The plan was to run the Delamere Half Marathon on Sunday. However, earlier in the week, unsurprisingly, given the snow and ice conditions, an email arrived informing us of the change:

“We have been on a site visit today and due to the ongoing snow and ice in the Delamere area the Forestry team have closed the Whitefield Car Park and the additional parking area at the Visitor Centre. The weather forecast indicates that the snow and ice will not have thawed by Sunday, so these car parking areas will not be reopened for the event.

*We have taken the decision to postpone the event. Whilst it is unfortunate and disappointing that we cannot go ahead with the race this weekend, your safety and your enjoyment must always come first.*”

Undeterred after dropping my daughter off at work on Saturday morning, I decided to go for a run anyway. While contemplating my route, I realised I had downloaded the Delamere Half Marathon route onto my watch. So, I decided to run it slowly to explore the route and forest in the snow. Note: I reversed the route because I didn’t want to run up Old Pale at the very end!

The route was generally well-maintained, with a pleasant layer of softer snow enabling you to run almost the entire distance, except for a few sections where water had frozen on the hills, necessitating cautious navigation. The majority of the route lay along the forest’s edge, with an impressive 5 miles of it being on tracks I had never encountered before. As I approached the end of my run, the more popular routes through the forest became more compacted snow, making them slightly more challenging to navigate.

Overall, I achieved my second-fastest half-marathon time (2 hours and 26 minutes), which I was delighted with, especially considering the challenging ground conditions. Despite the aching legs (and ankles - this was a first), I headed to the Farmers’ Arms, a local pub in Delamere, to treat myself to a well-deserved brunch!

I’ve chosen to use Runna to help me train for the Ultra in June. There are tons of training plans online and in books, but I wanted something that was online, so I could easily ‘*tweak*’ it based on my job and also keep track of my progress using Garmin Connect.

There are three things that drew me to Runna over other similar apps:

1. Its ability to analyse my pace and adjust the plan accordingly. It’s already increased the paces I’m expected to run during intervals and long runs twice, making sure it’s always a challenge.
2. The ease at which you can edit your plan. Work means that I can’t run consistently on the same nights each week., Using Runna I’m able to just drag and drop each weeks plan’s around to fit my routine. The app will then adjust and let me know if I’m going to be overtraining - something it did last week when I had a long run on Saturday and then moved the week afterwards long runs to the Monday.
3. It links closely with Garmin Connect. I record all my workouts and stats on my Garmin Enduro 3.

I’m currently in Week 6 of 8 of a ‘Get Fit’ plan (see image below). The longest run in this plan is just shy of 9 miles, although I’ve already run further than that multiple times. I have it set for 3 runs a week which works well with my schedule - two during the week and one of a week. On Sunday, I have the Delamere half-marathon which I will be using to see how well I can endure the longer distances.

Each week consists of an “Easy run” (no pace guidance), an intervals run with pace guidance and a long run (with pace guidance). Distances and paces are set for you based on what you enter at the start of the plan. I tend to set the Easy run for a Thursday if I’m able to run with Northwich Running Club and leave the Long Run for the weekend. Following the completion of this plan at the end of January, I’ll set the Ultra Plan up to run from January till my Race Date.

Whilst Runna does cost to use I’m the type of person that likes a nicely designed app and would rather pay than have adverts! A monthly or yearly subscription is available - although the yearly subscription is a significant saving on paying monthly as always. For anyone that wants to trial two weeks on Runna for free feel free to use this link: [web.runna.com/redeem](https://web.runna.com/redeem?code=RUNNABUJNFTJ). Full disclosure - If you sign up to a full Runna account through my link I get £10 towards the ‘Runna Store’.

My wife is currently using Coopah which she got for free by subscribing to the Women’s Running magazine. Unfortunately, that offer isn’t active anymore.