Better late than never…
Last week I went to my first badger meet. What’s a badger meet? Basically it’s a meet of people who are coincidently walking #walk1000miles challenge. This one was in the Peak District, I think there were 28 people in total.
So,we were late and so had to catch up by running the first 1.5 miles which was fun :p
Cross training. We hear the word an awful lot. Basically it’s to utilise one sport to improve another, or something on those lines, I’ve never really fully understood it. In truth I’m not very good at the more technical side of training, and plans, and all that nonsense.
Now I do the odd bit of mountain biking, but I don’t really cycle any great distance, yesterday on the other hand I cycled a total of 41 and a half miles. My legs hurt a little today :p .
One thing that I have now realised is that since gaining a smart watch I have slowly gained a mild obsession with step counts, one of the advantages of being a runner is that without even thinking about it you pretty much always hit your step goal. With cycling on the other hand you don’t take very many steps, so although I did cover 41 and a half miles my step count looked like I’d basically sat on the sofa all day, this may have bothered me more than it should have done.
I think I have a problem with appearing lazy don’t know why, but looking lazy or stupid to other people has always been a sort of fear of mine. I wonder if this affects other people or bothers other people, or it’s just me being weird.
Got to admit until yesterday I had not realised that this may be a mild obsession. This may be because I very rarely do not hit the goal so tend to not look until on an evening so it’s not like I obsessively go out for another walk or run or pace around the house. I have heard that some people do this.
On one hand this can’t be healthy any obsession really isn’t healthy is it? But on the other hand anything that is making you move more surely has to be good, right?
I think I may have to do some research on this concept as I am now very curious…
well it’s been a long year a lot of walking, a lot of running a lot more than ever done before my entire life, and what can I say really.
today I did a very short six mile walk near Castle Howard, was very muddy and then spent most of this evening trying to finish off the running. Finally BOTH complete, final count is 1008 miles walked and 1000 miles ran.
Today’s mud:
I’ve been trying to come up with a challenge for next year I’m struggling so much I got 2019 planned out and go to 12 running events one per month and to raise some money for mountain rescue
By the way, I apologize if any of this makes no sense I’ve just discovered talk to text on WordPress and seemingly it’s just rubbish I thought it was worth ago as I find typing on my tablet is awkward and annoying
anyway I have some pictures from today, as I said only a short walk but was still a walk.
I’m not sure what I’m doing tomorrow yet, need to something to start off the year I guess but not sure what the challenge will be other than doing a 2000 miles again maybe have some cycling in I don’t know I’ll figure it out
Anyway some pictures from castle Howard today:
so today we decided to walk from Ennerdale Lake to black Sail youth hostel. We started at Bowness Knott car park, didn’t bother with the viewpoint because it was foggy so seemed pointless. The walk black Sail was uneventful, very foggy misty but fairly flat with nothing technical. unfortunately due to the fog we didn’t get the view of Black Sail that I was hoping for but it was still good to go there it was one of the things on my “list” so happy we went
we stopped there for lunch but I’m and ducked down behind a building for shelter from the wind and rain and fog. after eating lunch and coming out from behind the building we realised it had gotten a very foggy indeed so we had to change our plan and didn’t bother of haystacks as we’d originally thought to do.
rather than going straight back down a bridle path we took a couple of alternative routes resulting in us going to the other side of the river for most the way back and sinking into a lot of mud . it also started to get dark about three quarters of the way back to the car, which unfortunately limited photos also resulted in us not bothering to go round the rest of the lake because well it was dark anyway so no views.
still all in all a good day got a good got a few good photos which I will upload and now down to less than 10 miles from 1000 Miles in a year. so that’s all good hopefully I’ll hit it this week, or maybe next week. in Scotland next week so be good to hit there
So today I’d planned an epic 20 mile hike from the house we are staying in past holme force and loweswater, up to crummock water, round to scale force and then back via mosedale.
However… it was not to be. First we overslept, by an embarrassingly long time. So we drove to loweswater to cut off some miles. Then a path was closed due to an unsafe bridge, so holme force was a no go. Then we just took longer than planned due to unscheduled photo stops and my partner hurting his foot.
But, it was still a good 14.3 miles. And a surprisingly nice day. Both loweswater and crummock were like glass, and the weather was good. The only drawback really was the ground being very boggy under foot. We did both sink more than once :p
Anyone else hate the clocks changing? A few weeks ago was fine, I’d finish work, get home, and have an hour or so to go for a run a walk. But now… I get in and its dark 
So… I’ve been trying to use the treadmill. Problem is it’s so boring, like seriously, boring. I can watch Netflix while walking on it, but if I try that when running if all over lol. So I’ve been exploring different apps. I’ve found a few simulation type apps, my favorite so far is bitgym, which I like so much that I’m considering purchasing the subscription after Christmas to get the full program.
I’m not sure what it is about this that makes running on the treadmill easier, but it does. Maybe it makes it more interesting, or maybe it’s a competitive thing of trying to get further along each time – especially given that in the free version you only get 10min limits.
Anyway, take this as a recommendation I guess, assuming anyone actually reads this 😛
today was one of those days where everything sort of went wrong. The plan had been to go up the Old Man of Coniston. But, this morning I had gotten up, had a shower, and been for a run before my partner was even out of bed. And long story short by the time we got to Coniston it would have been a rush to get up and down and so not as enjoyable. So we are going Wednesday now.
So instead we headed to Cathedral Caverns near Little Langdale and had a bit of an explore down a few of the passages and such. We then followed the steam to a Tarn. Here after a lot of umming and ahhing I decided to go for a swim.
It was cold… but amazingly fun and I think I may be hooked on the idea now as considering going in Goats Water when we go up the Old Man
Yep. Not a fan at all…
I stupidly thought “it’s only 10Km, not that far I wont be sore the next day”, you know what I didn’t take into account? HILLS! Yep, hills again…
It’s crazy really. I can walk up several mountains in a day and be fine Can go mountain biking for a full day and be fine. Can go rock climbing and be fine. But since I took up running I have suddenly discovered DOMS and I am not a fan
What is DOMS?
DOMS stands for Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It usually begins around 24 hours following exercise and can last anywhere up to five or even seven days (Byrnes & Clarkson, 1986), although this is exceptionally long. Symptoms generally peak around the 72 hour point, and are characterised by localised soreness, reduced range of movement and reduced muscle function (Cheung, Hume, & Maxwell, 2003).
basically, if I am understanding this all correctly, it’s caused by the tiny tears and other damage done during intense exercise repairing itself. So in a way if you get DOMS it shows that the workout is working 😛 . Apparently its more likely if you are new to exercise or doing a different activity. Therefore, I am blaming the hills as on the flat 10Km causes no soreness issues.
Anyway, regardless of what it is or why it is it’s bloody annoying. I went for a run work last night despite feeling sore, and felt ok after about a mile, but my god am I paying for that today… work has been tricky today with my stiff calf muscles and such.
But, my muscles are currently healing and growing and once the annoying soreness has gone I’m sure it will be worth it 😀
So on Sunday (16/7/17) I did No Eng Challenges #ConquerTheForest at Dalby. This was not only my first trail race but my first race in general and my first ever time running with other people – well unless tough mudder counts?
Anyway, I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and I will openly admit I was very nervous. I go to Dalby Forest mountain biking a lot. So I know the way there and my way aroud the forest fairly well. But on Sunday morning I was so nervous I ended up going the wrong way and driving an extra 5 miles whoops.
I was aiming for 1h30 as that’s what I got the other week in my practice run, however, it ends up that I vastly underestimated the struggle of running up hills… Also for the first mile or so we were all so grouped up that it was basically a case of walking. I may try to start in the middle next time rather than at the back.
I think maybe it would have been nice to have had someone to run with. I had my mp3 player and to be honest the route was very engaging. But there was one point where I had dropped down to a walk when some random man encouraged me to run and we did about a mile together while chatting. Makes me wonder if Id find all runs easier if I wasn’t doing it solo. Shame I don’t know many runners… and the few I do are road runners unfortunately.
I’m glad I went for the 10K and not the half marathon. Especially with it being on a Sunday – my legs were not happy at work today 😛 .
I am going to have to do a LOT of hill training before my half marathon in October…
I think I may be hooked now though. I’m already looking into events for next year and plotting a training plan to do an ultra in a few years. I’m considering Hadrians Wall currently, but we will see.
Started in Hornsea yesterday and walked along the beach until below the trig point before scaling the clif. Returned to Hornsea via the path at the cliff top, having to go through a few caravan sites as the path on the map seemed to no longer exist in places.
I am walking 1000 miles and running 1000 miles (so doing 2000 miles on foot) throughout 2017 to raise money for Mountain rescue. I would be very thankful to anyone willing to sponser me
Trig Point Bagging and general exploring 