Saturday means Lyme Park – or at least that’s my plan now. I want to try to do this hilly run each Saturday before Sunday’s long run.
My newly clipped running partner clearly felt much better for shedding so much extra weight and left me standing at every turn, climb, descent – in fact just about everywhere. I’d calculate that she covers twice the distance that I do and every run’s a fartlek for her. Impressive.
Very exhilarating run today. I felt completely energised when we got back to the car. The weather was fantastic, the scenery as beautiful as ever and the pace, perfect.
6m | 1:00:47 | 10:19 | 165bpm | Hilly Run
Peter's Hill
On this particular hot and humid Saturday afternoon few sounds proved more appealing than a dog barking.
You may have seen references in my tweets and elsewhere on the blog to Peter’s Hill. This is the name given to a soul-destroying climb up to the isolated house which overlooks beautiful Lyme Park. It’s not really called Peter’s Hill, but we named it after the home of Buffy’s dog trainer which you can just make out – centre horizon – on the photo (left). The shot is taken about one mile into the run and the climb is much steeper than this photo would have you believe.
The increasing clarity of cheerful dog barking as I neared the summit today was such a welcome sound. If the excited shouts of “good boy!”, “well done!” and claps of appreciation weren’t intended for me, I didn’t care. I’d take the praise anyway.
I guess it was the heat and the fact that coat clipping is overdue, but even Buffy looked a little worse for wear as we approached the fifth mile and final ascent – yet another steep one. What was I saying about Cheshire being as flat as East Anglia?
I am not in the least bit concerned about the pace or heart rate on this run. It was warm, it was hilly, it was a challenge. It was great fun!
6m | 1:03:54 | 10:46 | 166bmp | Hills
5.95m | 59:43 | 10:09 | 165bpm
Another lovely afternoon in Lyme Park – really enjoyable (but hard work!). That climb up to Peter’s just doesn’t get any easier. I never pay any attention to pace on this run. The hills are challenge enough, so I’m not concerned about how fast (or slow) I’m running.
I think Lyme Park is one of my favourite places. Get half a mile from the house and car park and it really is a place of tranquility and escapism (and so close to such a huge conurbation of South Manchester.
MotionBased – bad news is that Garmin hasn’t got any better since I last gave up on them. They should have launched Garmin Connect for Forerunner 305 (subscription paying) customers over a year ago and it’s still not live. Worse still, I’ve tried three times today to upload my data and the site keeps kicking me out. (Server overloaded.)
