Extreme Snow Training

Extreme Marathon J

The week was wrecked, work and home life stopped any thoughts of training, I consoled myself in red wine, bad move, Friday was also written off with a travel day to sunny Manchester on the promise of watching the mighty reads take on Liverpool.

Once in Manchester I looked at two routes for the following day, one was 6 miles and the other added a 3 mile loop at the 4 mile mark to take in some old stomping grounds making it 9 miles and the longest I’ve ever run.

Saturday came round as did the snow! This is unbelievable two weeks ago I was complaining of the lack of air-conditioning in the gym and now it’s snowing!

Hartshead Pike in the distance.

Stealing a bob hat from my boy I set out, the first mile was flat and wind assisted, then came the climb to 1000 ft above sea level. Gritters swooshed pasted with laser guided grit that seemed destined to take the skin off your legs, locals struggling to walk to the shops stopped what they were doing and pointed at me, mouths open, those that did utter words sounded like “anchor” which was strange given the height. But it was the gale force wind in my face that was hardest, the hill was not so bad but the gales stopped me in my tracks on a couple of occasions. Turning off the main road and up to Hartshead Pike (a beacon that provides a view over 4 counties) gave some shelter from the wind, then bang it was back again, knocking me off the road momentarily into a ditch where I tripped, unfortunately my fall was saved by a barbed wire fence, bruised and slightly bleeding I picked myself up. Fortunately the blood froze on contact with the air and scabbed immediately. Reaching the Pike I turned right and ran downhill directly into the gale at the bottom I hit the 4 mile mark, my nipples now frozen and large enough to make pubescent boys snigger, I decided to take the 3 mile loop and make the run 9 miles.

I ran through Lees, the pubs I used to visit were now trendy wine bars, Milan, Lazards and CoCo, the latter reminded me of a mate I used to work with, whilst his name was Tony his family and friends outside work called him Co, go figure, maybe it’s his place? Anyway I pushed on to Waterhead, yes that’s a real name, and past some more pubs I used to visit and Ferranti where I served my electronic engineering apprenticeship repairing amongst other things weapons guidance systems, I signed the official secrets act for that, but figure that’s well out of date now.

At the turn the wind hit my back at last, back down into Lees, and then the last 2 mile push home.

The rest of Easter was spent nursing sore knees with of all things chocolate!

Importantly Man U made mincemeat of a lethargic Liverpool, great Easter.