Short Shorts Running

 When I thought about writing this post I was hoping it would be about how racing had started to resume and the effectiveness of the new measures in making it as safe as possible. Unfortunately the UK is now in another lockdown but I think the measures taken at this time made for a safe feeling environment which kept the racing atmosphere and spirit as much as possible and I have nothing but praise for the organisers for this. After a sizeable amount of training just to keep the ball rolling with my 2 summer goal races getting cancelled I managed to get some more specific training in with the local club. At this point I should add that after moving house just before lockdown one this was affectively all new people to me but Its seems like we all ran well this weekend over the different distances we attempted. The Thoresby 10k is a trail race around the Hall and its grounds one lap being the 10k course and 2 slightly extended laps creating a half marathon option. I took part in the 10k

With races all over the UK being cancelled many events have been giving out route .gpx files in or for people to run the events virtually. I have been using this as an excuse to scout out race routes with a view to hopefully racing them next year. The peaks skyline is a race on my radar a classic peak district 50k with a notoriously tough cut-off time. In this case I decided to scout out the more manageable half route which is just over the half marathon distance with 800+m of elevation change. The route starts close to Poole Caverns in Buxton and heads up the short climb through the woods up to Solomon's Temple. Heading back through the woods I was a bit complacent and managed to trip on a root sending myself tumbling leaving myself a bit bruised and shaken up but so early into the route I didn't want to call it a day there so carried on regardless just took it a little easier after a short break. The course proceeds to climb out of Buxton through Burbage and head

I was spending a weekend in the Lake District and looking for an easy to access and relatively short morning run to squeeze in around seeing friends and family. The Fairfield Horseshoe from Ambleside is a classic hiking route its 10miles long but boasts roughly 1000m of elevation. It seemed a perfect training route to see how much the climbing legs had gone over the course of the pandemic. View back to Ambleside from Nab Scar I started early in the morning from the main car park in Ambleside and headed along the road in the direction of Rydal. The aim was to run the loop in the clockwise direction before it got too busy. The road and early flat section served as a perfect warm up. The steepest part of the climb was the early on climbing up to Nab Scar the first peak. From here the climbs to the other peaks along the top of the ridge line were all relatively steady and by no means technical. Upon reaching Fairfield peak you will have done almost all the climbing on the route and be bles