Watch Out Autumn’s About

It’s staying darker longer in the mornings, as Summer drifts towards Autumn, this darkness makes it that bit harder to get out of bed, particularly on the mornings I have an early start. Which reminds me that it’ll soon be getting darker earlier in the evening as well and it’ll be time to make sure I have enough high visibility clothing. I’m quite lucky, Ronhill produce some really good high visibility clothing and accessories and, as part of their support for Roger Alsop Personal Training, they supply me with enough to keep me visible in all the sessions I do outside.

If you run in the dark, or even semi-dark, it’s important that are visible and seen aas early as possible, particularly if you are running on the road. Having moved from Edinburgh to the countryside (when I lived in Hassall Green) it made me realise that cars travel fast down country lanes, not expecting to come across a runner in the road, so it’s even more important to be noticed early, I always recommend a high visibility jacket at any time of the day if your run takes you down country lanes.

But it’s not just the dark that poses Autumn danger for runner, you can also be sidelined by tree debris. Lots of things fall from the trees, branches, twigs, leaves, acorns and conkers, to name some. If you’re not paying attention you can land awkwardly on some of this debris and cause an injury. Leaves in particular can be a problem, they tend to collect in hollows, hiding potential dangers from view, I always recommend that people avoid treading on a pile of leaves as you never know what they’re hiding. Wet leaves can also be a problem, as you can slip on them very easily, particularly if going downhill.

One other thing to watch out for in the dark, overhanging branches, with the leaves having been dropped it’s not always easy to see thin branches as they protrude into the street. On a number of occasions I’ve been running along a street and taken a direct hit in the head from an overhanging branch, blood has been drawn and I’ve even taken a nasty poke in the eye, but thankfully no lasting damage. Be alert to these dangers.

The start of Autumn isn’t all bad, it also heralds the start of the cross country season. Now I know that school cross country running has been the cause of many an adult having a psychological fear of running but there are many people, like myself, who absolutely love it. Ok love is perhaps too strong a word for me, in fact I absolutely hated every minute of this year’s National Cross Country Champs (which you’ll recall is the first blog I wrote about), but there is a certain smell about early season cross country (and I don’t mean sweaty competitors), plus you can get some really nice sunny and dry conditions and some venues are actually really beautiful to run around. But the main thing I like about it is the camaraderie, not just with your team mates but with your opposition too, sure you’re out to beat them but it’s in a nice way, like beating your mates in a kickabout. As I live about 200 miles away from my club I don’t get to do much cross country these days and it is the one thing I miss most about not living in London, or Edinburgh for that matter. In fact I want to see if I can run in a local league as a guest, but then that lacks the team element might still make it like running a road race. Having said that, and I can only really vouch for Pennington Flash, but I feel like the atmosphere at Parkruns comes very close to that of cross country as it’s often the same people week after week at the same venue, and whilst still trying to beat others you’re always happy to see someone else have a good run.

This week I returned to proper running training. I’m still not doing as much as I was 4 weeks ago, I’ve been quite busy with new clients and housey things, but at least I’m able to do quality training. I didn’t do any core or strength work during that first week  but I’ve started that this week. In fact on day 4 of my return I was doing a Yasso session with Ray. This involved running 10 x 800m with 400m recovery and the principle is that you get an idea, from it, of what you could do in a marathon. With Ray due to run the Chester marathon in less than three weeks he was keen to see what he should be aiming for. It turned out pretty good, Ray has come on hugely since I first met him, there is no way I could have considered doing this session with him 6 months ago but on Tuesday he managed to average 3:23 for the 800m reps. Now I think that’s pretty damn good, and as I was running them with Ray it gave me a good session too. Incidentally I’ve just picked up another client looking to improve from a 38 minute 10k, so I’m going to be training pretty hard over the next few weeks, just to keep up with my clients. As I’ve mentioned, in a previous blog, there’s a limit to how many clients I can run with and I’m getting close to that limit, so better book me up soon if you want to Run with Rog.

On Saturday we decided to go to Pennington Flash Parkrun, I had wanted to go the previous week but my back injury put paid to that. It was a reasonable start to the day as Ray, Carole and I set off. It had rained quite a lot over the week and we were expecting some mud, but it has been wet before and there was always a way to avoid the worst of the mud. However conditions on Saturday were the worst I’ve seen them and I have to admit to treading gingerly in a few places, almost coming to a standstill at the bottom of the grass hill as I tried to avoid falling over. This coupled with a slight loss of fitness gave me my slowest time around the 5k run, 17:50. Still good enough for 2^nd place but not good enough to avoid ruining my average. Oh well it’s only a statistic. I was beaten by youngster, Matthew Crehan, who comes from a long lineage of very good Crehan runners and I’m sure he’ll be producing some great results as he builds up his fitness. As I slip into old age I’ll be able to watch him from afar as I slip down the field. Carole had one of her better runs but it was Ray who surprised us all by setting a personal best on the course, that marathon training is turning him into a powerhouse. Unfortunately Ray twisted his back on the mud and is having to consider his training carefully, in his lead up to the marathon. Hopefully no lasting damage. 

On Saturday night I went to the Northwich beer festival. I’d arranged to go with Ray but Ray had to call off, due to his back. I’ve only ever been to beer festivals during my time living in Germany and they do them very well, so as it was local I thought I’d give it a shot. Well it was a really good laugh, some of the beer was really nice though some was a bit disappointing. Still it all went down. There was a group called Cheeky Monkey playing throughout the night and they were pretty good too, playing punkish style versions of many 80’s hits – took me almost back to my schooldays, though not completely otherwise I’d have been drunk after two pints.