Running the Southampton Alps!

Cobden-Mousehole-Peartree

I’m starting to get into a bit more of a routine now with the running, with three runs in the past four days. I had to take yesterday off as my legs were a little on the sore side from Thursday and Friday’s runs. It seems I may be getting a little addicted to the challenge of big hills at the moment. I could have gone for a relatively fast and flat run through the park alongside the river this morning, but I had a route in my mind that was an extension of last weeks ups and downs, but without the unintended loop back due to the map inaccuracies. This would take me on a wider loop, which turned out (as you can see in the pictures) to be almost heart-shaped!

Why all this determination to get back running again? Well, apart from the fact that I have the Great South Run to run in October, I got a bit of a shock the other day. A week ago I went for my annual diabetic retinal scan. After they’ve taken the pictures you have to wait to see if they will send you a letter. Getting the letter is not good news – at my hospital they only send you one if they have found something of concern. Unfortunately, on Thursday, I got the letter. It said that I have ‘moderate diabetic eye disease’, which is a worsening from the ‘background retinopathy I was told I had last year. My first thoughts were that I was going blind and I’ve only been diagnosed two years – how can this be happening to me? My HbA1c has been practically perfect since I got things under control, with numbers of 11.8, 6.8, 5.2, 5.4, 5.6 and 5.6 (the frist number was diagnosis, the one after about six weeks later). What do these numbers mean? Well, ideally, the HbA1c should be below 6.5 in order to minimise the damage that diabetes can do to the small blood vessels – particularly those in the eyes and kidneys. With my numbers I am well under that figure.

So, why has my retinal scan shown deterioration? The answer is more than likely the high blood pressure I have been suffering for several months now, as this is also a big factor, alongside diabetes, in determining how healthy or otherwise your eyes are. So, it’s a warning to me that I have to get the BP down so no further damage is done. As things stand, it is unlikely that I will need treatment, just more regular eye checks. The problem may even improve if I start looking after myself better. So, that is my aim – I already have very good blood sugar control, now I need to take every possible step to make sure my blood pressure is perfect!

Cobden-Glenfield

A lot of the steps I will be taking currently seem to involve running up huge hills! I’m happy to say, though, that I have seen a rapid improvement already in my pace around these hilly courses. Thursday’s run was 11 min/mile pace, and Friday’s 10 min/mile pace over the same route. Today’s run was slower, but I’m building more distance already, so now up to 3.1 miles (5k). I’m sure I could have managed a much quicker and longer run if I had opted for the flatter route! Main thing is not to get injured. My legs are not as young as they used to be, so can take a little longer to recover – I need to resist the cravings for endorphins and make sure I take rest days. Might not be too difficult, given the weather that is being forecast!

Thank you Mr Map – not!

I was itching to get out for my run this morning – I had the route running through my head all of yesterday and was looking forward to the challenge. Back on Monday I reconnoitred a route that would involve even more monstrous hills than the ones I ran last Sunday, which now appear positively Lilliputian by comparison!

It’s still fairly early on in my efforts to get back to running decent distances, so I was a little apprehensive about how things might go. The start of the run took me up the same road as last week, but this time instead of turning off I kept running upwards. I had a quick glance at my Garmin as I reached the crest of the hill and saw that it was exactly half a mile. Gradient on this section was 14%, which may not sound much, but go out and find such a hill and you’ll understand that such a hill would not be found in Holland! More was to come. I was happy that my breathing was good - I have a good sense of how to pace my efforts, whatever the terrain, after 30 years of running experience.

The hill was followed by an even steeper descent. Many people might imagine that, slow as the climb might be expected to be, surely you would make up time on the descent, but that’s not quite true. Going up stresses the muscles of course, but the main limiting factor is the heart and lungs – you have to be able to take in enough oxygen to feed those muscles. Going downhill, however, brings a different set of problems. You can recover your oxygen debt as gravity assists your downward trajectory, but the impact stresses on muscles and joints is far more extreme. Over three times your body weight will be the impact force with each footfall, and given that I am currently heavier than I have ever been, this is considerable for me at the moment. I also bear in mind that my leg once snapped due to such stresses and that tends to temper my pace!

I then had a flattish stretch, just a slight incline before coming to what I expected to be my biggest challenge – a huge uphill section that was at an incline of 28%! I was struggling towards the top, I will admit, and thankful for the subsequent flat section before running steeply down again. I had expected that that would be the end of my need to run skywards, but not to be! I had taken a quick glance at a map beforehand, and estimated that I could escape the traffic of the main road over the last section by running down a side road, connecting to another road at the bottom and then having a flat remaining run home. Stupid map! Significant detail had been omitted (as I discovered later when looking online), meaning that I now had little choice but to run back up to the summit of the original hill that I had started from, this time from the opposite side. On this side of the hill the incline was 22%, so a real lung-burster at this stage! A final long descent then brought me home.

I was very pleased with my achievement. Although it again appears slow, the hills involved were huge and yet I still managed to keep going all the way. I’m sure that, as my fitness improves, I will be moving much faster up them so my overall pace will improve considerably. The run has given me great confidence to start extending future runs – just hope I can stay injury free for the duration! Love those endorphins! Hoping my legs won’t suffer quite so much as they did last week! Blood sugar levels weren’t bad – 8.1 mmol/l before (146 mg/dl) and 9.4 mmol/l after (169 mg/dl).

Apologies for no poetry lately – the Muse has deserted me for the time being! I have one or two ideas though, so hope to include a few over the coming week. Please look back through the archives!

Up hill, down dale!

OK, I’ve been laid up again with a muscle strain, so getting back into running is coming in fits and starts. When I was younger I would probably have just run through such an injury, but it’s surprising (or maybe not!) how much it focuses your mind on recovering fully when your femur once snapped at mile 23 of a marathon. I think the problem stemmed from the fact that I have a big nail going through my leg from front to back, about three inches above my knee – this has created a lot of internal scar tissue and altered the physiology of the leg somewhat.

Anyway, excuses over! I have been feeling a little jaded with running through the park – beautiful though it is – and fancied tackling something a little different today. A couple of days ago I was walking down one of the steep local hills, of which there are many around where I live, and I saw a girl running up on the other side. I was impressed. I don’t know what the actual gradient is, but it is steep, and it reminded me of my time in the Peak District when I too could run up such a precipitous climb! So, in an attempt to recapture my youth (that’s early-30s!) I decided I would go on a tour of the hills in the neighbourhood.

Starting from home, the first half mile was entirely, and heart-thumpingly, uphill. I had no preconceived notion of how I might cope, just concentrated on managing my breathing and running at the edge of my aerobic capacity. I knew it would be slow, but hey – this was my first such run in a while, and a course I had not previously tackled. I didn’t want to be a heaving, panting wreck after the first five minutes! Surprisingly, I managed to reach the first turn without too much distress, and suddenly I was descending quickly down a road whose steepness on the opposite direction impacted a completely different set of muscles and joints, or so it seemed! A pretty road with trees and large houses, nicely shaded and peaceful.

Eventually emerging at the bottom I took a short turn right, then right again to run upwards again, not quite achieving the ascent of the first climb, but not far off. A left turn down as I broached the brow of the hill, then another left and back down a road running parallel to the one I had just wheezed my way up. I was impressed I was still moving at this point, but decided to finish off the run with a little roundabout run to extend the route a little further and finally reaching home and blessed sanctuary for my bursting lungs and heavy legs.

Slow, and not that far, but not bad for a first attempt, so I’ll definitely be adding (and probably extending) it to my repertoire of routes, with every intention of stepping up the pace in future and smashing my rather embarrassing current personal best! After a shower and a short rest I then repeated the entire route, this time with my camera to record for posterity!

Distance: 2.09 miles (followed by a walk of the same distance!)
Time: 23’ 07”
Weather: warm and cloudy.
BG before: 10.4
BG after: 9.8
Ascent: 429ft
Descent: 386ft