Redbourn Beesonend Loop (Lea Valley Variation)

Today was billed as a fast 10 miles as the Berkhampstead Half approaches at full speed, only two weeks until race day. Eek!

All four of the guys turned up just on time and after some brief Garmin consultancy (Kenny thought he was cycling) we were ready to go.

Having published the traditional 9 miler which goes straight to the Nicky line I decided we needed more like 10 miles and so we headed off along the Lea Valley walk towards East Hyde, cutting back on ourselves up over Cooters End Lane and getting to the Nicky line off Ambrose Lane. I took some flack over that - the guys felt I'd taken them on a three mile detour to get to the one mile point. However, in my defence I'd argue its better to do the hill at mile 2 then mile 1 and I wanted to do a shade over 10 miles not 9 miles. Paul noted the trend we seem to have developed of over running, last week as a fast 10 that turned into 13.5 and this one was already 2 miles over at mile three.....

The trails that were shaded by the trees still had snow and ice on them and where the snow had melted there was a mud bath left over that made the going heavy in many places.

Paul was on fire, having had an easy week, he was bounding along and dragging us closer to a decent pace. The first mile was a corker, coming in at 7:17 and mile 5 was 7:37 and miles 9 and 10 were 7:31 and 7:26 and the last 0.8 was at 6:46 pace so some negative splitting going on and while not setting any records discounting the snow, ice and mud, I think we did ok.

Paul shot off after the Beesonend Lane doing an extra bit around the trees on Harpenden road and appearing out of nowhere ahead of us for the dash over the common.

I was weighed down by Dave's gel (41 grams) which he conned me into carrying for him and after the Beesoned climb he pulled away, but I managed to peg him back and we finished together, including a fast dash down Manland to the house.

Heart rate was interesting, got a peak through miles one and two when up in the 170s ave (166) then it dropped back to 143 and did not drift up until mile 5 when it started to drift up to the low 150s which seemed absolutely fine. Learning to run closer to that red line, which I think is still around 165.

Got a text from Kenny to confirm he made it home alive, he'd lost sight of us at Redbourn, where we voted and unanimously decided to leave him to his fate on the basis we'd been out here with him at least once in the last couple of years so he'd probably be alright.

Berkhampstead here we come!