Time for a spot of dirty fun

Last Sunday was the Sodbury Slog, 9 miles or so of extreme squelchery with a little running thrown in for good measure.

It wasn't the muddiest of years, but it was enough to be entertaining. I'm not so sad as to have run it on heart rate, but an average of 154 was pretty good. The sun shone, the temperature was clement, the queues at the signature obstacles were minimal, the showers were cold...and the pizza and company afterwards were excellent.

Two Pirates in a bar; one says to the other 'your round'; the other replies 'so are you, you fat bastard!'...1/4lb off this week, still looking a little rotund in the photo. Pace for HR is improving though; 2:10 off my 10k cross-country route, meaning I've taken almost 11 minutes off since the end of September.

Base training is still working and I'm on course for being as good as I was by Christmas.



Not that my blog has a Dave obsession...

Just thought I'd share this with all Daves out there. More power to your, er, elbow.

Just a minute...

A bloke walks into a bar with a newt on his shoulder.
'A pint of lager for me and a half for Tiny, please' he says, pointing to the newt.
'Why do you call him Tiny?' asks the barman
'Because he's my newt.'

And that's the snag with all this heartrate-based training; the improvements from day to day are minute...so it's good to look back through the training log to see if things are getting better.

Today I ran just under seven miles cross country at an average HR of 147 for 10:39 min miling; five weeks ago, I ran the easier 6.25 mile version of the same route (it includes a short road section rather than a longer off-road route) at an average HR of 150 for 11:42 min miling.

63 seconds a mile faster for an average HR 3 BPM lower in 5 weeks; I'm pleased to report that training still works.