Winter training

Winter training.

Thankfully the Winter months are approaching fast, the nights are becoming darker and colder as are the mornings. As usually this actually means that my run training is improving. The Summer months seem to bring too many distractions that training always goes out the window, plus with a knee injury that has been plaguing me since December last year the Summer months have been a little disappointing on the race front.

My trusty new head torch is possibly the best investment I have made on a piece of kit since purchasing the GPS watch many years ago. I am now the happy owner of a Hope R4 headlight and I seriously rate this item. It generates 1000 lumens of light on full beam and is the newest model of my Hope R1 that I have had for a number of years. A run up Pendle in the dark on Tuesday confirmed how fantastic this gadget is. It sits comfortably on a head harness and the battery pack feels light. It can also be extended via an extension lead to sit in a waist pack or backpack. I felt like I was running in daylight, I could run fast, I could see my feet and I felt just as comfortable as I would have if it had been lunchtime. I also tried it on my bike in the dark last week at Darwen Tower and again it was awesome, this time I had it attached to the handle bars via the bike light mount. It didn't wobble and I felt fully comfortable descending down a great rocky trail with some nice drop offs, also when the torch lit up the eyes of the sheep in the field I could see them running away trying to cover their eyes with their hoofs bahhing "Ouch, my eyes!"

I am actually really looking forward to getting out on some nice long night runs, last night was a great 15 mile route over Hambledon and Crawshawbooth but sadly we got home at 6pm, the head torch wasn't required and I did feel a little disappointed.

So next I have Ennerdale 50K where I am looking forward to meeting up with some of the 9bar guys and then possibly a 5hr race the week after ( I will see how my legs feel!) Then it is off to Aviemore for a week of holidaying followed by the Whinlatter duathlon and the Mucky Races.




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