conquer my fear of greasy roots. There's loads of the tricky chuppas in here. Which leads me on to another little story and to give you a clue, here is pretty much the last time that I was wearing my favourite PI Gavia tights in one piece :o

Shortly after this lovely swoopy bit is a particularly mega-rooty section that I do struggle with as you can't just ponce at it without reasonable speed. For me this requires a certain amount of bravery as aiming at greasy roots without caution somehow seems to cause an automatic brain/brake response which of course then results in bike/body interface pain. Anyhow, I digress slightly as I came to the end of this section with so much focus that I didn't actually realise that somewhere along the way the a*rse had fallen out of my my tights. Oops.

Detailed analysis by Mr M (good job no-one was watching) established that it wasn't as a result of my super-gnarly hanging off the back of the saddle but just wear and tear of a couple of years of gritty riding as the stitching had totally worn through in a nice little saddle shape.

I really did love these tights as they were a brilliant combination of wind/water proof-ness and stretch - it really puzzled me that PI don't still make them. They lasted me pretty well (a couple of winters worth of MTB isn't bad) and so I thought that they at least deserved a decent obituary :)

It's been a blur :)

Been far too busy being outdoors of late to spend much time in front of the darned computer but in the spirit of attempting to keep this blog thing even remotely up to date I thought I'd better commit to the ether a few words and pictures to remind me what a spectacular autumn it was this year :)

After the first few tentative singlespeed MTB outings in the Wyre Forest there came a grunt fest of a ride over the Malverns and then the infamous rootsiness of the Forest of Dean. Some sundry pix over on flickr if you feel the need to browse but I do particularly like this one from our spooky Halloween ride so much that I really felt it deserved to appear here too.

Not sure even some of the trick or treaters lurking around the visitor's centre had costumes to rival this one. Yes, of course pink, red, black, blue, yellow,white and turquoise go with my lovely espresso steed ;)

All that hoofing up climbs with limited gears (err, well, one) sure is giving me a good upper body workout and it's easy to see why uphill runners cite singlespeeding for improving their leg strength. The whole one gear MTB thing actually does feel more like running to me, you are less at the mercy of those pesky mechanical gremlins and the rewards you reap are more closely correlated to the physical effort put in. The MAJOR feature however, that I am really growing to love is the (relative) silence - nothing to hear but your hammering heartbeat.

Moral high ground moment was coming across some poor chap picking mud, ferns and sundry woody crap out of his crunching rear mech and once we'd asked if everything was OK being able to say oooooh, you wouldn't get that trouble with a singlespeed. Surprised, he asked what gearing we were running and was polite enough to leave off the unspoken bit that said .... for a girl. Bless.

I've been in that chap's situation so many times on mucky winter rides that I was positively lapping up that glorious wave of smugness as I mashed off up the hill in fully functioning silence. Result.

Sun. Rain. Sun. Rain. (Repeat)

Sun. The week started with a concentrated dose of all those things that make Autumn my favourite season. A perfect clear frosty morning run crunching through the fields. Swirling fog still clinging to the water, the sky above super blue and full of promise. Following breakfast, a few hours spent riding to soak up the superb golden views in all directions. These are the days that stay vivid in your head to bolster you through the wet grey ones.

Rain. The first (for a while) totally wet from start to finish fill your shoes with water and road grit everywhere type of ride although the morning was nicely salvaged by consumption of buttered crumpets and hot chocolate.

Sun. Finally managed to get the Simples over to the Wyre Forest for a few hours of proper off road riding. Surprised firstly at what I was able to ride in terms of steepness but more importantly that I wasn't as terrified as I thought I might be with almost three months off the dirt. My Simple is soooooooo much fun to ride that potentially falling off had entirely slipped my mind :)

Rain. Another few hours of wet road riding, not a shoes full of water one but colder and windier. One of those rare climate conditions when I actually didn't get sweatwet on the inside from a full Goretex combo. Oh yes, and more hot chocolate :)

Sun. Pretty please???