This week was the first time I've done three runs in a week since I left the UK - I've had to scale things back because of driving through Europe and then just generally being busy, and the hassle of finding new routes having made me a bit reticent to go out.
You might think exploring is 'fun' but actually finding new running routes can be a great big pain in the ass - it only takes one stretch of 200 metre 'death road' or around here one aggressive dog off the lead which is quite common and that's a perfectly good run ruined, and you just can't tell from maps how it's going to pan out, so finding new routes is all a bit of a stress. Unless you go on additional walks to reckie, which is finally what I settled on last week.
I've also not been in a routine, because of lots of 'moving to a new country' type chores disrupting my week, which doesn't help a three-run week schedule.
Anyway, now I've been settled in one place for almost two months (! already, time's flying!) and I'm in a decent weekly routine and I've got about five good routes to choose from, three runs a week should be easy to maintain from this point forwards, at least for the next couple of months.
And I found an excellent route up to my local mountain range last week - The Gardunhas - where there's several dozen kilometres of tracks to choose from and easily enough room to do a marathon, all on tracks.
I track most of my runs with Garmin, which auto uploads to Strava.
Weekly running summary:
- Total kilometres this week: 23k
- No. of runs: 3
Tuesday's Run - 8K explore up a mountain
I'd already taken a reckie drive out to my start town of Castelo Novo, about a 15 minute drive from where I'm currently staying, so I was able to just park up and get running.
It's quite beautiful scenery lower down - this kind of thing:
A bit jaggier when you get higher up.
I kept going until I reached a local summit marker at 4.5K which was the perfect point for me to turn around and head back down - for a total run of 8K - I just walked the last bit, I haven't done a long run over 9K since I injured myself back in Spring, so carefully with the hills!
I felt fine after.
Thursday's Run: 10K full of enthusiasm back up the same mountain for a second time!
I clearly hadn't overdone it on Tuesday as I was well up for heading back to the same mountain and going further up - I parked a bit further into town and used the first bit of Tuesday's run as a walking warm up then started running about 1K further up - which meant by the time I got to 5K I was quite a bit further up the hill - still a way off the summit - but by that point I was done - I don't think I've ever run 5Ks just purely up a mountain.
Annoyingly my Garmin didn't record the route, but I got some pace data and some photos at least.
I did get a selfie at a view point though:
Saturday's Run: 5K up and down my local mountain (or it's probably technically a hill)
This is now my standard local 5K - I've managed to figure out the exact start point with means I summit at 2.5K and then it's 2.5K back down to the car - well 2.6K - but I always run that little bit extra.
I'm still not able to run the whole thing up - there are two sections that are so steep I'm not even sure they're worth running - it's probably more efficient to walk, or rather power march if you get my meaning!
I took this photo at the top - I think those snowy peaks in the distance are what I ran up Tuesday/ Thursday:
Next week's plans
The main goal is to get up the top of that highest point of the Gardunhas on Tuesday - hopefully the weather will be nice and the snow would have cleared for that.
Thursday I dunno - I guess I should just do a flat local run, give my legs a rest from hills.
Saturday - The Val de P 'wanna be Park Run' again - it's just the perfect Saturday run!