I had a 4th session with www.sally-stubbs.com and worked out some more residual issues and i'm to report that a bbq, a breakfast at a cafe & a meal with Azja have all happened this week with no anxiety & lots of smiles!! Still work to do on confidence and thought pattern interruption but life is back in my control!
My July stats for running took a beating though when i broke my toe about 3 weeks ago, so i'm currently well under target for 1000 miles in 2014.
I haven't stopped training though, i dusted off the Merida Ride Lite 93 and hit the road for some cycling!
I hit a distance pb with my first ever 50 miler (previous best 30miles) followed by another 50 miler then a Strava segment smashing 30 miler earlier this week. After the 30 i was a bit concerned that it didn't feel like i'd really done much! Guess that's progress!
I threw a few small (1.5-3 mile) runs in but very steady and pretty painful on the toe until this week.
The day after the 30 miler on the bike i had agreed to meet my boss Byron (@byronodonnell88) and guide him up Skiddaw on a fell run. Skiddaw is one of the highest mountains in England, and the path is steep!
Having not ran for about 3 weeks i power hiked / ran the trail that runs around Latrigg upto the car park below Skiddaw in order to warm up and engage running muscles!
Surprisingly i was at the car park about a minute faster than usual!
We hit Jenkins path and the slog began! Consistently the slowest mile of the ascent, a zig zagging rock track up the mountain, my legs were failing fast! It rained a little and we donned jackets as the wind picked up a little too.
The jog upto the gate below Little Man felt a little easier than normal, but i knew my legs were toast from the climb up! The track around Little Man ascended into the cloud and visibilty dropped to about 15 yards, with the wind whipping our jackets around us.
Thankfully the cloud obscured the final climb to the summit plateau and we made good time. Once we reached the summit plateau however we were exposed to the full force of the wind, which in 3 years of fell running was the strongest i have ever encountered. The wind blew straight across the plateau and made running fairly difficult! We forced on to the summit proper and quickly took a few pictures and a ridiculous video! It was 6 minutes slower than my pb to the summit, but in the conditions, my lack of running & 30 miles on the bike the day before, i was pretty happy!
The descent is usually my forté as i am comfortable bombing face first down mountains but my toe was not happy! I had to reel it in a bit but took great pleasure in watching Byron gliding effortlessly down the fell.
I first ran with Byron about 6 months ago, he was new to running having been an avid MTB rider & basketball player before that. We ran around derwentwater at a conversational pace and i gave him a few pointers, told him to watch a few videos to help with form and as always we talked trainers!
He is now running several times a week and is really flying, his form has changed to a forefoot strike and his footsteps are light and quick. He has been truly bitten by the running bug and our runs now are constantly faster paced ( i'm buggered most of the time!!) and always talking about form, exercises to improve this or that, and future run plans and routes!
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