The distance was 4.13 miles having a total elevation gain of 449ft. I managed to do this in 49 minutes 1 second, beating my last time of this distance by 3 minutes 37 seconds, but I'm not really counting it as last time was with ankle weights.
Carrying the 15kg bergen plus a '58 pattern hip belt with my Osprey bottle containing a litre of water I did the Troserch oval once as I didn't have enough time to do it twice. "Burning Calfs Hill" beat me again, I found it quite hard today, I think it may have been because I started the run only 10 minutes after eating breakfast and drinking tea.
The distance was 4.13 miles having a total elevation gain of 449ft. I managed to do this in 49 minutes 1 second, beating my last time of this distance by 3 minutes 37 seconds, but I'm not really counting it as last time was with ankle weights.
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Carrying the 15kg bergen plus a '58 pattern hip belt with my Osprey bottle containing a litre of water I set off to do what I have called the Troserch oval Twice, exactly the same run I did 2 days ago but without the bergen. The hill that beat me twice 2 days ago I have nicknamed "Burning Calfs Hill" and it beat me again today on both climbs. Half way round the second time my shoulders started to go numb but it wasn't too bad, I just adjusted my shoulder straps and carried on.
Again the total distance of the run was 6.97 miles and having a total elevation gain of 837 feet. I completed the run in 1 hour 28 minutes 6 seconds. Only 16 minutes slower than 2 days ago, does this mean I did well today or badly 2 days ago? Info: Burning Calfs Hill climbs 194 feet within a distance of 0.39 miles giving an average slope of 9.2%. For this run I didn't wear ankle weights or carry my bergen as I wanted to increase the mileage and get an 'aim for' time carrying the bergen. To be honest it started out as feeling easy and I felt as though I was cheating by not carrying the bergen. I didn't do the full run from my house, instead using a natural turn around point where I come back on the road after the cross country bit.
The hill that beat me yesterday beat me again…twice, on the second climb I tried my hardest not to look up to see how much was left, I glanced up once and all the energy just disappeared from my legs. I had to walk about 50 yards again. Today I found some of the down hill sections almost as hard as the uphill as they are immediately after an uphill and then to suddenly go down hill steeply, sometimes down rough unevenly placed makeshift steps, made my legs feel like jelly. The total distance of the run was 6.97 miles and having a total elevation gain of 837feet. I completed the run in 1hour 12minutes 3seconds. I fell ill after my last entry on this blog with sinusitis, then just as I was feeling better and going to start running again I tripped over a rock whilst wearing a 15kg bergen wild camping and bent my knee too far backwards, injuring it enough to stop me running for another week.
Today instead of using my daysack with three 5kg disks to make up the weight I packed my old military bergen with clothes that we were going to donate to a charity, sorry Barnardo's you'll have to wait until July. The bergen packed with the clothes weighs 15.3kg. I cannot believe how much easier it is running with a proper bergen instead of a daysack with no hip belt and the weights banging against my spine! The run I did today was through local woods with some relatively steep climbs, covering a total distance of 4.13 miles and having a total elevation gain of 449ft. I managed to do this in 52 minutes 38 seconds, though I did have to walk some parts of it. The part where I walked was the steep hill marked in blue on the elevation profile shown below. I ran as much as I could but couldn't manage it all so I walked about 50 yards ran again until I couldn't, then walked about 50 yards again and so on. I did have one big upset on this run. My faithful old ankle weights which I bought in 1989 and have been on my ankles for about 75% of my runs since then finally gave up today and one of the cells split. I may continue to use them but I'll have to empty one of the cells on the other ankle weight to make it even. I was thinking of increasing the weight on my ankles instead of reducing it! I increased the weight of the backpack to just over the required weight for the Fan Dance Race, it weighed 15.9kg or 35.2lb. I didn't do to well on this run. It could have been because I had been feeling unwell for the past few days and didn't really want to go out running, or it could have been because I had gone straight to college after work and was hungry. It may have been because I was carrying heavy weight in a backpack with no hip belt and the whole weight was on my shoulders plus it was bouncing around as I was running. But it was probably because I am not fit enough yet to handle RUNNING with almost 16kg on my back plus wearing ankle weights. The sensible thing would be to reduce the weight slightly until I think I am fit enough to try that weight again.... but if I was sensible I wouldn't have entered the Fan Dance Race. I still train using the famous military saying used by my Sgt Major: Run stats:
I only managed the hill once. The climb covered a distance of 0.64miles and climbed 190feet plus the quarter mile each way to and from the hill and the 0.64miles going down the hill giving a total distance of 1.78miles which I did in 25min 36seconds. 13th March 2013 I had a night off college so I ran home from work much to the amusement of the children in school, "Sir, why are you wearing tights?" The route I took was a total distance of 3.34miles and had an overall elevation gain of 238 feet. The maximum upward slope was 9.4%. I wore my ankle weights and carried my backpack weighing 11kg. I managed to complete this run in 36minutes and 24seconds. 15th March 2013 I did the same route home from the school in which I work carrying exactly he same weight and wearing the ankle weights, although I stopped 3 times I beat my time by 2 minutes and 6 seconds in a total time of 34 minutes 18 seconds. An hour after I finished this run I took my children to a roller skating rink and skated hard playing 'touch' with 3 adults and about 10 children for 2 and a half hours..... My legs hurt! 17th March 2013 I decided to try a cross country route through local woods. I have been to these woods a number of times but hadn't found the path back to the village across country... I found it. I completed the 4.55 mile run in 56min 54seconds carrying 11kg and wearing ankle weights. The total climb (not all in one go) was 435feet. I really enjoyed this run as I was in the country. P.S. I don't entirely trust GPS as my GPS told me that I was at 200 feet starting the run but I live approximately 30feet above sea level, also at one point it says I ran at 16mph.. I wish! Elevation Profile Speed
I did the same hill as previously and the same amount of reps, but the pack weighed 11kg. This time it took me 53 minutes and 41 seconds including the run to and from the bottom of the hill. I did stop and walk, once on each attempt. The first time was because I removed a stone from inside my shoe, the second was just because I needed to and I walked about 20 yards before starting to run/shuffle again. On the third accent my right foot was swelling and it felt like I was running on a bubble of air, my foot had gone numb, I stopped to loosen my ankle weight and the swelling immediately started to go down, so obviously my ankle weights were too tight.
Each hill rep covered a distance of 0.64miles and climbed 190feet this meant that I climbed 570feet in 1.92 miles plus the quarter mile each way to and from the hill and the 0.64miles each time going down the hill giving a total distance of 4.34miles. I was wearing ankle weights weighing 1066g each (one on each ankle) plus a day sack with two 5kg weights disk inside. The total weight of the pack including the disk, padding and bag was 11kg 2g. The elevation profile can be seen in the previous post. College finished early tonight so I decided to take the opportunity to do some hill reps on a hill close to my home. I managed 3 reps before I ran out of time, it took me 51 minutes and 4 seconds including the run to and from the bottom of the hill. Despite coming very close a couple of times and really wanting to, I did not stop, though the second half of the second ascent and the third accent were more shuffles than sprints.
Each hill rep covered a distance of 0.64miles and climbed 190feet this meant that I climbed 570feet in 1.92 miles plus the quarter mile each way to and from the hill and the 0.64miles each time going down the hill giving a total distance of 4.34miles. I was wearing ankle weights weighing 1066g each (one on each ankle) plus a day sack with a 5kg weights disk inside. The total weight of the pack including the disk, padding and bag was 5512g. At the top of the hill on the third rep my lungs wanted to explode and my legs had already started to stiffen. Here is a google earth elevation profile of the hill. Well Life has got in the way of ALL exercise. I've been far too busy. Took a school trip to an outdoor pursuits centre, although I got to try the activities, it wasn't exactly exercise. And at the weekends D.I.Y has overtaken everything.
The weight the bergen has to be is a minimum of 35lb (almost 16kg) plus food plus water, if I lose a bit of weight personally i.e. a stone, and also get stronger through hard training then compared to now it'll be like carrying 21lb (almost 10kg) which is easy! (trying to justify it to myself!) Right now I weigh 12 stone 13 pound so I'm going to aim for 12 stone or less. I have a cross trainer at home which I will be using to measure my fitness level analytically, with as few outside influences as possible e.g. wind, rain, heat, wet ground, all of which will affect times. With the cross trainer this will be eliminated. The best way I have found to actually measure my performance on this machine is by counting the calories used within a particular time, because the distance will not increase by putting it on a higher level. Yesterday I did 1032 calories in 20 minutes and nearly threw up! OMG I'm unfit, that would have been easy when I was fit 20 years ago. Comments |
Key to runs at the bottom of this section.This Blog has now gone onto 2 pages! Click 'previous' at the bottom of the page if you'd like to read older postsAuthor-BaldyI plan to do this race with my brother 'Strider' (Link to his blog above) on 20th July 2013, mainly to see if at 44 I still have the 'stones' to be able to do it. Troserch oval onceDistance 4.13 miles
Total elevation gain of 449ft. Troserch oval TwiceDistance 6.97 miles
Total elevation gain of 837ft Burning calfs hillBurning Calfs Hill climbs 194 feet within a distance of 0.39 miles giving an average slope of 9.2%.
Troserch figure of 8Distance 5.95 miles total climb of 743ft very muddy and treacherous single track, some parts up to mid calf in mud and crossing through 3 rivers.
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