Winter Virtual Ultra (Days 3-5)

Sunday 13 December; Day 3/12; 29.3/89 miles completed (7.6 today)

Sunday morning and Mick was scheduled for a 9 mile run. I had initially thought I would join him, but it had become apparent that if I was going to keep my heart rate at a sensible level, our paces were not going to be well matched (by this point my heart rate was notably higher than normal for the pace I was doing – the cost of the abnormally high load with a lack of adequate recovery in between runs). I’d set the alarm for 6am, so that we could avoid the rain that was due to arrive at 10am, yet over bananas and cups of tea we could hear it pattering down. Mick gave thought to deferring until Monday, but I didn’t have that option and in the end Mick headed out the door, into the dark wet morning, with me.

My Garmin has not been impressed by my training load lately. It would like me to stay in the green zone.

We both had waterproof jackets on (indeed, we were Howard & Hilda in matching jackets and tights), but by 6 miles I was wet through and not moving fast enough to keep warm. I took the shortest route home from there (whilst Mick continued on to complete his longer distance) and within 2 minutes of walking through the door I had the shower running. It was a quick shower, such was my urgent need for a hot bowl of porridge, but by the time I’d had both I was warm again and I set about spending the rest of the day doing precisely nothing physical.   

Monday 14 December; Day 4/12; 36.7/89 miles completed (7.3 today)

Negative point: my heart rate was way too high for my pace.

Positive point: I visited the newly installed tow-path to the south and rejoiced in the ease of the all-season surface. It’s the only surfaced bit of tow-path in the vicinity and it goes on long enough to make it worthwhile. I spent most Sunday mornings last winter slithering through the mud along that section.

Negative point: Getting to the surfaced tow-path involves a few miles of mud-fest.

Puddly on the track between home and the canal

Mud-fest on the canal

Bit flooded on the flood plain by the river, but it gets far worse than this in the course of an ordinary winter.

A gloriously unmuddy section of brand new tow-path.

A bush unconvincingly disguised as Santa

Day 5/12; 48/89 miles completed (11.3 today)

I decided that I wanted to get ahead of myself and chose an easy way of doing that: by taking a linear route DOWN the Tissington Trail, from Heathcote to Ashbourne.

I was able to justify this as the notional route across Lapland, that is the basis for the event, also threw in a largely downhill day with 500’ of descent at this point.

Another 6am alarm and we were breakfasted and on the road before dawn. As light started seeping into the day we could see the sky was clear and all promise was for a lovely run, on easy terrain, through the Derbyshire countryside. Then we drove the last 10 miles in fog and that set the tone for the run.

I’m doing a bad job of getting my layering right this week and as I ran south along the Tissington Trail into a headwind, I came to appreciate that I wasn’t going to be warm enough (surely a southerly wind shouldn’t be that biting?!). Happily Mick had joined me for the first 2 miles, and he was wearing a windshirt. I stole it off his back at the point that he turned back to the car, knowing that he’d be okay without it, what with a tailwind and a relatively short distance to cover.

Blurred action selfie, with Mick wearing his own jacket

Not the clear day I’d been expecting (but remarkably similar to conditions when I ran the Tissington Trail Half Marathon in 2018)

Selfie with a Christmas Tree along the route, by now wearing Mick’s jacket

The cloud did clear for a few minutes, before descending again

Unsurprisingly given the time of day and the weather, I didn’t encounter many people. Mainly a couple of dog walkers in the vicinity of each car park that I passed. One person I did encounter by luck was Mick, just as he emerged from the public toilets about half a kilometre before I reached the car park where I was to be meeting him. Good timing – if I’d been 10 seconds ahead of myself there could have been one of those unfortunate incidents where he was loitering waiting for me to appear, whilst I was standing next to the car wondering where he was (although at least we both had phone signal here, unlike a memorable day of losing each other on the Wales Coast Path!).

On the one hand I regret a little that I didn’t set out from one car park further up the trail, to extend the distance to a half marathon. On the other hand, I don’t know what my legs will feel like tomorrow, so maybe the 11.3 was the wise choice. Either way, this run felt good and easy and  whilst I’ve no illusions that tomorrow will feel the same, I’m now a day ahead of myself (in terms of average daily mileage), with seven days left to cover the final 41 miles.

In September 2019 I did a run up and back along the Tissington Trail, then had the challenge of changing out of all of my sweaty running clothes in the back of a Skoda Fabia without indecently exposing myself to any passers-by. It was the moment that convinced me that having a campervan as our daily car would be a mighty fine thing. This snap (pork pie in one hand, mug of coffee in the other, wearing entirely sweat-free clothes) was taken within minutes of getting back to Erica.

To be continued…