Rode the qualification heat of the junior team pursuit this morning and we qualified fastest to the Belgians by 1.6 seconds! The team was myself, Jess Booth and Alex Greenfield and we all rode well apart from messing up the finish and narrowly avoiding a crash! The final for gold and silver is tonight!!!
Training Partner
Went to work on my bike today for a change.
It’s a great way to start the day - really wakes you up, saves on fuel and makes you feel like a green peace protester - fantastic!!
However, it tiddled down all afternoon and by the time I got home I had a rather wet ‘rear end’. Much as it pains me as a hardy mountain biker I’ve just been in the garage to fit a mudguard to my beloved Kona (if my mates see me they’ll call me a jessy for sure).
Might go on it again in the morn (but only if it’s raining!!)
Just had a look at the weather forecast for Saturday (Ben race) - heavy rain, clouds, sun and high wind - Perfect…..
I was back in the 1st team again this week and was back in the wickets. We played at Keighley who are up for promotion. I bowled 1st change and took 3 wickets for 2 runs in my first 3 overs, which I was very happy with then i came back on at the death and kept it tight. I finished with 3 wickets for 26 runs in 10 overs.
Everything feels as though it has clicked into place with my bowling over the past few weeks. Just bad timing, it’s come right at the end of season.
Sorry for the lack of communication - there’s obviously been a bit of a rejig to the site which I missed and last week I struggled to log in. As such, my latest post is a bit late in arriving. The Sedbergh Hills race and the Olympics now seem like ancient history.
Anyway, the Bingley Harriers backpack run to Ilkley was a raging success (if not a little messy!!) and I managed to get a couple of bike rides in that weekend as well. Again that seems a long time ago as I’ve just returned from a fab week in the Alps - Chamonix to be precise. What a place that is - if you’ve never been put it on your list of must see places.
I was out there on holiday but also to take in the North Face Ultra Trail Tour Du Mont Blanc race. After running it in 2007, this year I was there purely as a spectator and assistant to a few mates of mine that were running. It’s an absolutely spectacular event with 2400 runners taking on the 100 mile course (+30,000 ft of climb). This year, due mainly to the hot weather, only around 1250 runners actually completed the course in the alloted time (46 hours). I’m really pleased to say that my pals Colin, Rob, Johnny and Kevin all made it to the finish - well done guys you can wear the jacket with pride. Unfortunately, one of my other buddies Ross failed this year after a good run last year - I think he was probably trying a bit too hard early on and paid the price in the heat.
Britain had a fantastic victory with Lizzie Hawker winning the womens race in a fantastic time of 25 hours 20 mins - big respect!!!
Managed to get a couple of good runs in whilst I was there - What a place the alps are - hundreds of miles of trails all with breathtaking scenery and massive climbs and descents - a real runners / bikers paradise. I was out last Thursday morning early - caught the cable car half way up Mont Blanc then ran along the Grand North Balcon - saw my first Marmott!! - before returning to Chamonix via the Montenvers trail - all this before breakfast - top banana!!
Now it’s back to reality - well almost as it’s the mighty Ben Nevis race this Saturday. Just time to unpack and rinse through my undies before I’m off again on a trip oop north.
The Ben is a real hard race - 1 mile flat - 4 miles climb - 4 miles descent - 1 mile flat - simple eh? I can tell you that no 10 mile run feels like the Ben race - nor does any 10 mile run make you walk in such a bizzare way for the next 2 days. Afetr my semi restful holiday I’ll be interested to see how I go this weekend - one thing’s for sure the party in Fort Bill on Saturday night will be a gud un!!
So I decided late Saturday to race the Sedbergh Hills race on Sunday. This is a serious AL fell race at 14 miles and 6000ft of climb. (AL or A Long is an FRA grade which measures height gained and distance and the system goes from CS to AL). Sedbergh is in the Howgills above the Dales and to the right of the Lakes and it’s an area I’ve never really visited. I’ve heard a lot about the race and was quite keen to give it a shot as, if nothing else, it would give me some decent climbing practise before the Ben. As I didn’t know the course and I’d trained all week before the race (including Saturday) I decided to simply treat it as a long training run - which is exactly what it turned out to be. I ran with my pal Andrew Jebb (brother of the fell running supremo Rob) for the first half of the race but had no option but to let him go after checkpoint 4 as he was simply too strong for me on the long climb up to ‘The Calf’.
I managed to perform a bit of a crowd pleasing comedy tumble on a track about half way round which resulted in a badly sprained and bruised thumb! Not the most common of fell running injuries….
Anyway, I really enjoyed the race despite blowing quite badly between checkpoint 5 and 6 and having to eat almost all my emergency rations (SIS Go Gel, chocolate raisins and a brunch bar - didn’t need my ‘break wax in case of emergency’ babybell though - that’s in there to fend off cramp should it rear its ugly head)- now I know the route I think I’ll be back for more next year.
Had a rest Monday, although the old legs didn’t feel too bad, and then tonight went for another hour on the roadie - my how my 3 Peaks traning is really coming on!!! Oh and by the way I was wrong in my earlier post it was 16.5 mph avereage not 17.5 - I’m even more rubbish on a bike than I thought I was.
Thursday night it’s the Bingley Harriers backpack run from Beckfoot School to the pubs in Ilkley - this started off as a crazy stunt amongst a few of us but has turned into quite a tradition - full report soon.
Anyway - anyone see the Olympic triathlon this morning? - what about the Bingley Harrier leading from the front until 2.5km out - a fantastic performance by Alistair Brownlee - he’s my tip for the top in 2012 (oh and his brother Johnathon for silver!!)
All the summer trainings been done! I spent this week concentrating mainly on match practise with some light conditioning. Played another match this morning weekend off and some more next week. Travelling to Chicago on September 8th for my first event of the new campaign.
Finally made my triumphant return to 1st team action this weekend, and surprisingly after 1 practice session in about 4 weeks my bowling was spot on!! Figures of 10(overs)-1(maiden)-2(wickets)-26(runs) was better than I was expecting. I tooka couple of wickets in the middle and just tried to tie things down, which I think i did pretty well. My bowling felt much more fluid and had good rythm. Hopefully I can have a strong end to the season and pick up a few more wickets!
Looks like a might be having a net today, weathers not too bad.
I need to get working on my run up becaue i think thats where my problems have been with my bowling. I havent felt like I’ve had any rythm for while now. If you dont have any rythm its hard to be consistant because each ball feels different when you release it. The key to fast bowling is rythm and every ball should feel the same which is down to kinesthesis (which is the ability to sense the psoition and orientation of your body and its parts, A-level P.E. has its uses!), if it doesnt feel right then whatever your doing it isnt going to happen right!
So fingers crossed I can get some work done on this tonight!
Well I ended up in the first team this weekend because of 3 people dropping out on Friday night which was not really the way i wanted to make my return to be honest! I’ve just started to find form with the bat again and was hoping for another week in the seconds to get a few more runs but it wasn’t to be.
We played Farsley who are top of the league and got beat convincingly. I didnt get chance to get on to bowl before they had knocked the runs off which i was a bit annoyed with. Hopefully I can get a good practice session in on Thursday if the weather holds off and then get bowling back in the seconds so I can get some confidence back and end the season with some more wickets!