Midges and peat

Run away! We fled the jubilympic elations, put a pin in the map of Ireland and found the Galtee Mountains - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia mountains. Having visited Ireland before, experienced the exaggerated claims of its various tour info boards, we double checked the height on Googlemaps. A reassuring 919m. A actual munro, if you like that kind of thing.
Campsite Caravan & Camping in Tipperary Ireland at Glen of Aherlow Motor home, Caravan, Tent, Touring, Hillwalking fab for the light traveller - kitchen and lounge and ace showers included in the rather steep 22 euro fee.
Walked out into a sunny valley and up into pine woods. Easy route finding. The galtys remind me of the brecon beacons. Like the letter m viewed from above, actually mn. Tarns cupped in the bottom. Ascent rough, ridge gained. Spotted our nemesis, the walking festival group loitering tiny and colourful by the lake. Clear conditions meant the summit route was obvious, rounded the corner at about 750m and hit peat. Lovely Irish peat. And, Midges. I swear they are the highest Midges in the isles. Any Scots who wish to prove me wrong please do.
They rather distracted us from the view, which was, Er, flat. To the south anyway. To the north were some pretty hills and a nice looking bridleway.
The top - rocky and a metal cross, and the beginnings of what passes for a bank holiday crowd in county tipperary (a few picnicking hikers and a family sweating it up from the other side in jeans and footy shirts) Lake district, in your eye.
On the descent the peat got silly. Wet, deep, unavoidable. Irelands highest inland peak is in need of an erosion-busting path but I don't expect one soon.
My only other comments of interest are that the lakes in the feet of this range all offer good wild camping opportunities but I have no idea how wild camping is in Eire.
And.. there are some nice boulders near lake diheen. For those who do.

How to squeak it in a marathon

Most people are know are hard into about their 4th week. Me, I'm chilling. I'm laid back. In 2010 I had a bad time following a plan I got from a famous maker of shoes (rhymes with greysicks) - by week 10 I was losing the will, and injured to boot. So second time round I thought, I'll squeak it, I'll be a jammy little cow, and I'll do it in ten weeks. This of course leaves no time to be ill, no time to get injured... but the very fact the plan was shorter made me confident that injury was less likely.

So, out came my 2010 calendar. In October 2010 I ran a 3.48 marathon. I'd like to do that in April 2012, so I've basically copied my plan from back then. Someone suggested I share it. It's not in Excel or anything advanced as that. It's on a Chris Packham Photography 2012 calendar if you must know. In biro.

The key bits of it are...

• It's ten weeks long
• For the month leading up to it I have been laying down my base. Three or four sessions a week, plenty of core and stability exercises (thanks for the advice Clive Riley physio), get my head and body into the right place. About 20 miles a week max.
• Long runs start at 8 miles and go up in 2-mile increments (roughly) and I do them mostly on Saturdays, sometimes Sundays.
  
• Alternately 'hard' weeks and 'soft' weeks - only 3 runs in a 'soft' week but 'soft' always augmented by a 30-minute swim. 4 in a 'hard' week.
  
• Peaking at 18 miles 15 days before race day.
• Club sessions once a week to kick me up the arse speed-wise

Anyone reading this who's not a runner, sorry if this is boring/making your eyes pop. It's what we do, runners, we obsess. That's how we achieve what we do, whether it be the Race for Life or the biggest marathon in the world.

And oh, don't even mention Easter weekend to me. Shudder..

A short walk to the beach

Gran Canaria. Christmas time. Outdoor types trying to just chill out and prepare for hard training to come. It was never going to work.

Puerto Mogan - the nicest, most middle-class resort on the island. We tried a day on the loungers but the next day dawned cloudy. I'd read about Playa Venegueras on a blog somewhere, so our hardly-used Kompass map came out. hmmm..about 5k each way. Fine.

The path's a road winding in hairpin turns up the valley side. They have lots of roads like that in GC, but this one has no traffic. Blocked off at either end, as denoted by little red dumb-bell shapes on our map.

You see a fair few folk walking and running up the first stretch from the main road. There's a viewpoint on the clifftop from where you can spy the pretty harbour and yachts, and also the nasty shopping centre development and failed would-be nasty developments further inland. A nice walk of a morning. Carry on though, and it started to feel rather 28 Days Later.

A well-enough maintained road with scenic aspects. No cars, no houses. What got me the most was the ornamental trees and blooming shrubs which had been planted at regular 10-metre intervals, making it a pretty winding avenue through the scrubland and gorges. The trees even have their own irrigation system. We passed a couple of failed fincas, just their foundations and some hosepipe remaining. Surely these trees weren't just here for the walkers and cyclists, who numbered maybe 15 at most.

But who am I to complain? Easy route-finding, shady spots to stop (and pee behind), wildlife flitting and scuttling here and there. After a while we realised that it was probably more than 5k to the beach. It took us a while due to bird and lizard-spotting stops. Just as we started to give up all hope of seeing the beach, we made a winding downhill down a ravine-side, with spectacular mountain views on the horizon...and spied the beach. Mucky brown, rocks, a bombed-out looking building. Buh.

My hopes of an enterprising local selling ice-cold refrescos dashed, we headed along the drainage canal to the beach, via almost a wrong turn into someone's tumbledown garden.

It looked better close up. A calm bay with black sparkling volcanic sand, pebbles, and a rocky cove to shelter in. The wind had got up, and to our minds it was too cold for swimming, so we sat down and ate our picnic then went exploring the rocks, also black, ages-cool lava flowing into the sea.

On the way back we had fun looking at the songbirds and the best funny sign we've seen for ages..

Ladies with Too Much Energy

It's my best and worst attribute. I am a great motivator, worker bee, marathoner and social mixer. I forget what I was doing five minutes ago because someone mentioned outdoors endurance events/waxwings/sushi/men in lycra. Here are a few other ladies with too much energy I know, and why I love them so...

*names have not been changed to protect the innocent, but I'm not linking up their info until I get their permission.

Vanessa Frank - retired wardrobe mistress, diary dragon, mittel-European, ginger giant. We look hilarious when we step out on the town together. She thinks I'm even more shameless than she is. Not sure if she's right. Always guaranteed a viewpoint you'd never even thought existed when in conversation which is very healthy and helps me avoid sliding into suburban oblivion.

Poppy Humphrey - ace student, ex-labour party soldier, fake Jew (kidding, Pops!). So committed to her career and studies even her delightful beau has no idea what to do with her. Never afraid to admit she doesn't know about something and never afraid to pursue that something until she knows everything there is to know. Her mock horror at mucky talk/films/True Blood always tickles me.

Dr Rachel Walton - The witch doctor. Not put off by 8 months of unemployment, set about reinventing freeganing, campaigning for allotment space for her hometown, mixing up new recipes of rosehips, crabapples, nettles and anything else she could pick and yomping about the hills burning off her anger. Now thankfully employed researching how to make bacteria flash along to Pet Shop Boys songs to help cure the collywobbles. Science needs ladies like her - listen up government. A well-rounded (only in intellectual terms) lady Dr who will benefit her field.

And finally, the opposite. Ladies like us need reining in. Step forward Rachel Morgan-Trimmer. Measured, educated, straightforward and just ..well..less frantic than I. And better at baking.

This is how I try to balance my energy. It irritates the hell out of a lot of my colleagues friends and probably even people who don't know me. But if you've got a cause and you need a supporter, I'm your man :)

My Secret

I don't like parties. my own, that is. So invite me to yours as often as you like, but don't be surprised to see me scuttling around in a flap if invited over for tea/gin/little toasts with stuff balanced on them anytime soon.

I love to cook for folk, don't get me wrong, and with my career behind me I am more than familiar with the process of acquiring, mixing and presenting a refeshing beverage. I just get performance anxiety..Are the cousins mixing well with the friends? Are the babies well catered for/safe/not poisoned? Is the music too eclectic? Did I top up the loo roll with the Value or the Quilted Emperor-Wipe?

Most of all I dislike haveing to portion my attention out equally and I do place a mathematical preciseness around this, not wanting to slight any group by under-mingling. Of course with a sloe gin, a muffin, and a bucket of rose inside them none of them give an owls hoot whether or not I came over to tell them I am getting a Gudrun and Gudrun dress for my birthday, but still.

Thanks friends for coming to my party and double thanks to those who said it was good. I can't take praise, I refuse to believe I got it right, and I'm sticking with that. Madwoman.

Run for the Hills

Jon and I have been somewhat absent from our friends and family of weekends lately. The house neglected, the garden hastily watered and the meal plans for the working week out of the window. The season of walking is upon us. Zoe ramps down her running for the summer, saving the hard effort for Big Marathon Training in the winter. Jon needs to train his pernickety feet for the Pembrokeshire Coast Path.

We head, weekly, for the hills. 'the hills'...which hills? We tend towards those which aspire to mountain status. Those whose paths are rocky, uneven, boggy, or steep. Those who spurn tourists with their lack of signposted car parks and cafes. If I told you where to find these I'd be afraid of losing the solitude ;) The Howgills, The majestic Carneddau, Mid Wales (or as we affectionately call it, Middle Wales) with it sparkling lakes and rolling green desert, or the wrong side of Snowdonia (see Carneddau).

To my friends, I apologise. To myself, I sing. Each weekend I return as one freshly laundered. Problems at work become small hillocks to climb. Emotional strain a stream to leap deftly over. A rainshower, a reason to wryly smile when remembering becoming trapped in a bog necessitating rescue by two strong and willing friends.

Jon and I share the worst which a couple could want on our treks. There is nothing more conducive to marital hatred than confinement in a small space together. Odours more magnified. Stepping on one anothers hands, feet and heads when exiting a damp tent in the dewy 5am chill. Fatigue which sets into first one, then the other, then the other, in a capricious cycle, and the pulling away from fatigue which requires both individual strength and team encouragement. Go team..
Of course, we return full of the joys, shared good times in the bank.

My final need for the Hills is the need for a new window each day. Waking up to new sounds. Peeping Oystercatchers, tumbling larks, or whistling winds. Or just a sheep with its monster munching next to your fuzzy damp snug head.
The first unzip on a clear day is the best of all. Yesterdays hill lying tame and exposed behind you. Today's lakes lying glinting, beckoning behind a rocky climb you know you'll detest..

Pass the Oat so Simple.

The first marathon attempt - April 2010

Note: this was written with a public audience in mind, for a competition the Vienna Marathon was holding. I never submitted it because I had no desire to enter the Vienna Marathon again, what with the new plans for Dublin. I stumbled across it today. I'll post the actual marathon report soon..!

Three days to go before my first marathon, and we met in the pub to discuss the news we’d heard during the day. Volcanic ash had closed airspace in the UK. We truly believed that we’d be delayed by maybe a few hours, this kind of thing never lasted long, similar to high winds, bad ice or terrorist alerts. We believed we’d be running through Vienna, experiencing the pain and excitement of the race, on Sunday. The training was done, the injuries dealt with, the plans to meet friends and have a great holiday after the race made.

The following day, Friday, we drove to Manchester airport and it looked like nothing we’d ever seen before. Police lazily walking around, a few people with blankets sleeping, but otherwise it was eerily empty. At the point the lady at the airline desk said ‘we can’t get you there until Sunday afternoon’ it became real and I experienced a physical reaction. There’s no need to try and explain how it felt, I know thousands of others felt the same way.

The following morning I woke super early, turning the radio on in hope that maybe the restriction had lifted and we’d be going after all. The bags were all still packed and ready. BBC radio 4 told me that UK airspace was closed until Saturday night. Full of energy and emotion, I decided I had to do something with the day. Both Jon and I had the same idea ‘let’s go and climb a mountain’! By 9am we were at the beginning of the path up Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales. We reached the summit at 11am. I didn’t stop once on the way up. Adrenalin and anger propelled me. At the summit I became calm, thankful for the beautiful weather and the small achievement which, whilst not matching the planned 'big tick in the box', marked the beginning of my exploration of the great mountains of the country of my childhood.

The following morning the group of us who had planned to go to Vienna set off for Scotland. We spent a week exploring the Western Isles. I took a day trip alone to Kerrera, a tiny island just off the mainland off Oban. There I sat on a beach created by volcanic rock and reflected how things come full circle – here I am sat on a volcanic outflow, because a volcano prevented me from achieving my goal. We had a great holiday exploring a part of the world we hadn’t been to before, and the Scottish weather was very kind to us. After some time to relax, I am now planning my first marathon all over again.