Sunday 8 January 2012

It's not the size of your hill that counts...it's what you do with it

Needed to get a longish run in today, one that would kick start my L100 training proper, so one that would test my legs on some ups and downs. I didn't really want to travel so decided to make the best of my immediate surroundings, in particular my local hill...Craig yr Allt.

This hill is in my back garden, so to speak, and is fairly unimpressive as hills go.


The OS map shows that it is a baby, barely a bump and doesn't compare to the higher ground around Brecon, North Wales and the Lakes, but you have to work with what you've got.


So today I joined together 3 of my regular runs and came up with a 16 miler that would deliver some elevation gain and loss. From this one small hill, and it's smaller neighbouring tumps, I managed to clock up the following stats:



I know it's not a massive run, but it really did test my legs and I found it quite tough. Looking back over my data, my trusty Garmin tells me that this compares in terms of distance (given the odd mile or two) and total elevation gain with the Fairfield Horseshoe starting at Ambleside...


...or over a much shorter distance, it has a comparable elevation gain to climbing Bowfell from Great Langdale...


This is how I have decided to justify the feeling of fatigue in my legs anyway! But it's a good benchmark, and tells me that I really need to get training.

You just gotta love those stats!

No comments:

Post a Comment