Running

Saying that, I went to the one off Oxford St and they ended up recommending a pair of Nike that were half price in the sale.

Mike Ashley's tactic is to buy the distressed brands (Dunlop, Slazenger, Karrimor, Everlast, Lonsdale, etc) and then sell that stuff heavily discounted (not much above cost). That gets people into the shops where they then target selling them other brands which, whilst discounted, still provide a reasonable mark-up.

Some proper hills out here :D went up to the top of Europe today, amazing to see the north face of the Eiger after reading so many stories associated with it :)

Went up to the finish line as well to have a look at the climb up, really excited now can't wait until Saturday :)

Wow - that is seriously stunning!

That does look fantastic. I've earmarked this race for possibly year after next.

Berlin Marathon prep continuing to go well with just over two weeks to go. Two PBs in the last five days (half marathon 1:11:28, 5,000m 15:37.0) suggesting my sub-2:30 target is most definitely on.

Looks fantastic, enjoy.

@PhilPub - good luck with sub 2.30, proper rapid those PB's

Hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life! You know it's steep when they start marking the distances in 250m sections, distance becomes irrelevant when it's that steep. I've never run a race where I have 2km to go and I'm not sure I'm going to finish, the last 5km is absolutely brutal.

From 35km onwards the side of the trail starts to look like a battle zone, mostly people just cramping up but quite a few just sitting there because they've just ground to a halt.

There must have been a big group of elite runners who went off like nutters and utterly destroyed each other because I counted at least 15 who were either sat on the roadside or walking, they all had red numbers 1-200 so it always gave you a little boost when you passed one of them :)

4 of us did it and 4 of us finished which was the main thing, I had 4:20 in my head when I thought I'd be fit for it so I was pretty pleased with 4:36.

I think a mile longer and my wife would have caught me, 4 minutes was far too close for comfort :D

P.s Snowdonia in 6 weeks will be a walk in the park :D

Sounds brutal. Fantastic effort! And good work by the missus.

Hello runners

Sorry for the crosspost, but thought i'd raise your awareness: I have some barely used Adidas winter tights and Gore Windstopper gloves for sale here:
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/274351/

Who be hetting muddy this year?

My schedule:

MATCH 1 : SATURDAY 10TH OCTOBER 2015*[not for U11’s]
Woodbank Park, Stockport.
MATCH 2 : SATURDAY 7TH NOVEMBER 2015
Sherdley Park, St Helens.
MATCH 3 : SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER 2015
Boggart Hole Clough, Manchester.
MATCH 4 : SATURDAY 16TH JANUARY 2016
Heaton Park, Manchester.
MATCH 5 : SATURDAY 13TH FEBRUARY 2016
Wythenshawe Park, Manchester

Just learned we've been promoted to Senior Div 1, think I made our top 6 at least once last year so after work today I'm getting on the Open Top sightseeing bus whilst drinking champagne and singing inappropriate songs about other running clubs to celebrate.

How do you go about finding Crosscountry events (london area)?
Would love to- slowly beginning to enjoy my running again.
This morning was a 5mile quickie before 6:50 train to Notts, left the house to a very miserable 5am rainy drizzly crap. Enjoyed it eventually.

Most of the official ones you need to be in a club for. Join the club for a few quid (you can often get pro rated memberships later in the year), and you pay about a fiver for half a dozen races.

^ What he said. A lot of XC races are run on a league basis according to county, or the Metropolitan league. Depending on where the club's based, even if they're London based they might compete in a county league, e.g. I run with Kent AC (actually SE London) and we're in the Surrey League. Then there are championship races for county, regional and national, but these are also entered through a club. The "National" is up north this year, but the Southern champs are at Parliament Hill, 9 miles of mud I'm already looking forward to in January...

It would be worth having a look at some clubs in your area and see what leagues they compete in. Even if they're in a high division everyone will get a run out if they want one.

Any of you familiar with process for getting club into the National? Has registration gone for this year? Our club doesn't but with 90+ xc'ers last year I'd like to put the case forward that we should and am willing to fill in the forms/admin etc to make it so.

As club secretary I should probably know more but I don't deal with the XC entries. Just read something on the ECCA website about deadline for entry being seven weeks out, so I'm sure you've got enough time to make enquiries. Main thing is for the club - and all entrants - to be EA affiliated.

http://www.englishcrosscountry.co.uk/the-national-cross-country-championships/entry-procedure/

Ta, we are EA as a club & members must be to race the league. I'll give that link a read and share. Ta.

I'm toying with the idea of entering Paris Marathon next year. WTF, I hated the last marathon I did and threw up on myself.

RoF was tough, its a bitch of a course. Curled up on a pavement and slept at 3am on the Sunday morning, so 100 miles out of 135 done. Not overly disappointed to DNF as I learnt a lot that I will put into practise for the Spine.
Mainly about fueling which is very different to cycling - in that you avoid eating anything of substance as your body just rejects it. I was pleased with my night time navigation. But it was too soon after PBP, I felt mentally drained. There's a lot of love in this race though, the organisers are super friendly so will definitely have another go next year.

Paris Mara was great when I did it. Big city marathon feel (not as big as London and pretty quiet at the start, but still good), easy to get into, beautiful city. Went with a group of friends and had a great time.

If you do it, remember you'll need a doctor's certificate to register which is a bit of a faff.

(We all forgot but one of our group's mum's is a doc and so she brought a stack of signed letters with her :-) )

Or just print one out yourself, which is a lot less of a faff...

Winter running jackets.
My insport jacket finally died. It wasn't very waterproof, it was only relatively windproof. But was awesome none the less. Nice fit, very simple, bit of stretch. Dunno, just seemed to work.

Looking at a light soft shell to replace it. Anyone have experience of these or can recommend something similar.

Inov8 race elite 275.
http://www.inov-8.com/New/Global/Product-View-Apparel-Race-Elite-275-Softshell.html?L=26

OMM kamleika-race-smock
https://www.theomm.com/products/clothing/kamleika-race-smock-2/

To continue the generosity of @juanito ...
If anyone would like a copy of Running Free then drop me a PM and I'll pop it in the post.

I haven't read Feet in the Clouds yet so can't compare it to that but there are some tedious sections about how amazing it is seeing the sun on the morning dew, and how he smelt a deer that turned out to be a fox (or the other way round), or how this field is sometimes ploughed, and other times it's not but I found it interesting on the whole.

In complete contrast to Smallfurry, I recently bought myself a couple of Mapei vests from Prendas in prep for Winter.

Some of us don't hide in the gym when the weather gets shut though ;)