Week 9 – back to the slime

It is quite a challenge to fit a training schedule into a busy life.  With the weekend taken up with sorting out my mothers old flat, and a visit from my sister, I identified Friday morning to take two or three hours time off in lieu and hit the Coventry Way.  So with this my only chance of a long run this week I mustn’t let a bit of rain stop me.

I drive down to Stareton and find a place to park on a triangle of tarmac that looks as though it is not private in front of a cottage.  Stareton is an attractive little hamlet but just beyond it is the large UK headquarters of AGCO, the firm that took over Massey Ferguson.  It seems a strange location for such a large employer, generating loads of traffic on the fairly narrow roads.  I suppose with the National Agricultural Centre nearby someone had an idea about a cluster of agriculture related businesses in this area, but I just seems like a corporate building parachuted into the rolling Warwickshire countryside.

The run involves a short stretch on roads and then it’s off over the fields again.  After the ‘holiday on ice’ we are back where I started, slipping and sliding through mud.   Doing 12k on roads last week for the Not the Roman IX made me forget how much more difficult cross-country running is and I make slow progress. 

Soon I am crossing over a sheep field with such a profound ridge and furrow pattern in it that it’s virtually alpine.  Ahead there seems to be two styles set in the middle of nowhere, but as I approach I see that they take you over two electric fences, invisible from a distance. 

Crossing the road a sign on the field ahead warns me about the presence of a bull.  I am nervous, but note that the exit from the field is only about 20m away.  The bull is not in sight so I reckon I am safe.  Out of the bull field and I run a few meters along the side of another field of mud and now the route is sending me back into the bull field.  This time I have to cover another 100m looking over my shoulder and all the time working out escape routes in my head in case I hear the pounding of hooves. I could vault a barbed wire fence couldn’t I?

At Bubbenhall the route is convoluted, taking me round a deep disused quarry with a quantity of green duckweedy water in it.  I go down a road and then double back through a hedge before set off across another sheep field towards the church yard.  These twists and turns bit unnecessary but I guess if you cut them out it would not be 40 miles. 

After Bubbenhall the landscape seems to change significantly.  I am in big arable fields running along tractor tracks.  There are no kissing gates and styles as there is no need to keep animals in, just big hedge gaps through which the tractors can swerve.  

The last 100m or so is along a fenced muddy footpath which seems to have been undermined in several places by creatures (rabbits?) digging their homes in the middle of it.  In the final field before I turn back is a single sheep.  It stares at me and repeats a low bleat.  I am sure it is saying a single word over and over: “berk…berk…berk”.

At the Banbury Road, before the former Peugeot factory site, it is time to turn back. 

This week the remainder of map 5,  all of 6 and most of 7 completed

13.1k at a pace of 7:25 min/k  (slow!)

So far (almost) 7 maps completed:  25.75k

Week 8 - Not the Coventry Way

No progress on the Coventry Way this week as I ran the Not the Roman IX event today. The race is a delightful and well-run event over 12k of countryside South West of Stratford. Despite the lack of training I was pleased to record a time a couple of minutes faster than last year (1hr5mins). The first time I have managed to average less than 5 minutes 30 seconds per kilometre (8 mins per mile) in a proper event.
The course is gently undulating apart from one rather serious hill just before the half-way mark, but once you overcome that there is a lot of nice down-hills.
Good to complete 12k, need to push on to longer distances next week as I have a half-marathon booked for the end of February.
It occurred to me that it would be much better (at least for me) if running operated a handicap system similar to horse raising. If all the skinny supper-fit regular runners around me were force to carry weights so that they all weighted 99kg (nearly 16 stone) the same as me, I reckon I might win one of these events. Just a
thought.

Week 7 - Many rivers to cross

Well the good news is that totting up my running for 2009 I had done 927k, more than double my previous best of 395 in 2007.   The bad news is that I have not done much of that in the past month.

Saturday I am on the treadmill in the gym and struggling somewhat to do 4.5k.  I think the cold a few weeks back has not totally gone from my chest so breathing is difficult.  I head for a couple of sessions in the steam room to see if that will help.

Later I am staring at my training schedule and feeling bad that I have not run since Christmas Eve.  With the Not the Roman Nine 12k looming next Sunday, I feel I should shrug off my wintry wimpishness and get moving.   The weather and general busy-ness has been my excuse but it will not do.   I have seen other runners out in the ice and snow so it must be possible to brave the white stuff without ending up in A&E.

So as bit of a thaw sets in on Sunday with the temperature rising to a balmy 1°C I drive out to the Stoneleigh roundabout on the A46 to resume where I left off.  Not wanting to block any field entrances it is difficult to find a place to park but I notice a sort of informal lay-by on the Stoneleigh  Road.  So its right down the B4114 and then left across the fields to the back end of Stoneleigh.  My fears that it will be difficult underfoot soon fade.  In  fact with more snow around it is better than Christmas Eve.   Navigation is not difficult either with the waymarkers as usual appearing just where you need them.

Like Map 4 this section includes a few metres down alley between the two sets of back gardens and then crossing the Rive Sowe in full spate.  Its then up a hill via a slightly sunken and overhung path, which must be very pleasant in summer, but today is the part where its most difficult to stay upright.   After more snowy fields I am in to a wood with a bridge crossing what looks like a glorified puddle (the book says it may be dry) and then the River Avon, which, for all its importance further downstream, is the Sowe’s junior at this point.

At Stareton (where the phone box marked in my old book has gone) I decide to turn round. 

Going back is a lot quicker than coming out, partly because I know the way, but mainly because I do not have the same technology issues.  I am trying two lots of technology this afternoon: my old Garmin foot pod and watch, which bleeps at me when I go slower than 6 mins/k (which is quite a lot) and my new Nike+ foot bod which sends signals to my iPhone.  On the bridge over the River Avon I stop to take a photo and, putting the iPhone back in its sleeve, the music suddenly goes up to full volume and I get my ears blasted.  There is a lot of fiddling involved in getting it back to a tolerable volume.   I think I shall save the music for my city runs in future.

Checking the two rival systems, the Nike+ thinks I have gone half a kilometre futher than the Garmin, obviously some calibration issues here.  I will use the Garmin data as it will be consistent with my previous records.

This week Map 5 completed  (apart from the last K after Stareton). 

5.2k at a pace of 7:08 min/k  (would have been better without the technology stops)

So far 5 maps completed:  18.8k