A New Year Update

Hi guys & girls. It's been a while since I posted here, not that a lot has happened before Christmas but the activities are beginning to pick up now.

The four weeks before Christmas I picked up a bug which gave me a tight chest and cough. Once I thought I was over the worst of it I tried to go for a short run but only got as far as the bottom of my street before I began coughing again. So my first run was parkrun in Cardiff on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year. That was when I discovered how much fitness I had lost over those few weeks. I had also put on about 6 lbs in weight and felt heavy, bloated and sluggish. It was horrible! Since then I have been out on a few runs and my fitness is returning but, I seriously need to lose a few pounds.

On January 12th, club mate Michelle and I headed off to the Afan Forest, just north of Port Talbot for the Tough Runner Buff 10k trail, a race we both did last year.

The final few steps up "The Wall"

This isn't a technical course particularly as most of the route is on forestry fire tracks, but right from the start we had a 1.5 mile long hill to climb. Then right at the end is what I nick named hernia hill, or others called it tourette's hill, but Tough Runner call, The Wall! Oh the pain of it!

When Michelle and I initially spoke about doing the Buff race, she had already booked the Bath Skyline 10k trail which was starting at 6 PM on the same day, it was then that Michelle suggested we run both races. I thought about this for a moment and said yes, what the hell, lets go for it, and that is what we did.

Michelle & me

We managed to persuade a few others from Caerleon RC to join us and a few of us even booked a hotel in Bath so that after the race we could get some food and a few beers and make a bit of a social day and evening of it.

The Bath Skyline begins at the university and is two, 5km laps. I ran with Michelle and I was fine for the first lap but, half way around the second lap I just ran out of energy, my lack of fitness still showing. By the time I finished my quads felt like they were burning up and I was so glad to get to my hotel room and have a hot shower, then it was on to Wetherspoons for food and beer.

The Bath Skyline crew

All in all if was a good day, but I would have felt better about running two 10km races had my fitness levels been better.

Saturday 20th of January and I made an early start to drive to the NEC in Birmingham for the National Running Show. I had arrived before the doors opened at 9 AM as I had a list of speakers I wanted to see. There were Olympic athletes speaking such as Roger Black, British 400m champion, Jo Pavey, British 10,000m champion and Iwan Thomas, British 400m champion. Also Ben Smith of the 401 challenge, who ran 401 marathons in 401 days. Then there was one of my favourites, Claire Maxted, otherwise known as the Wild Ginger Runner who spoke about her DNF at the Cape Wrath Ultra.

Me with Claire Maxted

This was a fantastic show over two days, although I only went for the one day but, I will definitely go again next year. Many running equipment/clothing/shoe manufacturers were there trying to sell their wares, and in fact I did buy a new pair of Hoka One Clifton 5 road shoes and Hoka One Challenger ATR 5 trail shoes. My Salomon Speedcross 4 shoes are great for cross countries and more technical courses where the ground is soft and/or muddy, but the deep lugs on the out sole are a bit aggressive for many of the forestry fire tracks I run on, or drier courses in the summer, so these shoes hopefully will be better.

Although many manufacturers were there, there were two who were noticeably absent, Salomon and Inov8. I would dearly have loved to have seen them there showing off their wares. Hopefully they will go next year eh?


I also bought some Runderwear
and Feetures plantar fasciitis socks.


I shall be featuring these in a future gear test, once I have given these a thorough workout over the next few weeks.

So what is next? Well, on Sunday 27th January I am running a local race, the Lliswerry 8, an 8 mile race on a route that is as flat as they come. In contrast on the 9th February I am running in the Tough Runner Hoka One trail half marathon, which has another 1.5 mile hill at the beginning and a hill at the end known as, The Wall! Will I see you there?