London Or Bust

A year has nearly past since my last Blog post. A year that has seen me do most of my running on the black stuff.
The fells still cause me problems re the old injury but Ive not giving up on running the fells again.....yet.
This year Ive managed four fell races.
On New Years day I ran the 9 Standards fell race albeit still drunk from the night before! I soon sobered up.
In February I ran the High Cup Nick fell race in the afternoon after running Penrith Park run in the morning. Fairly pleased with my effort in this race but struggled a bit on the steeper climb up the Nick and ran out of battery near the end but that great feeling you get at the end of a fell race made it all worth while.
In June, two weeks after Windermere Marathon (more on that later) I ran the Kirkby Stephen Mountain Yomp.
 I really enjoyed this and ran comfortable most of the route. The wheels came off in the last 5 miles and the descent from 9 standards to the finish really hurt and aggravated my groin but finishing 3rd fastest on the day made it worth while. It also gave me some false confidence that I could maybe race harder on shorter fell races.
This I tested at Skiddaw fell race where every step on the descent was horribly painful.
Still 4 fell races this year is still 4 more then I managed in 2012!
I can still train a bit on the fells as long as a) don't go too far and b)  don't push too hard especially on the descents.

Skiddaw - never again?

Big feet...?

Most of my training is now getting done on my lunch break at work. I can normally get 5-7 good quality hard/fast miles in or a quality hill session.
The roads cause me much less pain on the old wounds. I seem to be able to run fairly comfortable without too much pain. It still hurts at times but is much more manageable.
When I was injured I said to myself IF I did get to the stage where I could run again I would try and run a marathon under 3 hours. I had only ran one marathon before and that was Loch Ness with very little training. I think my time was 3-16
I decided to enter London 2015 and told some running mates of my plan. The trouble with London is its a ballot so there's no guarantee of an entry and they recommended I try and get a good for age time at Windermere.  No problem there then - it was only 5 weeks away!!
Steve Angus, a veteran of marathons, assured me a sub 3-15 would be well in my capabilities thus insuring me of a place for London.
I ran 3-04 but the last 6 miles I faded badly. I finished 7th overall and got first V45 which meant getting my prize awarded to me by the great Joss Naylor. I cant begin to tell you how chuffed I felt.

Joss is on the right!!

I also ran two half marathons, Haweswater, 83 mins and Cumbriian Run 82 mins.

Haweswater Half

The rest of the year I trained with the idea of running the 2two autumn ten mile road races well.
Last weekend I ran the second one of these, Brampton to Carlisle in a PB time of 58-50.

I also running the XC races this year (badly) with the aim of them making me stronger. Ive noticed that I am much weaker without the hard fell miles so hopefully the XC will help.

So apart from a few Park-runs that's my year.
January will see my marathon training begin.

Anyone got any tips...?

PS Steve Angus is still UGLY and my old training buddy Stevie B is cycling daft now. More on these two inspirations in my future posts.