No rest

.... or at least not yet. Since my earlier BG attempt in June I have been keeping up the training, so when take 2 arrives on 30 August I'm not running entirely on grit.

Although I did some running in July, much of the month was spent on a trip to the Tour de France, first the prep as I adjusted from mostly running to mostly biking, then a week of biking in the Alps with a day of watching the Tour itself in the middle (which didn't arrive until early afternoon so I did get a mountain run in that morning by way of a change). We had a fantastic time, the Tour day being a total carnival and good to see those super human (super clean!) riders I'd been watching on the tele and in some cases for years (Jens Voigt, 36, almost as old as me). The riding itself was also utterly amazing: my first cycling trip to the Alps, so heaving up some of those famous climbs and lots of less famous ones, riding some of the stage we then watched, and at the end of every day, a 13km climb up Alpe d'Huez to round off whatever else we'd done as our accommodation was up the mountain :-/  Stats for the four days: 312km, 8,841m climb.

Back to the hill running, I have upped the miles again and had two more trips up to the Lakes. Last weekend I ran leg 1 and Clough Head and an arc back to Keswick. Irritatingly my shoes / feet gave me trouble, first toes and toenails on hard descents, then blisters no doubt as I compensated, then my quads hurt for days afterwards. A fair run out with a disappointing impact on me I'd say. Last weekend was much better: a full leg 3 and 4 double, run roughly at pace in 10:45 with lunch stop of 10 mins or so, plus a few photo / phone call / faff stops I won't indulge in on the day. I ran this with some folk from the FRA forums who just happened to be doing this route on the day, and the nav man certainly knew his tussocks. I have a good new line for Sargeant Man and also did the West Wall Traverse from Lords Rake to Scafell which I have not done before but will now use on the day. Although tired, as is to be expected, I also had no utter collapse on any of the hills which have on occasion been a slight nemesis (Scafell, Yewbarrow, Great Gable). Altogether a very encouraging recce.

I have a week on the Welsh coast approaching now, which should give plenty of training opportunity and some welcome variety.