Cold Snap

After last Sunday's bitter cold, the snow finally arrived on Monday, and the UK, apparently, ground to a halt. The mobile phone network was overloaded with people calling in with the excuse that they were snowed in, the broadband internet took a beating from all those people who stayed and worked from home, and even SatNavs failed - the snow blinded the satellites!
The effect it had on me? I put on my hiking boots, and ran in those for three out of this week's four runs (the snow disappeared for Wednesday before coming down again on Thursday). Having spent all that money on state of the art running shoes, it may seem silly, but Emil Zatopek and Roy Fowler used to deliberately train wearing army boots - runnning shoes were a piece of cake after that! It does make it hard to compare this week's times with previous efforts, because of the extra weight that I'm carrying, the closest that I've got as a comparable run is this Sunday, but again I exceeded the planned mileage over the week.
Long run, and bearing in mind the extra weight of the boots, I'm thinking of a shorter run to balance out, but just how much shorter? Wendy suggests that, as I'm training my body to run for about 2 hours, I run outwards for an hour, then turn around and head back. Fair enough, point my feet in the direction of the Wrekin, and set off. Check my time at the All Labour in Vain, just over half an hour, out across Lightmoor, and slog up into Little Wenlock, barely managing to put one foot in front of another by the time I reach the top, and then on towards the Wrekin. Up ahead there's a little coppice, that will make a good landmark to use on Runfinder, and I've reached there in just under 54 minutes, I'll probably take longer on the way back, with fatigue setting in, so I'll turn around here.
A couple of weeks back, I checked with the organisers as to what would be provided at the drinks stations - wisdom says that you should train with it, to ensure that you don't get some sort of unwelcome reaction during the race itself. Anyway, this is an event that isn't sponsored by one of the energy drinks makers, and what's on offer is water (sponsored by Severn-Trent?). So any energy (and wisdom says that you WILL need some!) has to be provided by the individual runner. I could take my own energy drink with me, but it seems to make more sense to use an energy gel, and wash it down with the water provided. And the recommendation is that it takes a LOT of water, not just the quick splash that you can get with the regular bottle.
So, I'm testing the gel today, and I take a break of a couple of minutes to get my breathing back to normal so that I can take a big swig of water, and then I set off walking, not running, to make sure that I've drunk enough. About half my water bottle (I measured it to about 500 ml) later, it's taken me 4 minutes, say quarter of a mile covered, and I've taken on board the whole gel pack. Now, it's back to running, and (maybe it's the placebo effect, maybe it's the chance to get some oxygen into the bloodstream) I'm feeling thoroughly energetic again. Going through Little Dawley, I overhaul a man on a bike - OK, so he's a pensioner, but...
Finally, I get back, in 1 hour 46 minutes, so the homeward half, notwithstanding the walking at the turnaround, was fractionally faster than the outward half. Energy drink + (I think) downhill on the way home just beats fatigue. Plug the route into Runfinder, and it comes out as just under the ten miles, marginally further than a fortnight ago, and a minute faster. And in boots!
I did some research into the railway line from Coalport, and I was right, the climb up into Madeley is along that route. I also found out that this climb is "1 in 31 - believed to be the steepest gradient over which locomotive-hauled standard gauge passenger trains have ever travelled in the UK"! Having felt like the little engine that could, I believe it!