Up yesterday was my first run for a while on what I call the Longhope three peaks, on account of it having, yes, you guessed it, three peaks. May Hill, Brights Hill and Huntley Hill. The biggest climb, from the A40 to the trig on May Hill, is about as close to a fell running hill as you can get in the forest (but it's not really that close). I wasn't far off my time from 2015. I think I can break that later in the year as I was slipping around in the mud on parts of the climb.
Things got slower in the last third on the second and third climbs as it got boggier and boggier. I almost went down on my arse a couple of times but managed to 'ski' myself upright. Anyway, it was a solid 10.5km with a surprisingly decent amount of ascent at 410m, in a time only a few minutes down on my best from 2015 and most of that lost time was down to the mud-fest. Definitely a route I'm going to see more of - but maybe once things start to dry up a little later in the spring.
Up today was another stage of the Tour de Zwift and I didn't go all in, although I put in hard efforts, above FTP, in patches. A sort of fartlek session but on a bike. By the end, a 4km climb to the finish, my legs were cooked.
My training earlier in the week saw me complete a reasonably steadily ramped tempo 5+k on the treadmill (2%incline) Tuesday. Followed by a hard effort on the Zwift (bike) Wednesday, Stage 5 of the Tour de Zwift. The route was a simulation of part of the 2018 world champs in Innsbruck, and a cat. 2 climb. I took it easy till the climb then hammered it. I started to cramp slightly into the final km but managed to keep pushing and get over the top in a new time of 25:16, over a minute inside my previous best effort. I pulled a rest day Thursday as my legs were suffering a bit from the previous days cramping and Friday my legs felt like they needed a fraction more recovery so it was just a lower than tempo 5k on the treadmill, 3% incline. Rest day tomorrow and then back on it.
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