Christmas Fresh Air and Snack

After opening a leisurely breakfast and watching the kids open their presents and play with them including taking one 2 year old bear and one almost 4 year old wolf off to the hard courts for a cycle, it was my chance to get a little fresh air and recce a planned route for the summer.

The route is from Hathersage and follows what will be a new cycle path to Hope however it turns off at the garden centre and follows the old railway line up to the Ladybower Dam and round the northern finger past Fairholmes.

A great route and traffic free once off the Hope-Hathersage Road. The route nears 28k and once the addition of the Howden and Derwent is added this should bring it out at approximately 42k. A route I am really looking forward to doing probably mid week when its not too busy.

Check out the Christmas snack I had on return. Whats that only a couple of hours until the Turkey. Great, just time for a shower!

Donation Dilemmas

Okay, so the main event is about raising some cash for the Burns Unit next year. The problem is 40 marathons is a wad of cash! Marathons and Ultras in this country range from £10 up to whatever some idiots are prepared to pay for. So lets say even on picking low key at about £20, it means giving £800 to race organisers and not to the cause. Thats not even taking into account accommodation, travel and kit etc. What's the point of raising hopefully 5 to £600 if I've given more to someone else. Daft. Solution? Strip out some races especially the bigger expensive ones instead to be local runs or interesting runs not too far away. Therefore many of the runs noted are around the £10 mark and local or where I have been given free entry, or stunning point to point or circular experiences. That way there is also controllability depending on weekend commitments, weather situations or injury. Bring it on..  80 days to go..

Time to lose the shorts

First the daylight, then the dry weather. Now the temperature. Knees don't like the cold and tights feel weird. Bring on the solstice and the beginning of the end of winter! Well sort of....

Turkey Trot Trotted

Run completed, having not run well for the last few weeks. Happy to plod round and go for a comfy negative split. Again the weather was good. It was slightly slippery all the way round which was annoying.

Its a great course as you can see from the profile it starts with a mild climb and then straight into a long descent until just over 4k then you hit the wall! Its hard to hold back on it but fun to fly past people later on after they have cained it up. Ha. Good to be back on the course. But I think I have lost a minute for every year since I last did it!

Well done to the boys who won their Turkeys and the local posse who I ran the last bit with.

Keen to get back to longer runs.