Ultra Run Training Begins in Earnest 28th March - 29th March 2013

After my watershed moment I sat down and planned my run training albeit very aware of trying to fit it in around my family, my sometimes demanding job and various other commitments. So whilst it is a plan, it will not necessarily be rigid and will very much depend on call outs from work and balancing the needs of my family.

28th March 2013

After the pain from the day before after riding my bike on the "Tuesday Ride" today was a 6 mile run at base pace using my new Runkeeper App for company. in a 1/5th of a mile I am off the road and onto the footpath, through the fields to Trethvas Farm and then up onto the wall (yes, the footpath runs across one of our Cornish Walls) before joining the country lane for a few hundred yards and joining a footpath again to go past St. Grade Church, through the fields to cut across a further country lane to pass St. Ruans Well and over the fields to the hamlet of St. Ruan. From St. Ruan, I took the footpath that drops down through Cadgwith past St. Mary's Church and then the steep path back up and heading south onto the Cornwall Coast path back towards Lizard Point. This is a beautiful stretch of coastline past Devils Frying Pan with views stretching towards the Lizard Lifeboat Station where up until recently I was a member of the crew and my wife still is. I dropped down into Church Cove, up past the Lifeboat Station, around Bass Point and the National Coastwatch Institution Station and on towards the famous Lizard Wireless Station where Marconi conducted his radio experiments and onto and past the beautiful Housel Bay before returning into the village and home.

My run is detailed on Runkeeper but for some reason on this occasion the elevation of the route is not shown.

29th March 2013

Having driven upto Exeter the evening before with my family to visit my parents-in-law for Good Friday, I got up early and decided to go and do an 8 mile run. I drove through the city to get to the start of my run at the Swing Bridge so that I could run down the old Exeter Ship canal. The swing bridge (as per the link) played an important part in World War II and a plaque states "In May 1944, these bridges played an important part in the preparations for D-Day. They were used over a period of three days and nights, for rehearsals of the famous and crucial glider borne attack on the bridge over the Canal de Caen (Pegasus Bridge) and the River Orne (Horsa Bridge), by the Second Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, on the night 5/6 June 1944."

This particular run is something I havn't done since I was a young police officer based in Exeter and was a route I used to train along when I was training for the South Downs Way 80 mile Ultra running event in the late 80's. I would often finish a late shift at 2 a.m. in those days or a night shift at 6 a.m. and go and run, figuring it would be good to train whilst I was already tired. I ran for Exeter Harriers then.

Anyway, move forward 24 years to now. I quickly got myself sorted and by 7 am I was off. The thing I noticed the most was the noise of the motorway still over a mile distant and also the fact that now (unlike in the 1980's) the path was now tarmac up until the motorway bridge that I ran under at about 1 mile into the run. Because I was along side the canal it was pancake flat and for me living and running around the coast path this is highly unusual. Again, with most of my runs, I ran at a constant base heart rate and the difference to running on the coastpath the day before (at that heart rate) and on the flat canal path was 1 mph or 1 minute and 36 secs slower per mile. Quite a difference.

Once under the motorway bridge thankfully, the noise of the road was left behind and I continued down the path towards Exminster, looking across the canal and the River Exe towards Topsham (which is where my brother lives). Passing what used to be known to me anyway as The Turf Locks but now known as The Turf at 3 miles (where the canal ends and joins the Estuary) , I continued for a further mile along the sea wall and then after 4 miles retraced my steps.

On the return leg, i was startled by a number of Herons coming out of the reeds in the canal and watched some keen rowers from Exeter University out on the Canal heading towards the Turf.

All in all a lovely run of 8.05 miles with just 170 feet of elevation. So, different for me due to no "ups and downs" but from a personal nostalgic point of view slightly disappointing due to the tarmac path having been laid since I last ran on it in the first and last mile.

I attach some pictures and my runkeeper log.

Exeter Ship Canal

River Exe estuary looking towards The Turf in the trees on the left