Finally a bit of sunshine to make running more enjoyable. This week consisted of two runs on the Tuesday and one on the Thursday, with a long run on the Saturday.

Tuesday morning was a particularly enjoyable run, in that I managed to get back some of the pace that had seemed to have left me recently. averaging 08:18 /mi over 5.08 miles. After work it was an easy paced 6 mile run.

Thursday morning I managed to shave more time off my average pace and ran a 08:05 /mi for 4.3miles, so it seems that along with good weather comes speed.

Saturday was a 14 mile run across the North Downs, and despite the beautiful weather the mud was every present. I took my camera with me on this run so as they say “A picture paints a thousand words”.

Its all in the title really, what a horrible week to have to motivate yourself to get outside and go for a run, but run I did.

Tuesday was a test run for the new trainers, two laps around Lloyd park and the ground was just a bog from start to finish. Pacing wise, it was fairly slow and I am not sure if this is the terrain, a sign of too much training or the change from Km to Miles on my Garmin (more on this later)

Wednesday a shorter road run at just over 4.5 miles, Thursday was a 5 miler. Again pace wise these runs were slower than past runs and being on the road for each of them the weather conditions would have been less likely to have an impact.

Saturdays run was a route planned by Gareth, with the promise of it having lots of hills and being a bit muddy. Getting to Reigate hill for 07:30 the rain had already started to come down, and continued to do so for the two and a half hours we were out there. The route profile shows the amount of up and down that we had to work through:

What the profile can’t convey is the mud. I have done a few adventure runs such as the Grim or the The Major, all pegged as muddy and tough courses. Saturdays run was up there with those in terms of mud, barring the waist deep mud pools of the Grim I would say that overall it was worse!

This whole pace thing is starting concern me somewhat, I was expecting for my shorter runs to get faster not the other way around. I am not certain what the cause is, when I have been starting off on a run my legs are feeling heavy and sore and its taking a while to ease into the run and increase any sort of pace. I haven’t been stretching as much as I should do following a run and on my rest days and this is something I have started to really concentrate on now.

I have also purchased a new book (thanks Rory for the tip) which I am going to read through. When I bought it I thought it was just your normal run of the mill running book which I could read and perhaps take some tips from, however what I got was a lot more.

This book is EVERYTHING, 921 pages of the science of running, nutrition, training plans, excercises, technical info on shoes, the bodies muscle make-up and more! Its going to be some reading, but I won’t need to buy another running magazine because I am guessing that the information contained in the book is the origin for a lot of the training plans or nutrition advice you see.

I plan to post some of the things I read in this book and give my own take on them, seeing how I improve, what works and what doesn’t however if you want to read the whole thing, its sale on Amazon for £15.00: Lore of Running, by Tim Noakes MD

Total Distance: 31.95 Miles,  Average Pace: 10:17/mi, Total Time: 05:28:44

An improved training period this week, following Offa’s Orror the first run of the week was on the Tuesday. I have changed the Garmin from KM to Miles so this run was the first I had done with the new pacing information.

As the weather had  been so awful the ground was soaked so I stuck to a road loop, getting a 4.7 mile run in. The pace wasn’t the quickest in the world but it was a case of trying to balance speed and the need to recover from the Sunday run.

On the Tuesday run I had been lucky with the weather and avoided the worst of the rain, however Wednesday was a different matter. Donning my Paclite jacket I headed out into torrential rain, it really is hard to get motivated to run when you step outside and are soaked in seconds, but I carried on. This was a 6.30 mile run, with the first 2.5 miles was uphill which along with the rain made the start of the run particularly unpleasant. The downhill that followed allowed me to speed up, but this only lead to the rain getting seemingly worse. Thankfully I had the opportunity to slow down, with another uphill before heading to the end of the circuit.

Not content with a morning run, I did a cheeky 3.2 mile run after work (this time the rain held out to the last 5 mins). Thursday I decided to risk the off roading and went around Lloyd Park. The rain had done the business and the park was more like the course from the Grim, with slippery mud all over the place.

Following Offa’s Orror I had started to notice that the traction on my trainers was becoming almost non-existent, and the run on Lloyd Park was confirming this, with my feet slipping out every other step. It wasn’t the nicest of runs so I kept it short at just over 4 miles.

Friday was a day off, and Saturday the long run. For the long run I headed to run part of the North Downs Way with Gareth, taking on Box Hill and the trails around it. On Friday the weather report had said it would be cloudy but dry, waking up at 6am on Saturday it was clear this was wrong and with the rain coming down it was a case of just getting on with it!

Starting at the top of Box Hill (opposite the cafe) our first point was to head down the steps to the bottom of the hill. It became immediately became apparent that the terrain was going to be tough, with the mud everywhere on the decline. This was not good as I had already established that the grip on my trainers was rubbish.

Getting to the bottom of the steps we had planned to go over the stepping-stones, however looking at the river they were no longer there. The river’s water level had covered them so we had to find an alternate route around, this wasn’t too much of a problem but it was a sign of things to come.

Following the route that Gareth had planned we started on an uphill that continued for about 3 miles. My legs were feeling pretty sore and  the mud and lack of grip on the trainers was causing me to tense up, further causing my legs to ache. This was causing me to get a bit frustrated, and when we started to descend from mile 5 – 7 I just couldn’t keep up with any confidence.

Its funny the things that can make a frustrating run suddenly great fun, and this was about to happen. As we reached the lowest point from out decent, we reached a river that had burst it banks with no way around. There was only one thing for it and we ran through, feet getting absolutely soaked in the process. So, my feet were soaked and as we started to run off again we were picking up more mud which made it feel like we were wearing lead boots! This whole episode bizarrely made things better, and from that point on the run became far more enjoyable.

It was an other uphill then a further decent, taking us to mile 11, then the last uphill to get back to the top of Box Hill and the car. Overall despite the rain, the mud and the flooding the whole run ended up being good fun.

Sunday is a rest day, but my new trainers arrived (New Balance MT110) which as of  writing I have not tested, but I am going to pop on the treadmill shortly. I have tried them on and they seem to fit great, they are based on the Minimus Last with a 4mm drop, the difference is different materials, improved grip on the sole and a raised stack height. I will take them on some longer runs and give a review when I have a better idea of the pro’s and cons.

Total Distance Run: 30.31 Miles, Total Time: 5:15:16, Avg Pace: 10:24/mi, Total Calories: 4069

With Offa’s Orror tomorrow I thought I would do a quick update on this week, with a review of the run and some pictures being  tomorrow’s post.

Training wise I learn’t from my mistake with the Asics and have actually tapered, with a 7km run on Tuesday and a 5km run on Thursday. Both days I was ready for the weather to come in with my waterproof (not so breathable) jacket on, and each day I avoided the rain, which I am not complaining about but had I known I would have left the jacket at home and not had the pleasure of sweating like a maniac!

The Weather on Sunday is not looking good, both for Chepstow, you stick it in google and you get red lightning, so it could be an interesting run to say the least

I want to say a big thanks to everyone who has donated on my Justgiving page so far, I am at £200 already which is a fantastic result, very hopful of achieving (or maybe exceeding) my £500 target. If you wish to donate follow the link widget on the side of my blog or the below link:

http://www.justgiving.com/AnthonyClark2012

Lastly, good luck to the guys who are running the London Marathon, I am hoping that all the runners get a few hours of sunshine while they run, I can’t imagine it being nice to run in pissing rain for 4-5 hours!

Monday 9th I decided to go to the gym, which I had been absent from for quite a while with a combination of an increased running schedule and the laser eye. It was pouring with rain so the run to the gym was not nice, and by the time I got there I was pretty damp. I did about an hour of weights, chest, shoulders back and arms (no legs) and run home (it was still raining)

On the 10th I went for a 9km run in the morning and in the evening a 8km run, the intention being to have Wednesday off and then run Thursday, Friday off then the long run on Saturday. Due to factors outside my control this didn’t happen.

On the Monday I started to experience some discomfort with m eyes, nothing major and to be honest I thought nothing of it. I figured that it was all part of the healing process, Tuesday was worse with my vision decreasing and it appearing that I was getting more shortsighted, with sensitivity to light. I had an appointment with Ultralase on the Wednesday so decided I would discuss it with them, Wednesday came about and it had gotton worse, to the point where I was getting white outs and really struggling. Getting to London was a real pain given the vision issues, but I managed it.

When I described what I had been experiencing intially they couldn’t see why it would be happening, but I had some more tests and when they did my eye pressure it came out at 47 (anything over 21 being not normal). What I was told was that I was having an Optical Edema due to the Steroid eye drops, me being one of 2 people that they have ever seen with this reaction (and my own research after indicating that this reaction is a rare genetic abnormality). Obviously the Edema is not good, with words the doctor used of “worst case, possible optic nerve damage”. I was given lots of drugs to take to get the pressure down, and thankfully they kicked in and on the Thursday my vision had improved 100%. My followup appointment on the Friday indicated that everything was normal, and my pressure had fallen to 9 (my normal reading being 15 and 18) but another followup appointment next week will hopefully confirm everything is ok and my pressure will stabilise.

So, due to the above all form of training was out the window until after the appointment Friday and Sunday was my next available date to run, which I did and an easy paced 19km followed.

More good news, the profile for the Trail Marathon Wales is out and wow, does it look tough. Below is the race profile and as you can see, a lot of up!! 4821 feet of ascent (1470 meters), so any sense of doing it in a certain time is out the window, it will be a case of enjoying the views and just finishing, even if that is last.

They have a blog for the Trail Marathon Wales so if you fancy reading it, the link is here: http://tmwblog.com/

Incidently am taking the decision to switch to miles rather than km after Offa’s Orror next week as all the other events that I have booked are in miles, so it makes sense to make the change, and work on my pacing in min per mile.