Monday 19 November to Sunday 24 November

Total kilometres ran in 2019 before the start of the week: 1330 kilometres

Month by month distance recorded in my little tracking spreadsheet.

Feel free to follow me on Strava, where all my activities are shared.

The week in summary

Just two runs. It was going to be a good four but busyness and tiredness crept in. The plan for the week went to shit quite quickly. Gah and arrrggghhh.

A grab from my notebook showing the planning for this week and how this week actually turned out.
A grab from my notebook showing the planning for this week and how this week actually turned out.

On the plus side the first run was 5km up at the top end of Headingley sneaked in while the son played basketball. I’d legged it back from Newcastle to take him so I’d had a day at my desk and in the car so getting out was good. And I still managed to take in a good chunk of the lad playing basketball. It was a good run up through Headingley to Adel and then back down. Some good pavements. The usual having to slow down or even stop to get across busy roads but a nice route for a trot.

View the activity on Strava

The weekend promised a couple of runs. The week’s saviours! But I had the kids all weekend and animals and chores so Saturday morning was written off with them and running Bradford Coder Dojo with the rest of the (always a good excuse, although some parents turning up saying they’d just done Bradford Park Run was a touch gauling). Saturday afternoon was time doing stuff with the son so Saturday a write off.

I managed to get ahead of the chores on Sunday and get a couple of hours etched out of Sunday morning for a sort of mirror route to last Sunday’s route. Last week I did a roadside loop, out towards Shipley and then up towards Guiseley and then back down towards Idle. This week I went out towards Rodley, up to Horsforth and the Rodley before heading down the hill to Back to Idle. 12 kilometres in the bag — and some hills in there too (which I tackled with a mixture of gusto, steadiness, and walking!) and a couple of breaks to do some kids admin via my phone.

It was relatively straightforward as routes go, but I had a problem running up the ring road between Rodley and Horsforth where the pavement suddenly stopped. So my options were a) keep running on the sloppy muddy grass verge, or b) cross the ring road. I did the latter, which wasn’t fun, a fast road, waiting a while for a gap, but take your time on these things, eh.

There’s something else in this, the lack of signage warning people the pavement is going to stop (so cross sooner while you have a chance). And maybe there’s something in this for mapping software, where it knows “use the east side of the road to run — the pavement ends early on the west side”. There’s been runs recently where the seasons have altered the routes, which makes for a mixture of fun unexpectedness and frustrating annoyance (no, I don’t want to run through the brambles, thanks). I wondered if there was a way to add “tips” — either permanent, temporary, or seasonal — to Strava maps but there ain’t. If anyone knows of maps online that offer guidance for runners let me know!

View the activity on Strava

I put last Sunday’s and this Sunday’s routes together on Strava out of curiosity. A 22KM circuit, which looks doable. Whichever way you go there’s going to be a hill to climb. Might try the Shipley first direction. One for the hit list though.

View the route on Strava

I have been running outdoors recently in tights. The New Balance Impact running tights I got recently have been great. A tidy fit, tight into not TIGHT. Pretty straightforward to get on. Hide the sight of my legs from the world. The pocket along the left thigh is perfect to slide my phone into, saving having to worry about a phone holder on my arm or the phone in my shorts’ pocket banging about. What more would you want?

The week in summary

Number of runs: 2 (in 7 days) 🙄

Kilometres run in the week: 17 kilometres

Total kilometres ran in November by the end of the week: 96 kilometres

Total kilometres ran in 2019 by the end of the week: 1347 kilometres

Looking ahead

Here we go. The last week of November.

What’s left for the month? 150KM for the month Would have been nice, but running 55KM in six days is a big stretch. 30KM looks doable, and 125KM for November would be a decent outcome on top of feeling pretty alright in my core after long runs and my legs holding quite well to longer runs compared to early summer. Cracking 125KM this month would leave 125KM left in December to edge past 1500KM for 2019. 🤞🏼😺

The month ends on Saturday, but the week ends with the Percy Pud 10km in Sheffield. Should be fun!


This post tagged with:
running, run notes