Day 332
Precious little sleep – train/road travel to Balmoral – meet and greet and six mile run on trail, with hills
The run up to Queen Victoria's pyramid high in the Cairngorms was a mere assessment of our running fitness. We're in four groups, arranged according to 10K pbs, so a couple of blokes who are 40min merchants are on their own a little ahead of us. The softly spoken and reassuring Neil Stewart, who organises these running weekends, assures us that we'd be wise to run conservatively today, to refrain from rushing off to try to prove our speed, only to be defeated by the hills we encounter on this trail. Our group is led by two fit middle aged women, one of whom is a hardy little fell runner. Despite Neil's advice I am most concerned not to be the last runner in our particular group, to suffer potential ignominy of being bumped down to the slower team. Fortunately, I acquit myself well, and stay with the first four, so have earned my stripes.
As if to compound the folly of setting out too fast, as if there's something to prove, we're treated to a talk on best endurance practice after the run and tea-and-cakes break with the extremely able Fraser Clyne (2:11 marathoner), whose advice I heed with interest. He suggests it's not miles on your feet, or even time on your feet, but it's the ability to endure on tired feet. Progression is a buzz word that chimes with me. Fraser says if you train for miles and miles and become so fatigued that there's no prgression, only steadily accumulating tiredness, your PB hopes are scuppered before you even begin.
The advice (from Fraser) I am going to act on next weekend is to replace that tedious Sunday Long Slow Run with two consecutive days of running 13 miles at marathon pace, all the way (which of course adds up to a marathon), and works on testing those tired legs, and subtly progressing their potential for endurance.
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