Lost one, won one

Like so many in the UK running community this past week I received the "Sorry" magazine that I was unsuccessful in the Virgin London Marathon lottery.  Guess that means I should get off my lazy arse and make up a running plan to try and train for a "Good For Age" entry time for next year but that means I would have to knock over an hour off my current marathon times...and try not to get injured in the process (again).

However the next day I noticed a post on the UK Women's Running Magazine facebook page that I'd won an entry into the Red Bull Steeplechase! I'd forgotten even entering the competition! Granted I knew I would get knocked out well before the final stage but who cares, this is an area I've been itching to run in anyways and to get a medal, hoodie, a bag, and a lunch for doing so...hell yeah! Ok, I've gone a little overboard on the exclamation marks, lol.  

Here's where things go a little awry--I've not felt well since Thursday so the nutrition has not exactly been stellar, ie I've not ate or hydrated enough for a hard-core trail run and Friday morning's normal run wiped me out. Not good but there was no way I was passing up the chance to run in the Peak District--did I mention we would get a hoodie as well??? 

Sporting the club colours--represent, y'all.

I've had some calf issues on the hills lately so thought the compression sleeves might be a good idea this time around. Looking at the crowd pics, I was not alone with that train of thought.  They did help but really the only thing is to get out and train on those hellacious inclines.  To me, the above shot also shows how bad I was feeling pre-race.

Wonder what's going on here? And just WHY did my partner take this pic? 

Apparently there was a malfunction with the gun so the guys didn't get the "On your Mark, Get set, Bang!" on their start. Us ladies did though ;-)

Ready to run! 

I think it must be an unwritten law in the UK that the majority of fell races must start with an evil uphill climb and this one was no exception.  The difference is that this is this one required the use of all your limbs to get up the steep incline--in between gasping for air, another girl made the comment that it was her first race to require the use of her hands on the ground to get up the hill...Wasn't my first but it doesn't make it any easier! 

And we ran! Until this started, then we hiked

And then we clambered. 

What goes up must come down...Eventually. Before we got to that point though we had to try and find a decent running rhythm on the undulating rock steps.  Which were slippy. And very hard, especially in shoes with no padding and hard plastic studs on the bottom.  

The downhill to match the uphill in the beginning was a doozy.  Slippery wet grass that hadn't dried out from the morning's frost made me appreciate the shoes I was cursing metres before. I was able to grip in and make my way down sideways fairly fast(ish)--speed is all relative when it comes to fell running.  Of course the moment I didn't grip in quite well enough and slid down a foot or two on my bum was probably the fastest part of that descent. Grass is nice and soft and I didn't find any rocky speed humps so no blood this time around.  

Not long after the steep downhill and before the halfway point of the first stage is where I started to get into trouble though.  I had already dialed down the speed I would usually do something like this at because of not feeling well but then I started to get dizzy spells. There was one mile where I'm not sure how I even made it through because it was so technical and I was having trouble focusing on the trail, I do know I stepped aside for several runners to allow them by but the rest of is a blur.  Fortunately I'd packed a 9bar in my spibelt and was able to swallow three bites of it, that seemed to help but I knew at that point I was done for the day even though I had a comfortable margin to continue on for the 2nd stage.  

I had a bit of a nice surprise at Bamford, walking up one of the last inclines I started getting heckled by my partner who had driven over to visit his mate while waiting on me.  It perked me up but I still didn't run that damn hill, lol.  As a matter of fact it energised me so much that once I reached the chutes and saw I was 71st female (cutoff was 85) I thought I would go ahead and run the second stage...that lasted right up to the point where we turned out of the field to go upwards again and I started feeling light-headed once more.  At that point I turned around and walked back to call it quits and catch a ride to the finish line on the shuttle bus, there was no need in endangering me, the others around me, and worse case scenario having to utilise the rescue services.  To continue on in an easily accessible road race is one thing, to do it on something like this would have been completely irresponsible on my part.  

This overall was a brilliantly organised event and I would definitely do it again--hopefully under better personal circumstances.  The marshalls were excellent and VERY encouraging (except for the one bloke who was more interested in his phone), the scenery is gorgeous, and it's extremely challenging.  The only complaint I could make would be the stewards not being aware of the amount of parking left at the top before sending several cars on up, that created some snafus because there wasn't a good turn-around place at the top.  Another tiny complaint is non-race organisation related but more other runner related--the British love of queues goes out the door when it comes to races!  I was practically shoved out of the way several times at the registration table...lol, I'm supposed to be the rude one being American and all (stereotypes, eh?). 

The bling

The swag was top-notch as well, we received a drawstring bag to put our gear in at the start, a medal, a canvas bag, a hooded sweatshirt, lunch, all the Red Bull you could drink as well as beer or cider if you wanted.  I had to say no to the beer tent though, I was feeling too ill.  

The obligatory aftermath pic

I have to talk about the hoodie some more, it's AMAZING. Very good quality, nice drawstring, the hood itself is lined with thermal type fabric, it's not the typical black, the graphics on the front and back are nice and it has THUMBHOLES!!!! Yes, I'm gushing about thumbholes, it's a female runner thing I think. 

Fleeting

My memory. This summer.  Two things that fit the fleeting descriptor right now.  I have had so many blog ideas but didn't bother to sit down to put the words to screen or even ink to paper to remind myself.  Or I get busy with other things and while I remember the subject I no longer have the desire to right about it.  As far as summer goes, I think it has disappeared.  It never truly got HOT at night but over the past couple of weeks it's gotten steadily cooler and now in mid-August there is a distinct autumnal bite to the air even during the middle of the day.  Time to pack away the summer clothing, most of which didn't get a single wear at all.  I made a joke on facebook that it was a good thing I don't buy trendy because whenever I made my return to the states in a few years most of my shorts, sundresses, and vests would still be in nearly new condition.  And no, it's not just me as an expat grumbling, everyone is commenting on how chilly it's been and then laughing and saying welcome to British summer ;-)

Summer!

In fitness news, my speed and endurance seems to be gradually returning, emphasis on gradually.  Most Sundays I'm getting in a 10ish miler although the weekend ex Hurricane Bertha made her visit I kept it at 7.5 because of trying to avoid the rain and wind. I managed to get confused on the August handicap course again (blue arrows on the trail pointed in a different direction than what our route is) so ended up waiting for the next runner coming up to get me headed the right way.  It still wouldn't have been a pb but it would have been closer than the time I ended up with.  Unfortunately my Garmin 610 also decided to have a malfunction by freezing up and then refusing to download that day's data because the file was corrupted so I don't know exactly how much time I lost.

The final BDL of the summer also went better than expected, 5.19 miles in 40:52 and second in my age category.  Last Saturday's parkrun was a bit of a success with a time of 23:26, 4th female overall, and 2nd in my age.  Gives me hope I can start whittling that time down if I can keep from getting injured again.  I also managed to spot the photographer in time to smile and not look like I was on the verge of passing out or having a seizure. 

I look like I'm going so slow and the guy behind me has both feet off the ground.

Speaking of parkrun, I had made plans to attend a Nordic Walking class on Saturday so that meant I had to leave just as soon as I got my barcodes scanned but I did get to see a couple of Nordic walkers that were doing the 5k as well.  Such a great sight spying the poles and the red British Nordic Walking shirts! Once I get over this chasing a personal best business I need to do that as well but I think I would prefer a not so flat course, it's great for running but I prefer hills for the walking.  

It does what???

I'm sure most of you have read about the beetroot juice benefits of boosting performance, lowering blood pressure, and a myriad of other health-related good for you type stuff.  Better blogs than mine have listed links, explained the science jargon, and extolled (or not, depending on their viewpoint) the wonders of what some are starting to refer to as a superfood.

Sorry, but you are not going to get all that here, that's what google is for, lol.  Unfortunately I can't take the chance of drinking as much as what is recommended because of the blood pressure lowering benefits, something I find that I have to watch after an incident last year with drinking hibiscus tea because my bp tends to run low anyway.  What I do enjoy is the True Blood-esque experience of drinking the beetroot juice out of a wine glass.  That alone is worth buying it for (yes, I'm a geek at times).  Well that and the joys of finding out it turns everything that comes OUT of your body a very lovely shade of rose pink.  Hmmm, that just adds to the vampire illusion--or it would if vampires had to deal with biological functions.  Yep, it turns your urine pink, I'm not sure what would happen if you combined it with the fluorescent yellow properties of B complex vitamins.

What's in my fridge

This is not a sponsored post by the way, the BEET IT juice is just the kind I happened to try, liked it, then bought some more.  Would love to try out the ginger infused flavor at some point but haven't spotted it on the shelf yet. Oh, and I shop at Tesco most of the time (AND I like it!).  By the way, before anyone points out the coconut milk is extremely out of date, the UK style of writing dates is day/month/year as opposed to the US way of month/day/year, something my partner tried to point out at a local Kroger back in Arkansas over the summer when he noticed some British food products being sold past their expiration--or expiry if we are going all English here ;-)  

Thursday was one of those gorgeous sun-filled days that suffuses everything and everyone all bright, shiny, and glowy......at least until around 3 in the afternoon when the skies opened up and I had to make a dash to grab the washing off the line before all the drying was undone.

I'm slowly getting the nearby paths and shortcuts mapped out in my head.  After taking a "shortcut" to the main canal earlier in the week I thought that I had a loop mapped out instead of an out and back so that's what Elsie the Miniature Schnauzer Menace and I set out to explore yesterday morning.  There are a handful of road crossings--one particularly busy with no pedestrian light to stop the traffic and one section that I would definitely prefer never to run through at night but it is a very viable (and scenic) route.  We ended up with 6.7 miles and for some odd reason Elsie wasn't begging as hard to go run this morning, lol.

One thing I have noticed is that when I take Elsie and/or Ben out with me on my runs people tend to be a lot more friendly and open.  It's not that there is any rudeness when I run solo but I do tend to get more subdued good morning greetings and just a wee bit of wariness whereas when the dogs are with me nearly all the famed British reserve almost disappears. 

Today I had to force myself out the door to run and then had to cut it short because I ate entirely too late last night but at least I managed to get a handful of miles in.  It's definitely time to start thinking about meeting up with some of the local running clubs so that I can find someone to run with. 

If I only knew how many miles!