It's the Wowgills

Well hello again. I hope you're all enjoying your running.

Much to report from the Hayfella camp, so if you're in a hurry, here are the edited highlights: Whoopee, new camera! Good 5 mile blast in London. Dales Way jaunt with unexpectedly great view of the Howgills.

For those kindly taking the time to read further:
It was my birthday recently. And my utterly brilliant wife bought me a digital camera to replace the one I so foolishly lost earlier in the year. I'm over the moon! It's a Nikon Coolpix. It's tiny, so I can take it in a (secure this time) bumbag on my trots out and , once I've cracked how to upload shots onto this blog, I can make it more pretty. Won't that be lovely.

On the running front, things are picking up again after my recent hiatus which started with an Achille/calf tweak and continued with a spell of working a lot and an attack of 'I can't be a***ed to get out as often as I should'. Nonetheless, last week in London I did another 5 miler along Regents Canal - only 4 minutes quicker this time, which was great in that 'I don't know if I can keep this pace up' way that leaves you buzzing at the end of it.
Yesterday, some of the family came to visit and we did a nice lazy 10 mile walk to Windermere, westwards along the Dales Way, and got the train back. This morning my brother-in-law and I went out for a lovely exploratory run eastwards along the Dales Way. This was a great, if extremely boggy, run with plenty of up and down, done at a positively leisurely pace* but one that felt fairly even. The highlight was cresting a ridge and being rewarded with stunning view of the Howgill Fells in the misty sunshine. I like the Howgills; I like their rounded massiveness that's so different to the more jagged outline of the Lakeland Fells, even if they are just t'other side of the M6.
My plan is to continue pushing eastwards along the Dales Way as I gradually lengthen my training runs. It won't take long before I'll be running to the M6 and back as my long run, which sounds pretty good as a plan to me.

This week coming I'm hoping to do a speed/interval session earlyish in the week, and then a mid length run towards the end, because I have the Lakeland Trail race at Derwentwater next Sunday. I've not done this event before, so don't know the course, but am looking forward to it.

*12.55 min/mile. Very slow but, in a book I'm reading at the moment I came across this: "We tend to do our slow runs too fast, and out fast runs too slow". This struck a chord, so I'm going to redress the balance in my own running to see what difference it makes.

Smile rating 7/10 (the 5 miler) 8.5/10 (the Wowgills)