Hi so the beard keeps growing and I keep writing! Try to stay awake.
So at about 7 weeks into the Beard experiment its coming along nicely, lots of ginger creeping in but nowhere near a Sean Conway full on Ginger.
More like a proper beard now and starting to “hang” of the face now, just at a very scruffy phase and you really have to shampoo it well and use some beard oil/cream on it to keep it in order!
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| Me, Archie and Maxine in the rain. Note the Mountain Beard |
I reckon I could be full Brian Blessed in a few weeks and its really funny when I meet people who have not seen it yet and they do a double take or ask who you are. I am the same person and forget that they are looking at a different face!
Running wise it has been good and I am slowly getting some fitness back, I did pull out of the GUCR after realising I just have not done enough and I would just be beating myself up to try and likely have to death march it out again which I don’t want to do.
So I have decided my next proper race will be the Lakeland100 in July, a nice easy flat 100 then.
With that in mind and the knowledge I need a lot of work to be race fit as seeing as me and Maxine are doing it as a pair we went up to the lakes to do a bit of recce. We camped at a lovely campsite near Chapel Stile right on the route called Baysbrown Farm. We met up with Archie who runs the British Trail Running Podcast and he joined us for the weekend. We covered a good 20 hilly miles on Saturday covering about 6500ft of ascent and descent with the weather being good and perfect for running. We ran from Chapel Stile to most of the way up Garburn Pass and back. A good days running with great company. Just as we got back on the first day it started raining but in true Lakes style it went on all night and into the next day. We reluctantly got moving in a downpour and although it did die off a bit we ran a very wet 10miles over about 3000ft of elevation change from Chapel Stile to Tilberthwaite and back to the campsite by an alternative route which was good for practicing the old map reading skills.
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| Cool penny tree on the trail through a forest |
Archie went home that afternoon and me and Maxine had tea in a local pub while the rain continued and enjoyed a lovely meal. It was great to see and run with Archie again.
In other running news my daughter got some shiny new trainers and she has grown out of her New Balance trail shoes and we went shopping and she liked the look of some Sketchers Go Runs, I think she liked the colours and memory foam sole. It may even make her faster at parkrun which we run together when she stays, plus they look cool which is important for a 13 year old.
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| New shoes for Laura |
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| Nicki and Maxine at the start. |
Maxine had a Marathon last weekend which I was supposed to run with one of my coaching clients Nicki but unfortunately I had a childcare issue and had to take my daughter home early. So I did not run but supported after dropping my daughter home and cycled 20 miles around the course encouraging those I knew and my client who had a great run. Plus of course supporting Maxine who had a good run also on tired legs from a couple of busy weekends on the trails.
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| Maxine after the run with Medal |
So a great couple of weeks all in all and some great stuff coming up soon too plus obviously more Beard updates……
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