It’s been a funny few weeks of achieving a lot in training combined with periods of backing off……..

Following last weeks ‘recovery’ week, I’ve had a busy 7 days in every sense.

The beginning of the week started with me visiting my sister and her husband. It was lovely to see them, especially as its been a long time since I’ve travelled South to visit. We did a lot of walking and chatting and naturally made time for a lovely pub meal. The weather was kind. It wasn’t hot but it didn’t rain at least.

On Thursday I spent the day on a beginners map reading course in the peaks. It was brilliant and I’m very interested in going back to do further courses. Although I feel I should practice the initial skills I’ve learned first. I remember in the girl guides we were taught some of the basic symbols on the map. Car park/Church/River etc. However, I haven’t truly tried to read a map for navigation in a long time.

These days I plan all my running including the JOGLE run I did (from John o Groats to Lands End) using my Garmin watch. It’s brilliant, so why not? The problem with the watch of course is that it could run out of battery/break down. Imagine if that happened in the middle of nowhere. The other issue is that I feel very wary when I’m running through multiple fields and relying only on the purple line and what it tells me. At times I doubt the line. I think a map would give me confidence and a sense of backup on this terrain.

The course gave me exactly what I was after. We were each taught some basics in a classroom before setting off on a 10km walk up onto Shatton Moor. We stopped often and would be taught many different aspects of map reading on our stops. The first interesting point was time. The leader had a stop watch which he kept resetting. The average group of people hike 4km an hour which is 100 metres every 1.5 minutes. Of course you need to find your own average speed and modify this for hills. But this initial timing suggestion was very accurate for our group as a whole. This can help confirm your belief that this turn is the correct one to take. We learnt about boundaries (hedgerows, fences etc), different types of public paths, accessible land and the absolute clincher; contours. It’s amazing what these little fellas can tell you when you really start to analyse them. All in all, I highly recommend the course to anyone interested in map reading.

For my next adventure I’ll plan a walk/run using a map and follow that without the handy Garmin route to navigate. It should be fun and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll keep you posted.

I was supposed to run on Friday but I was feeling incredibly tired so decided to rest up instead. It’s rare I do this but it’s important to listen to your body and establish that fine line between ‘this wont be good for me today and I’m just being a bit lazy’.

On Sunday I dragged myself out onto my long run. I’m pleased I’ve now got this up to 30km and was more than prepared to do some intermittent walking in true ‘Ultra race style’. Typically you can walk the uphills and run the most of the rest or some people follow a stricter regime of walk 1 mile out of every 6th for example. I tend to go by feel. It was beautiful weather on Sunday and the route was all hills for the first half. Thankfully I felt great and was enjoying the ups, the downs and some of the technical in betweens.

In the second half I was reminded that running directly after a peanut butter wrap can lead to a bit of tummy discomfort so slowed down accordingly (all practice for Ultras – you cant stop for an hour after eating so practicing different types of nutrition combined with different paces is paramount).

The gripes soon passed and I picked up the pace. Out of nowhere, I started to notice a niggle in my left knee. I should add that I never get knee problems when running. I’m more of a sore hip kind of gal. But hey it’s all linked I guess and my left thigh muscles have been very tight of late. For the last 3km I had to slow down and walk occasionally, especially on the downhill. I’ve now read up on this and have to self conclude its a low dose of ‘runners knee’. The advice appears to be rest for a few days, ice, elevate etc blah. After that keep on running but make the runs shorter and less hilly. Sitting around will not help it so you need to keep moving without aggravating it too much. In the meantime I need to add some hip flexor strengthening exercises to my routine. My quadriceps (thighs) are already very strong but my hips are not and I expect this causes issues. So exercises with bands and wotnot will kick off in a few days. The excitement is palpable 😆.

In the meantime I am looking forward to swimming tomorrow and cycling on Wednesday. Some good old cross training and a chance to give my running legs a rest.