Lawley Caradoc training run 11/11/09

A quick run in the church stretton area . Parked at the North end of the Lawley's . Ran up and over Lawley , then up Little Caradoc , then Caradoc . I would have run down the other side of Caradoc before returning but realised it would be dark by the time I got back .

The cloud base was low so ended up doing most of it in the mist .

Eeri shapes in the mist .

I was wearing an old , wornout pair of roclites and slipped in some mud on the way back down little caradoc . I ended up slidding down on my backside in a great deal of pain and realised I had turned my ankle . It took a while to get moving again and I was in pain all the way back . I hope this doesn't effect the chance of me doing a race on Sunday .

Just after the this photo is where I slipped .

Kickboxing 10/11/09

The usual , warm up on pads followes by some sparing . 1 hour in all .

30 min upper body 9/11/09

Quick work out to maintain upper body strength . Extra srength upstairs doesn't help at all in the running , as it's just extra weight for the legs to carry round . It does help with the martial arts though .
bench 20x50kg warm up
10x80kg
8x90kg
6x100kg
some fly's , triceps , pull up's , pull downs and rows .

Over did it on the bench and pulled a muscle in my back . Stupid .

Rhobell Fawr Fell Race 7/11/09

A great fell race in Wales . 6 miles and 1900ft of climb . It started with a nice easy climb through a forest , across a few fields , up a path and then steady climb to the top . The weather wasn't very kind to us . It started raining right at the start and ' apart from a brief spell of hail at the top , continued until the finish .


A few words of wisdom before the start .



Me running back down . Photo courtesy of Alistair http://www.fellrunningpictures.co.uk/ . It looks like I have a strange hat on but is actually another runners arms (good timing Al).




The forest on the way down .









The finish line .

Snowdon training run 4/11/09

Went up to Snowdon and had a look at part of the "Peris Horse Shoe". Started at pen-y-pass car park(where the half peris finished(which I did earlier this year)), started to run up the "minners track" then cut off left at Llyn Llydaw reservior to head S/W towards Y Lliwedd then followed the ridge round to the N/W and up Snowdon summit . The cafe was closed ,so no hot chocolate . Then instead of running down to Llamberis(peris route)I took the Pyg track back to pen-y-pass car park . I was out for about 2 hours 30 mins . I could have gone faster but stopped to take photos and enjoy the views .

These photos are taken from the Pyg track looking south towards Lliwedd and the ridge which I traversed .

kickboxing 3/11/09

The usual warm up followed by loads of sparing

kickboxing 29/10/09

 

Warm up on the pads followed by a load of sparing .

Running 28/10/09

 

The usual Wrekin training run . Up , over , down and back again . A real struggle to get into it but glad I did .

Kickboxing 27/10/09

 

10 mins skipping 10 mins pad work 30 mins sparring .

Stipperstones "sports tracker"25/10/09

Still not as accurate as I would like ,but,,,,,,

Stipperstones 25/10/09

Not really a training run . But , Mrs Lightning has agreed to run the "Devils Chair Dash" fell race on boxing day this year so it was a chance to show her the route again and for her to get her head round the steep bits . It was a case of "stick and carrot". Stick=run . carrot=pub lunch in the stipperstones inn(one of our favorite shropshire pubs). To make it a bit more challenging for me I added a few uphill sprints to the run .

First pic was nearly at the top looking back down the valley and Mrs L . Second pic ,the Devils chair.

Third pic , the famous stipperstones inn cat Skittles .

Downfalls of the "Nokia sports tracker"

These are copies of the Wrekin run from the web . The pictures are good ,but, today the information is nonsense . The GPS has lost its signal several times and come up with inaccurate information . I may have to give up on the phone and buy a Garmin watch instead .

Wrekin training run 24/10/09

Couldn't find a local fell race,so,went for a run up the Wrekin ,over the top ,down the other side and back again .
Up to the top in 18mins . Not my fastest time,but,at least I got out .

First photo ,view from the top facing North


Second photo , View from top facing west towards the long mynd

Weights maintenance 23/10/09

An upper body strength maintenance work out .
Chest bench press 20 reps of 50kg warm up
10 reps 80kg
8 reps 90kg
6 reps 100kgs
Fly's 10 reps 30kg
8 reps 40kg
6 reps 50kg
Triceps 3 lots of 10 reps , increasing weight each time .
Biceps as above
Pull ups as above
Pull downs 2 lots of 10 reps 40kg then 50kg
Rows as above

Kickboxing 22/10/09

Found it hard to motivate myself this week for some reason (I think work issues playing on my mind),but,finally dragged myself down the dojo and did an hour of pad work/sparing.

I may look for a fell race this weekend or I may not .

Ceiriog canter fell race 17/10/09

The first ever run of this race . A bit of confusion with one of the marsalls and some of the runners . The marshal was in the wrong place so the run was extended by about 1 mile . Then some of the runners missed a right turn to the summit and saved themselves some time. The rest of us had to clamber though some sharp gorse cutting our legs to shreds . At the end of the race it was obvious who the "cheats" were as they didn't have the cuts all up their legs .

Fighting through the gorse

Photo courtesy of Alistair http://www.fellrunningpictures.co.uk/

kickboxing 15/10/09

Another session with the young pretenders . Warm up , followed with a load of sparing .

Thinking of doing a fell race on Saturday . See what happens at the pub on Friday ?

13/10/09 Kickboxing

Warm up followed by lots of sparing .

We have two up and coming fighters at the gym and their training up for tittle bouts soon .
As someone with a bit of experience I often get put against these "up and comers" to give them a chance to unload on someone without inflicting too much damage in training . The trouble for me is that they are training for fights and are really "up" for it . They are getting fitter , faster and are starting to punch really hard . I haven't fought competitively for several years and it takes all my experience not to get a good beating and not to damage them before their fights , but at the same time , push them hard and give them a challenging workout . Not easy anyway but after the weekend of running I've just had ......

Birmingham half marathon 11/10/09

After the Langdale horse shoe the day before I didn't think I would be doing a half marathon in any fantastic time but was pleased to complete the corse in 1hour 47mins .

I did the race last year with Mrs Lightning and wasn't really interested in road running but thought I would do it just to see what time I could do it in . Then the Langdale fell race came up but I'd already paid for the half marathon . A stupid idea started to form that I could do both on consecutive days . Maybe not my best idea but I think it was worth a go .

More Langdale

Most of the route



The first climb
The first tarn







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