B.Croft's Blog: July 2011

Friday 29 July 2011

Wheelock to Anderton Boat Lift

4 hours 42 minutes with a diversion!

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Sunday 24 July 2011

Weekly Progress

Run

Covered 4.90 miles (2 runs so will fit in an extra one next week)

Personal Bests:

Cloud 48 minutes 41 seconds

3 miles 44 minutes 30 seconds

5km 46 minutes 55 seconds

Bike

Fastest 8km 10 minutes 17 seconds

Tried HIIT; slowly getting used to it. Need to add some extra high intensity intervals to beat the 10 minute mark J

No distance bike this week, will see how far I cover in an hour next week.

Walk

Covered 17.98 miles

Ettiley Heath in Sandbach to Kidsgrove station took just over 2 hours. So approx 6 miles of the Trent and Mersey Canal covered.

Mow Cop Castle on horizon

1/5^th of The Cheshire Ring walked.

Friday 22 July 2011

Finding Endomondo really useful to track my training on a weekly and monthly basis. Will do a weekly update on Sundays as need to do one more run tomorrow and another walk planned. Endomondo weeks run from Monday to Sunday.

Run
June total: 2.75 miles
July so far: 8.12 miles

Bike
June fastest 8k: 10 minutes 31 seconds
July so far 8k: 10 minutes 11 seconds

Walk
June total: 33.75 miles
July so far: 14.60 miles

Signed up to the Calorie Challenge by Polar on Endomondo, there's 20,257 participants. I'm currently 13,031st!! Let's see where I can get to by the end of July.

So weeks stats on Sunday which include 3 new Personal Bests :-)

Wednesday 20 July 2011

New Cloud Time

48 minutes 41 seconds.

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Started So I'll Finish

Alarm set early today but re-set! After breakfast was off out to go for a run and walk.

Decided to go back to beginning of running 10k after 10 weeks training due to last weeks illness and general laziness!! Eleven weeks on Saturday till I hit 40 so with a week off for a visit to Brighton, just enough time to train!

Planned route was Biddulph Valley Way onto canal to cover parts I missed when I walked from Kidsgrove to Congleton. Along with Macclesfield to Congleton. After that see where I ended up!

G done you a video on how to easily! get onto the canal to get to The Cloud. After running it looks like a dog! borrowed my phone too! on Endomondo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=064QPgmothc

Today's run consisted of 4 lots of 3 minutes running then 2 minutes walking. So 20 minutes had covered 2.82km.

Carried on walking along the canal and cut down by Astbury Golf Course before changing my mind! and did a U-turn.

Back on the canal until the bridge at Peel Lane. Bit of tarmac then spotting footpath sign so off the busy road and was cutting across farmers fields.

Astbury Church spire on horizon

Met Lamberts Lane which I followed for a bit before turning off onto Stony Lane. Along Stony Lane then followed the sign posts for Congleton. Ended up in Priestley Fields.

Having walked from both Kidsgrove and Macclesfield to Congleton I've covered 16 miles of the Macclesfield Canal. Need to walk from Macclesfield to Marple before covering its entirety.

Looking further into it I've walked part of The Cheshire Ring Canal Walk. The Cheshire Ring is approximately 97 miles in length and made up of 6 canals:

Rochdale Canal
Bridgewater Canal
Trent and Mersey Canal
Macclesfield Canal
Peak Forest Canal
Ashton Canal

Done a graph to show progress to date:

Friday 15 July 2011

Weekly Progress

This week started off good! Enjoyed my run on Monday morning; very pleased with time for 28k on the bike on Tuesday. No walk but plenty of time to think about future walks. Next post will reveal details!!

Tuesday evening is when I started to feel bad!! Came down with a nasty bug/virus. More symptoms than times exercised this week! Just a bit of a head cold now, energy coming back so back to it all next week.

Run
Monday's run was along the Biddulph Valley Way.

Covered 2.09miles in 24 minutes and 8 seconds.

Cheshire East Council own and manage a 3.2km/2 mile length of The Biddulph Valley Way from just outside Congleton town centre to the county border. The route then continues into Staffordshire for a further 6.4km/4 miles finishing south of Biddulph.

Above taken from Cheshire East website. Looking at the total distance covered it's a possible future 10k run.

Click on the link below and you'll get full details on the Biddulph Valley Way along with the Wheelock Rail Trail which I'll cover in a future post. Dobby take note!!!

http://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/leisure,_culture_and_tourism/ranger_service/countryside_sites/congleton_area.aspx

Bike
Slowly pedalling my way to cover 53k in one ride! After reading Ralph Fiennes, "Fit For Life" I decided to raise the seat on my exercise bike. Increased height seems to allow me to pedal faster than previous, shall see next time I cover 8k!

26k took 52 minutes 51 seconds.
28k took 49 minutes 10 seconds.

Three minutes faster ain't bad!

Walk
No walk but time spent studying satellite view on Google Maps for possible paths around Congleton. Checking the OS Map I've found paths and bridleways I never knew existed!

Nice to see G out using Endomondo Tuesday evening. Just need to watch out for dogs nicking your iPhone lol.

Sunday 10 July 2011

3.36k Run

In 24 minutes today.

Crossed into Staffordshire, and spotted a heron by the river on way back.

Nother stich from outside. No pain no gain!

Saturday 9 July 2011

Slacker!!

Started to draft this entry on Thursday.

As G has mentioned my blog has stood still!! (Last Tuesday was my last entry)

Since then I've not been putting in enough training as I would have liked. Idea is to run 3 times a week in addition to my weights. Walking too if body or feet didn't feel tired!

Run

Thursday 30th June

Last Thursday Dobby and I went for a run/walk up The Cloud. Car was parked just down from Acorn Lane. Sun was out and it was a pleasant summers evening. We both said at the top we started off a little too fast running along Gosberryhole Lane. Reaching the National Trust sign was a nice relief to catch my breath as we walked for a bit.

At the point where you decide which of the 3 ways to the top you want to take, the running commenced again. Took the left path to the top. Got about two thirds along the section to the trig and I had to stop again!

So with two sections of running and two walking we covered a mile in 15 minutes 31 seconds.

As my challenge is 3 miles, simple! maths would say it'll take approx 45 minutes in total. Walking it took 53 minutes, so combination of running and walking is faster!!!

In the coming weeks I'll time how long it takes to do the other 2 miles of the course broken down into mile sections (first mile is from the start to the canal; second is from canal to top of Acorn Lane).

Let's see if all 3 sections do tally to 45 minutes?! I'm aware it's not a flat course!

Had good intentions of running at the weekend but re-set my alarm and went back to sleep!!

Saturday 9th July

Should have done 2 runs this week, but straight to an easy run for 20 minutes.

That’s what the plan was! Up around 6am and was walking through an empty Congleton Park.

Congleton Park 6:30am

Still not learnt from walking about wearing too many layers when I set off! Weather initially was cloudy so had my shell on! Also on the previous run we had set off at too fast a pace.

So once again my pace was too fast! Didn't have my heart rate monitor on but could easily hear my breathing so knew I wasn't running at an easy pace. Say it was either a steady pace or possibly a hard pace!! Find it hard to

Passed a lady walking 3 dogs along the way and managed to say morning!

Knew I'd be better without the shell on but didn't want to stop! so kept going. Soon approached the turn off to the canal. Looked at my watch and knew still had a while to go before 20 minutes was up. So crossed over the canal and through a small wooded section.

It was now time to take my shell off, once in rucksack I set off again. Carried on along the field but not for long!!

My body now told me it was time to stop for a proper breath!!

So after 13 minutes and 5 seconds I'd covered 1.14 miles.

Hadn't been able to keep going for the full 20 minutes but was pleased to cover the first mile of the challenge course. It took 11 minutes and 10 seconds.

Rather than walking up The Cloud I decided to head home via the canal.

Decided to snap a pic of one of the trees in the small wooded section after the canal bridge. As you can see something's been eating away at it!!

The canal paths were nice and muddy from all the previous rain we've been having.

As it was still fairly early the sun was still rising.

Stopped at the Co-op which hadn't been open for long and bought a nicely chilled Strawberry Yop drink, very nice indeed!!

Bike

Monday

Monday was a good day for training to do 53k in one session! Have done a few 20ks at different resistance levels on my bike I've decided to use level 2.

Plan is to add 2k each week to gradually build up the distance and amount of time on the bike to reach my goal!!

So Monday I did 26k in 52 minutes 51 seconds.

Simple maths example two!! It should take under 2 hours to cover 53k.

Thursday

On Thursday bike training switched to the shorter distance of 8k using resistance level 1.

Last week took 10 minutes 31 seconds.

This week took 10 minutes, guess how many seconds?!!........ 11 seconds.

So pleased with a 20 second improvement (did find towards the end being motivated by remaining time to go quicker!!)

Overview

Bike training is going well, running not so! No walking last week too! Definitely been a Slacker!!

So from next week going to change training week around a bit to motivate myself.

Will get up early doors Monday, Wednesday and Friday to go running and do the weights in the afternoon.

Then Tuesday and Thursday continue with the 53k training and 8k training.

Gives me weekends to recover and walk if the mood takes me!!

Will try to get in to doing a weekly summary each Friday to note my progress!

Friday 8 July 2011

M for MAGNA

Today I enjoyed a day out with family at Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham.

http://www.visitmagna.co.uk/

Thanks to my sister who used some of her Tesco's vouchers for all of us to get in. On the way over it seemed Sunday drivers were out two days early!

We got stuck behind an old couple in their silver car to match their silver hair! on the bad bends on the way to Buxton.

The Science Centre is split into 4 main areas based on: earth, air, fire and water. Outside for kids is an outdoor water play area. When we came out school kids were quite! happy getting wet under the fountains etc in their uniforms.

Before we went in I discovered a new long distance footpath/trail - Trans Pennine Trail.