Record of this week's training

Fartlek
Tuesday was the pleasantly-titled 'Fartlek' or 'speed play' session with the OURC. I am not sure whether what we do on a Tuesday is technically fartlek or more properly 'intervals', but we did a set of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 along a 10 k route, with variously timed recoveries. I was pleased with the training - I felt much stronger than the previous week (when I'd also been fighting nausea from a very heavy weekend).

I was able to keep up with some of the faster ones, but I wasn't very consistent. I tended to start off slowly and then try hard in the last minute. It's a good route that we do, with plenty to look at - part of Willen lake and the 'enchanted forest' by the Ouzel on the way back.

Intervals
Today was the (as Mark would put it) murderous 800 m intervals around Woughton Campus field. We had to do eight of these, with sixty-second recoveries. Boy, it was tough. Our first splits were 3 mins, and then 2.58, but then we slipped to 3.05. After that it was very difficult to keep below 3.10. My legs felt very heavy, but the lungs were (relatively) fine. I have so much fitness to build up before December 13, let alone for the London Marathon on April 25. On reflection I think the short recoveries and the sponginess of the grass make this session very hard. It's also much more monotonous. But I feel pleased to have got through it in reasonable splits, and running on grass (if flat) is better training than running on the road for Calderdale.

My last session of the week will be hill running with Leah in the Brickhills - which should do a slightly better job of emulating the hills of Calderdale. We'll try for 1 hour 30 mins I should think - running up and down as many horrible hills we can find.

Hill run
This was much more fun than the relentless field intervals. Leah called for me on Sunday pm and drove us to the woods - Milton Keynes's adult playground (the car park is packed, even early in the morning, with the cars of walkers, runners, mountain bikers, and people who do 'cross-country theatre' in capes and masks, with sticks). Somehow we managed to avoid a deluge and caught the last of the afternoon's yellow sun. Leah took us on a circuit which involved a variety of hills, and we practised splurging through mud without caution, and running downhill over leaves (which can be tricky as you don't know what tree roots etc lurk underneath them).

As we were running, we saw four or five fantastic fly agaric in full bloom, which gleamed out, wet and jelly-like, from plump cushions of brown leaves.

Once we'd done the circuit, we ran over to do the biggest hill we could find - which basically takes you from the level of the road up to the top of the Brickhill Woods mound. We ran down the whole thing, and then ran up. It was terrible - and once again, Leah (despite her week of gruelling training) was way ahead of me. Still, I ran the whole thing and recovered quickly, which is the best I can hope for I guess. Ahh - I'm looking forward to feeling strong in the legs again ... wonder how long it will take.

As I was running I was wondering how Brickhill Woods formed, geologically speaking. Why this lump in the middle of all this flat? Why all the sand, with occasional patches of clay? Is the thing that my friend Hannah found there, a few months ago, a fossil ammonite? I am hopefully about to find out as I'm going to a talk on Milton Keynes's geology tomorrow at Milton Keynes Natural History Society (which I have just joined). This should mesh nicely with my work on Exploring Science (The Open University's Level 1 Science Course). I've just read Book 2 (Earth and Space) which covers some basic geology.