Is This An Alien Invasion?

The Landing!
They're here!

Hello blog lovers.

What a day!  A beautiful morning then a foggy evening!  Well, lets get the morning run sorted first.  We It was a chilly morning, well it is November I guess it's allowed to be!  DiscoRich was there with his group, along with two of the graduates!  And I also had a graduate with me.  There was only 3 of us this morning, me, Hilary and Viv.  Viv is one of our new graduates, and her daughter was running in DiscoRich's group.

I really missed running through the woods last week, and I was hoping that the rain from last week hadn't made it 'unpassable' in the woods.  I remember earlier in the year, the puddles were huge and very deep.  lakes appeared in sparrow woods, we were really looking for the 'big boat' being built but the 'crazy' man!  There was only one way to find out and that was to go through the woods.

But I was being sensible, we went straight up the middle path of the woods.  It was a bit sticky, but for some reason the National Trust have decided to stick to the 'natural look' of the woods and not slap tarmac paths in there, still, it's a good job I don't mind a bit of mud! I just hope the other two don't mind.

Hilary is suffering with a sore knee, but just like all us runners, refuses to give in to pain! We just do things a little more slowly for a little less distance! Simples. It's like we are from another planet, we don't do pain, not like these earthlings!  We got to the top of the woods and had a bit of a walk.  I think stopping completely is not good now, not with the weather getting a bit colder.  So we just walk for a little bit and then started running again.

We got all the way up to the Tigers Head and then Hilary's knee started to play up a bit, We were about half way into our run.  So we just slowed the pace down a bit and then I decided to do some loop backs with Viv, just so that we kept up our heart rates while Hilary had some more recovery time between her jog/walk.  It worked out brilliantly.  We also decided to run down Birchwood on the pavement instead of finishing off in the woods as viv could get a bit of a faster run all the way back to the rec.  But as with all our members, whether they are new or been there in the beginning, instead off making her way back to the rec and finishing by herself, she looped back to me and Hilary and we all finished the last bit together!

Perfect run in glorious sunshine.  I took a picture of the two ladies in Scadbury, and also one of the sunlight reaching into the woods.  So gorgeous

Viv and Hilary

Hazy morning

Geeky stats.

Track Session

Track session was tough! It has to be because it's designed to be!  I am beginning to really come to enjoy these sessions! It's training in a contained environment.  We are not out in the woods, or on the streets, so there is no waiting for catch ups, (well I did make them wait for me but I will explain in a mo).  So even little ol' me in group 1 can run along beside the group 2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8's, although I am not sure how many groups are represented in these track sessions.  

I picked up Jane on the way and we got out of my nice warm car and 'Brrrrrrrrr' "Totally craziness" or words to that effect!  It was very chilly, and the mist was started to settle around the track.  We met up with all the others and then to keep warm we did a couple of very slow laps of the track.  Then we did our warm up drills before starting our session today.

Run to the light Jane!

Somebody had mentioned that the sessions posted would be quite quick, meaning that we will be finished early.  So PhysioMike decided to add a 4 lap tempo run before we did the advertised session!  Remind me to glare at Kev next time I see him!  Still, as I said before, track is all about hard work!  we started on our 4 lap tempo run, running to a 5k pace, so for me that's slow and for the rest of the world is speedy!  

People were buzzing past me, as I was coming up the last 100m to the finish line for the end of my third lap the rest of the group had finished the forth and was just waiting for me so that they could start the session! Now you see why I said that I made them wait!  But did I get a breather before we started the hard training plan for this evening? Yes......just enough time to get my jacket off!  As soon as I hung it over the rail PhysioMike blew his whistle to start the hard running.

The session today was five lots of 90 seconds hard n fast running, with an ever decreasing time of gentle recovery jog, starting at 90 seconds going down to 15!  With a 4 minute break, jogging, (which I didn't do, I grabbed my water and rested!) And then repeat! All sounds pretty easy on paper!  But trying to get it done!  

I really tried hard on first section, but I kept stopping and walking when I should have been running hard, but only on the last few seconds of the 'run hard' section.  I was really annoyed myself.  So when the second section started I gave myself a good 'telling' but the first two I stopped again, just seconds before the whistle.  So I started chatting to myself, "Get a move on, Old Girl, keep going, don't stop"  I even did the thigh slap thing, worthy of any pantomime principal boy!  And that last part of the training I kept to it, to the letter!  I was pleased with myself!

With just a very slow jog round to loosen up and then cool down stretches the track session was done! As I was approaching the group to finish of with the cool down stretches the sight in front of me reminded me of a brilliant Speilburg film.  I am starting to thing that us runners are from another planet, what do you think!

We come in peace! 

Geeky stats.