IT'S ALL GOING DOWN HILL!

     No improvement in the iced slopes of Ben Rhydding, but cleared roads from the railway bridge and up towards Askwith meant that I could stick to the plan of Tuesday hillwork and Friday efforts; going for 4x 1k assisted reps....downhill!  A generous 1k recovery but at least the chosen stretch was one where I could see the few cars about and they could see me.  Had a thought on the run.....about cadence.
     Besides the treadmill I have a concept 2 in the garage and have recently returned to working on it.  A few years ago I used to row quite a lot and I found that weighing only 9 and a half stone  to achieve comparable times with heavier and taller guys in the gym I had to stroke faster. So I'd be frantically pulling backwards and forwards  up to 35/40 per minute compared to them pulling heavy 25/30.  I think we have to accept that  the stride length shortens with age and the arch drops. I am  more of a heel runner than forefoot runner
now as a consequence so I have to really concentrate on a much faster stride and arm cadence to achieve the speed. That's not to say I won't be stretching and exercising to maintain knee lift anh stride length. Honest.
        Yesterday's quiz question.....Antony Bradford was correct with the result of that Zola Budd/ Mary Decker Olympic clash in which the medallists were largely overlooked particularly G.B. silver medallist Wendy Sly.  See his comment for full details......

P.S. I've just had a look at the 60-69 10000 metres lightweight Concept 2 rankings for 2009 for G.B.  Interesting to see an old Valley Stirider colleague, Tony Haygarth, is ranked at 21 with 47:20.8.  Could be a new challenge for me seeing as I can't make the running rankings?!