Bredon hill - 25mile slog

It was an early start the dulcet tones of the alarm rang at 4.25am
As I had every thing ready I was out the door at 4.40am

Jack Frost had been busy - brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

You can see Bredon Hill virtually as soon as I come out my front door and it seemed a long way off with the 2 red lights shining on the top.

Well it was head down and churn the miles up, trouble is the hill does not seem to get any closer.

2.5 miles in the first biggish hill coming out of Badsey completed with out breaking sweat.

At 7 miles the next hill loomed which was at sedgeberrow the old pins seemed to struggle a little, slight alarm bells at this point.

9.5 miles in Bredon hill was reached at Ashton in 1hr 25, a quick energy gel and away up the hill I went.

It soon became apparent that today was going to be a battle of the wills, my ham strings were giving me real grief on all the up hill sections. The hill stands at 995Ft high and the first mile must climb between 700 - 800ft so certainly a test.

Having safely negotiated the first mile it was fairly easy going to the top from there still a steady ascent though.

Once at the top it was a quick turn around and I was heading back, slipping on the sheep poo and get wet feet from the long grass.

To be honest I was glad to get off the Hill which is unusual as I really love running this Hill as I have had a great affiliation to it from an early age, some of my fondest memories of Christmas is climbing the hill on boxing day as a family.

But I digress.

I still had 9.5miles left I had been struggling with the dreaded lack of energy in my legs every step I took was a struggle to lift my legs.

Hey ho its these runs were you think you know your limits but some how you push on and find the resources from somewhere deep within.

I broke the remaining run up into different phases and sub sections in my head and mentally ticked them off in my head as I completed each section

There were a couple of stiffish climbs which almost broke the old resolve but I vowed not to walk.

The sign saying welcome to Bretforton has never looked so inviting when I finally did finish I had completed the run around 6 minutes faster than my previous venture out on this route a couple of weeks ago.

So all in a successful run complete and now feeling quietly chuffed with the end result.

Now to spend the day controlling (I mean amusing of course) the kids!!!!

first post

The first post is really to introduce where I am at in life.

I am married with a wonderful wife and 4 great children.

My life is very full looking after kids so there is not much spare time.

What spare time I do get I have chsen a hobby/sport which demands that you are time rich, this pursuit is running - not just running but Ultra running.

There has to be a trade off between balancing a happy stable family life and pursuing my chosen sport fully.

Hence I do a lot of my running very early in the mornings. The average wake up time for my weekend runs is around 4am.

I think the earliest I have got up is 1.30am in order to fit in  a 7 hour run.

I am currently ramping up my milage to get to a weekly average of 50miles/week.

My week consists of

sun morn - 20 - 30 miles
mon night- run home from work 8 miles
tue morn - run into work 10 - 16 miles
thur morn - run to work 10 - 16 miles
thur night  - run up bredon 7miles (or run home 6 miles)

This does vary as I have to be fairly flexible for family life.

Enough of me - Why have I set this blog up well...................

We are embarking on a family adventure to live and eat healthier. This is a total life style change (hopefully for the better).

We have enlisted the help of a PT who comes highly reccomended, he has cleaned our cupboards out of all the rubbish food, and we have filled it with good clean wholesome food.

Part of this adventure envolves supporting Anna in her endeavour to adjust to this lifestyle. For me it is fairly easy as I have my experience from running to draw on and help me through. But for Anna this is a new experience, hopefully an enjoyable one. We are over a week into the adventure and I must say this is the most focused I have seen her. She seems to have a determination to succeed, also I think having a PT on board really helps as it is an external focus which she feels she does not want to let down.

So this is my place to ramble on about life hopefully write down my thoughts on life,different runs and races I enter.

Tommorrow is a 25mile run including Bredon.....................