Phil Royle – philroyle.me

Running Year Review 2023

2024-01-01 by Phil Royle

I started to get back on track (not literally) with my running in 2023, after a difficult end to 2021 and all of 2022. I was able to find some consistency, although there was a setback in late September due to my first case of Covid, which meant around four weeks of no running.

Although I signed up for two races, I completed only one of them; the Llyn Brenig 15K in June (time: 1:33:25). I’d also signed up for the Flintshire 10K, the first race I ran back in 2019, but I wasn’t sure whether I would take part after they moved it to Abergele (in Conwy county, not Flintshire…), and then when Covid derailed my training and fitness a few weeks before the race the decision was made not to start.

Since then I’ve been building up my base fitness again with lots of easy running, gradually building up the volume which I hope to maintain over the winter. I had set a target of 1000 km for the year, and my total distance was 1212 km, so I’m pleased with that.

Looking ahead to 2024 my intention is to run more trails, and more hills, so I have signed up to take part in the Excalibur half marathon in May, which is a 21 km trail run around Moel Famau. For that, I’ll need to continue increasing my training volume, ensure that I do regular strength training, and start adding in some hilly trail runs. I’m also in the early stages of preparing for a bigger challenge later in the year, but that depends on how things go in the meantime… more details in due course!

Polar H10 Fix

2023-09-032023-08-27 by Phil Royle

A Polar H10 heart rate monitor, two o-rings, and an HR monitor strap.

Although I’m currently running without using technology such as HR monitors, I remembered that I meant to write a post about a quick fix for issues I used to have, and have seen others reporting, with Polar H10 heart rate monitors. It relates to random drops in heart rate during a run, as seen towards the end of this long steady run;

Heart rate chart. — Heart rate chart showing random dropouts in the final third.

When the strap was new it worked perfectly for a while, but then I’d start to see these dropouts in every run after a warm up. In an effort to resolve it I had tried replacing the battery, but would end up having to replace the strap, only for the same problem to return within 3 to 6 months. Others have said that this is what they do, claiming that the strap is a consumable item that needs regularly replacing, but that seems wasteful and doesn’t sit well with me.

Lorus Titanium

2023-08-11 by Phil Royle

Over the last few years I’ve been collecting a few watches; mostly cheap digital watches from Casio and Timex, a few slightly more expensive watches from Citizen, Garmin and Coros, and I thought I’d write about some of them here. I’ve already written a little about my new running watch (a Timex Ironman), but today I’m sharing another new watch that I think will be my daily ‘work’ watch – a Lorus Titanium (model # RG879CX9).

Various YouTube channels have praised the previous version of the cream faced watch, and having bought the current version and liked it, when I saw a black-faced version available I knew I had to add that too.

Simplifying Running

2023-07-30 by Phil Royle

I love running. I love how good it makes me feel, both physically and mentally. I love making plans and seeing my fitness improve when those plans are executed. I love how simple running is; put on my shoes and head out the door. Over time I’ve made it more complicated than it should be though, with GPS watches, heart rate monitors, power meters, Strava, segments, leaderboards, etc., and I’ve come to the realisation that I need to get rid of all that and simplify my running again.

New Walking Pages

2023-07-10 by Phil Royle

A number of years ago I wanted a better way to organise the growing collection of walking and cycling routes I had, and in the process of sorting that I decided to publish them on a separate website called OpenRoutes. In an effort to simplify the organisation of things, and to save some money, I’ve now decided to close that website and have just finished importing the walking routes from there into a new section here. Behold… Walking Routes.

A screenshot showing a map with a walking route marked in green.

I’ll be working on a better way to display the list of routes (most likely via a map), and adding more detail to each page shortly, and I will hopefully be adding more routes in the future.

I’ve also added a few pages from a previous iteration of this website, which show my progress towards ‘bagging’ various hill summits in the UK – although progress has stalled on them in the last few years, since the pandemic.

YesCymru Rally – Talacre

2023-07-142022-06-12 by Phil Royle

On Saturday June 11th 2022 several local YesCymru groups gathered on the beach at Talacre to raise awareness of the campaign to devolve the Crown Estate. This was part of a weekend of similar ‘Banners on Beaches’ events throughout Wales organised by YesCymru.

At present, profits from the Crown Estate in Wales go to the UK Treasury, which then gives 25% to the monarchy. This has been devolved in Scotland, so the profits there go to the Scottish government, but Westminster has rejected requests for the same thing to happen in Wales. YesCymru is a campaign group for Welsh independence, and having control of the profits from Welsh resources would help to prove that Wales is big enough and rich enough to be an independent nation.

More details are available in this Nation.Cymru article, which includes one of my photos of the event:

2022-06-12 Run

2022-06-12 by Phil Royle

Had a wonderful early morning run today; a mixture of road and trail.

Saw a jay, a kestrel, a buzzard flew from a tree just 3 metres in front of me, then perched again as I ran past and wished her a ‘bore da’, and only one human (a rather nasty one, literally screaming at her dog for not behaving completely obediently).

And I thought of the Byron line (paraphrased) “I love not humans the less, but Nature more.”

Title: The Buddha before Buddhism
Author: Gil Fronsdal
My Rating: ****