Condors soaring over Milton Keynes

Saturday was a glorious day for the start of my Milton Keynes based alpine training regime in preparation for the UTMB in August. The sun was out and its warmth could be felt penetrating through trees and clothing. The condors were soaring high above the lofty, snow clad peaks and jutting aretes of the Brickhill Alps whilst marmots and lemmings scurried about in the pine clad slopes and upper alpine meadows. Glorious.

I picked the off road slope with the single greatest uninterrupted vertical ascent and started my run at 3pm. 115' of climbing and 115' of descending saw my first hill rep complete. Yes, the Brickhill Alps are a behemoth of a mountain, ahem er, molehill range.

Last year I peaked at 15 reps in my mid-week hill rep sessions so I was pleasantly surprised when I got to 13 and thought, hang on, this isn't too bad, I can manage a few more. I got to 15 and thought the same thing again. It wasn't till rep 17 that I could feel my calves begin to complain and in rep 18 I thought I'd probably have to walk rep 19 so I called it a day. 18 consecutive reps of up and down, covering 2100' of ascent and descent over 7.83 miles in 1:26.

I then managed to dodge the condors on my descent to make it home in time for my voracious daughter's dinner. A great afternoon. I'll work on upping the number of reps to somewhere around 30-40 as I get closer to the UTMB (oh joy, the idea of it sounds very enticing).

Here's a picture of my at the top of the hill I selected to run up. Milton Keynes is wonderfully scenic isn't it? A real hidden gem. ;-)