Today was a very interesting day……The first proper snow fall of the year. Time to crack out the O-rocs!
For me it is so-far-so-good on the Winter training front and as I take a break from work for Christmas I look forward to getting some decent training done in daylight hours!
Winter training started in mid-October with a trip out to the Pyrenees to stay with my coach, Keith Anderson, in his beautiful house set in the vineyards in the foothills of Mont Ventoux. Being a former British fell running champion and a commonwealth games marathon runner Keith knows what is needed to succeed. He advises many top athletes (although I think I am the only fell runner!) and when an invitation to stay at his house for a week came along I wasn’t going to turn it down….however tough I thought the week would be.
As it turns out the week was a lovely warm weather week which was a welcome relief from the wind and rain of Cumbria. The week allowed us to sit together and discuss strengths, weaknesses, training sessions and the targets for next year. The sessions I went through in France were gruelling. It was a combination of hard and fast road sessions and long and tough hill sessions.
Upon return my winter training programme was set so the next couple of months were just plugging away building up the mileage each week to a peak of 80ish miles then recovering/resting for a week.
Things have gone consistently well so far without many missed sessions. Being a teacher I often expect to get the usual ‘christmas cold’ which can put me out of action for a week or two but ‘touch-wood’ it has stayed away so far.
Two weeks ago was the Cumbria XC Championships held in a very wet, muddy and windy Fitz Park in Keswick. I turned up on the day to use the race as my training for that day so was relatively pleased with 4th place with the first two places going to regular road/xc superstars.
I have stayed away from races for a few months now and I am looking forward to stretching the legs at the ‘Auld Lang Syne’ fell race on New Years Eve in Haworth, Yorkshire. It’s a fantastic ‘woodentops’ event and regularly has the triathlon ‘Brownlee’ brothers on the start line as well as many other top runners including Andi Jones and Ian Holmes.
I am hoping that my consistency can continue over the coming months and with the FRA Fixtures guide landing on my doormat today I will look forward to planning some race in the spring season.
Roll on Yorkshire Three Peaks!
Chris.
P.s. If any Team Inov-8’ers are in the Northern lakes over the Christmas/New Year period and fancy a run out then drop me an email…..i have some great routes!
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