Having said that, I was dragged over to Banbury on Thursday to join the Cherwell Runners and Joggers for their weekly hill run. This was billed as a 10km road run around the hills of Banbury, and as such I was overjoyed to be going along! But despite my lack of get up and go, I managed to turn up early for once! I was a little nervous though, as I've never run with anything like a group of people who describe themselves as runners. I still don't class myself as a runner, although I guess I'm just about there, so I was a bit worried about being left behind. But they did their best to allay my fears and said that no-one gets left behind as they run as a group and pause at the top of each hill if need be.
So at just after 7pm we set off at a reasonable pace. I had been told that they were a quick bunch and by the end of the first rise we were still near the head of the group and running at 5:30mins/km. Unfortunately, this was also the point I tried to switch the audio cues off in my running app. In a group, they're no use at all and just annoy instead. I only realised at the end of the run that I must have either paused the app or hit something that closed it down as this was the point the GPS data, and therefore the route and timings, stopped. Bah, bloody phone!!
So from that point on, I have no real idea of our pace, other than that it felt at least fairly consistent if not speeding up as we went along. For the first few hills, we were pausing or slowing at the top to close the group back up but as we got further into the run we weren't really slowing at all. Which was proving a bit of a challenge! I had no real idea of the route, so I couldn't figure out how far through we were and how hard to push. Having one guy just about sprint up each hill wasn't helping me figure it out either!!
The hills, whilst mostly short, were also quite steep. In one place we were running down a hill only to get to the bottom and see the lead runner turn round and head back up! As this was in a residential area, the hills were all steep, and often twisty too which makes it even harder work. They certainly look a lot steeper from the bottom looking up. Things were going quite well up to this point if I'm honest, but this was all a bit of a false sense of security. For those that know Banbury, the next hill was the Morrisons hill. This is about the same height as the big hill on the Culworth 4 mile cross country run at 35ish metres, but it is another 250m longer and much later in the run. This might not sound like a huge difference, but I was definitely blowing by the time I got to the top!
From the top of this hill, the run turned back towards the start/finish. Things started to feel better as I knew we were on the last stretch with just one final hill to go. This last hill I took at the same pace until about half way up. Once I'd confirmed it actually was the final hill, I sped up a bit and made the run for the finish line. I was pleased at the speed I managed to maintain and I even caught the front runners too! I did decline to chase the two runners that went off for a sprint finish though.
Once we'd cooled down and had a cuppa in hand, I was feeling a bit smug about the run and how well I felt I managed to keep up. I had expected to feel more tired and achey, but I guess the cross country running and hilly roads that I run on are paying off! The route being 9 rather than 10km may have had something to do with it as well.
Turns out that the feeling smug was also a false sense of security! By Friday morning my left ankle had swollen slightly and I couldn't crouch down without getting cramps. This was not quite what I had expected if I'm honest. It was also still hurting Saturday, so I've not yet been out for another run as I didn't want to do myself any damage, especially not with the Wolf Run in two weeks time. I do have plan to go out tomorrow though for a gentle run now the evenings are an hour lighter.
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