Hey Steemians - it's been another busy weekend of training for my impending 100km race. I'm not really able to walk correctly today as my hamstrings are completely wrecked, but I'm really satisfied with what I achieved.
I had hoped to do my longest training run this weekend - perhaps 30 miles or more - but at the last minute I decided I also needed more hill climbing experience, so instead headed up into the hills. I was out for five and a half hours, and managed a full marathon distance, with ~900m of ascent. Not quite the distance I wanted but definitely good preparation for all the hills I'll be facing in 3 weeks.
It was tough. Much tougher than anything I've done in this campaign so far and I had to dig pretty deep to get through it. The views up on the South Downs are really fantastic though which really helps, and apart from a handful of mountain bikers, I had the place mostly to myself.
Here are a couple of pics I took of Chanctonbury Ring, an ancient hill fort dating back to around 700 BC.
It sits more than 200m above the wide flat expanse of Sussex, with panoramic views all the way up to the Surrey hills in the North, and right out to sea in the South. An excellent tactical location.
The first picture (above) is approaching the fort from the West. In the second picture (below) I am looking back towards it from the East. You can see the fort again in the far distance over to the right, at the point where the land starts to slope down towards the little villages below.
