What’s going on in the world of biking and running Alun?

Hello running fans.

My left foot continues to improve, but I’m sticking at 25 miles per week running at the moment, nothing longer than 13 miles, and the rest of the time is spent cycling – 70 to 100 miles a week. Now then, I ran the High Wycombe Half Marathon last Sunday. Due to my lack of long runs, the Brussels marathon is in some doubt, but my fitness levels felt good, so I thought I’d combine my two current exercise regimes in one day by biking to High Wycombe, running the Half then biking home.

Below is the route I devised, a thirty mile trip one-way along lovely quiet leafy roads, particularly early on the Sunday morning, or at least it was quiet until it hit West Wycombe when it becomes the nightmare that is the A40 for just a few miles.

The little road from Stanton St John to Worminghall is definitely amongst the quietest roads I’ve ever biked along – skirting the beautiful Bernwood Forest, Shabbington Wood and Hell Coppice. I say quiet, but it crosses the M40, so it’s out as far as sound recording locations goes. When out cycling these days, I’ve always got half an ear open for sound locations, and half an eye open for video locations – summer breezes wafting through treetops, fields of wheat, that sort of thing.

So I arrived in good time for the start, parked the bike, ate a marine oat bar (thanks Alec), made the outrageous decision to run in my cycling shorts and stood around about half way back from the start line. The sensible plan was to go round at training pace, perhaps speeding up a bit for the second half if I still felt good, and if the foot felt okay. Of course I just couldn’t resist the temptation to overtake people, and starting so far back there were quite a few people to overtake. After chatting to a few runners for a while, there was a sharp descent and I got a bit carried away. My legs certainly wouldn’t let me run sub 7 minute miles after that bike ride, but things went well enough for me to record a 1:39 time and not suffer too badly. At this point I was absolutely famished and ate my way through the generous goody bag handed out to finishers: mini mars bar, mini fruit bar, apple, along with the Mule bar, home made oat bars and banana that I’d brought myself. After a five minute stretch I jumped back on the bike and wove my way home. My legs pretty much gave up when I got to the Stanton St John hill climb, there was just nothing there!

Recovery – well that just consists of lots of food, water, and a bit more biking. Honestly, I really didn’t want to, but we ended up cycling another 8 miles in the evening, and another six or so the day after. They do say, they do, that a bit of light exercise is the best form of recovery from hard exercise, and I do reckon, I do, that it’s true. The principle is that it gets the blood moving through the damaged muscle tissues, helping repairs. However, I’m not sure what all this biking is doing for certain creative parts of my body, perhaps we will never find out.

I’ve now returned from a foot inspection at the physio and have been passed fit, although with instructions to strengthen my foot, which just means clenching your toes a lot through the day. Weak feet, bah, how many other stupid bits of my body do I have to exercise! I’m completely losing track of which exercise does what, grrr.

I’m going to attempt a longer run at last this coming weekend, and the biking mileage can reduce to sensible levels. It’s been fantastic while the weather was good, travelling along quiet country roads and covering so much more ground than you can with just your feet alone. I feel a lot more confident on a bike, though still unwilling to take it seriously as a sport, as it just might require too much kit or bike mending knowledge.

So after all this, the Brussels plan is still up in the air – I certainly won’t be aiming at a PB if I do run it, and then I’m still registered for the Snowdonia marathon at the end of October. In the meantime there are some 5k and 10k races around that I could target, and shock news, after six or so years I’ve finally joined a running club – the Headington Road Runners. The hope is that this’ll spur me on to greater effort for a year or so until I retreat to the lonely hills. Speaking of which, I’ve been reading of Arthur Machen again recently. Remember, fairies are not to be taken lightly.