Canterbury 10 Miler (29 January)

It's the end of week 4 of 16 of the build up to the 2012 London Marathon.  So far so good, but I need some clear evidence of progress and I have been itching to drop some data into the McMillan Race Calculator to see whether or not I am training at the right pace.  I think the intensity has been about right and having done 142 miles of running this month so far and am feeling pretty fit.  The endurance is coming along too. Winter Tanners (31 miles) two weeks ago was a hoot.  My first ultra and I absolutely loved every yard of it.  I ran it with M and some other friends and we had a ball.  I now can't wait until the next LDWA long run. 

In terms of structuring my training, the schedule is working and is comfortable.  That said, the January Runners World Challenge has been brilliant to get the post Christmas blues banished and increase motivation levels.  Last year it was UK v US; this year we stayed local and it was North UK v South UK.  It looks like us softy southerners will lose, but that really isn't the point.  It has also been an amazing insight into the amount of training other people do (some absolutely awesome distances by some folk)!

So the Canterbury 10.  Woke to freezing conditions - damp and very cold.  I would rather colder and crisper but there is no choosing your weather; so 3 degrees and damp would have to do.  Arrived in plenty of time and collected number and chip and then lurked around the School Sports Hall trying to spot friendly faces.  Met up with and chatted to our friendly sports masseuse (Tim Sutton) who was there to give post race massages in support of the race, and also some other buddies from Thanet Road Runners.  I couldn't spot Seb in the crowd which was a shame as I really wanted to meet him properly having corresponded by email for a while.  Did a few half hearted stretches and started to feel curiously nervous.  M had left me to my own devices by this stage so that she could get out to Bridge and give me a big shout as I ran through so I wandered up to a busy starting pen. 

The route

The start was mad, but it was chip timed so no point barging over the start line.....  And suddenly we were off...  I settled into a comfy pace from the off.  There were way too many people with, clearly, a wildly optimistic view of their own ability and for the first mile many of us were dodging around them while the field sorted itself out.  Miles 1 and 2 flew past trying to avoid the pot holes, and, as we clipped through Mile 3, I got my first time check.  Time elapsed 20:14, so running under 7 min mile pace!  I got a big boost seeing Maria outside the butchers in Bridge Village and gave her my gloves and shouted out a time check so she would know what pace I was running and therefore where I would be on the course.  Speed was a bit quick at this point so backed off a bit, also helped by a water station and a quick pee stop which probably lost me a minute!

Mile 5 and a timing mat, good thinking Invicta.  36 mins on the nose, pace steady now for the next few miles despite some fairly nasty upulations!  Nearly ground to a halt at the top of Bekesbourne Hill!  3 Miles out from the end and time to up the pace.  Legs felt strong and I was boosted in the knowledge that I was going to be way under the 1:20:00 target that I had set myself. 

A newly configured finish shoot now sees you looking down a gentle descent straight into the finish line.  Much much better than the finish from previous years.  Half a mile out and nobody was going to pass me.  There were two lads behind me and now I was racing.  Still feeling strong and running with good form (although apparently not looking as fresh as I felt) I swept down the hill and across the finish line in 1:11:32.

Brilliant race, and a negative split.  36 mins for the first half and 35:32 for the second.

Done............

Deal Half Marathon next in 2 weeks time. Slightly scarily I have now put the time for this into McMillan and if I can keep things going like this I should be aiming at a 1:35 half marathon (that will be a 7 minute Personal Best) and a 3:20 marathon (a 48 minute PB).  This seems too far fetched for words.  Lets see how the training progresses.  I have a half marathon and a 20 miler to fine tune the final target for London.

On on.

Winter is closing in...

while some of you might be sat on your sofas, carefully booking holidays on your laptops, I've been booking races!  Four months of training has somehow rushed by since Challenge Copenhagen and so far so good.  Base level fitness is high, all niggles have receded into the background, work is under control and I've even got the garden tidy!  With a marathon in April looming, the training needs to become more organised.

But the weather is closing in... it is time to man up and face the challenge of whatever nature's worst imagination can conjure up.  As I sit and type there are 70mph winds and rain battering the roof, it's going to be a fun winter.

Found this on the Internet and loved it.  There's nothing for it, but wrap up and get out anyway.

Happy running folks.

On on

Gatliff Marathon Weekend

Gatliff has always conjured thoughts of mud, mud and more mud.  Maria has run it before and found conditions underfoot very challenging.  But with a dry spell leading up to last weekend and a burning desire for a long slow run, I was in.  Three routes to choose from: 20k, 35k and 50k.  Maria was doing the 50k with 4 friends of ours; all fellow nut-cases/ultra runners!  I chose the 35k.  Not quite a marathon, but still a fairly solid long run. Weather was OK with just a few showers threatening, cold and clear, but very windy.  An icy penetrating wind...  more on this in a sec.

Registration was a disaster.  Not enough people, and the three people there seemed very disorganised and thus, stressed!  They had even run out of instructions for the 35k route.  But hey ho, the event is only £8 so mustn't grumble.  I was given instructions for the 50k and told to run to checkpoint 1 (10k point) where they would have some of the correct route cards.  So with some trepidation I set off (forgetting to press start on my garmin - normal form for me)!

The run itself can be split into three parts.  Part 1 - It was cold and windy, and the rain had started so I had put a cycling jacket on over 2 other layers - why do I keep doing this.  Every time I do it I get too hot.  Sure enough, 3kms in and I was overheating.  Not trusting myself, as it was still cold, I stayed too hot and also, in my sweaty confusion, didn't drink anything.  Notwithstanding this, I was plodding along at a fair pace though humming away to random tunes on my iphone or chatting to the few runners out on the course who I caught up with.  Navigation was very tricky in the first bit and quite a few times I stopped (along with others) and scratched my head a bit, or abortively set off along paths only to retrace my steps.  Getting across the golf course was a nightmare as there was no indication of where on earth any of us were meant to go.  The golfers must have had a real belly laugh at a whole load of us all running around in different directions trying to get off which ever fairway we had crossed.  It was Brownian motion runners style! 

After 7k, I aborted the jacket and instantly felt cold as my layers underneath were sodden.  It took a few miles to warm up again, but once blow dried I was actually fine for the rest of the day.  Next time no jacket, or perhaps a gillet.

Part 2, hilly.  Navigation over the hills was easier as the route followed better defined paths.  Not much to say other than walked the ups (as they were very steep) and walked the downs (as they too were very steep).  The route seemed to zigzag along the escarpment to the North Downs.  Odd route choice!  Had some fun with some cows in this section.  Playful they might have been, but when 40 young cows want to play with you it all gets a bit surreal so I hopped over a fence and tracked along the other side of the wire along the edge of the field to the target gate much to the horror of another runner in the field who was then left on his own and became the target of the cows' affection!  I didn't hear exactly what he shouted at me, but it sounded something like "you bastard"!!  Met up with him at the gate and we both had a laugh about it.

Part 3, last 15k... bit flat but easy running with some impossible navigation.  Right from the last check point navigation was a problem with some of the route card reversed.  Turn right then left actually meaning the reverse!  I think that, notwithstanding each year is a different route, sections are simply cut and pasted from previous years into the current years route card and maybe there were some transposition errors.

Back to the Rugby Club and logged off the route in 5 hrs 13ish mins.


In summary...  cracking day (if a little breezy), basic but friendly aid stations, route card nowhere near LDWA standards, not as much mud as I feared, some unfriendly walkers, some friendly walkers and runners too, a good selection of nosh at the end with limitless quantities of tea, great facilities too (showers/changing etc) at the Rugby Club.

One week on and odd that I had no DOMS, in fact no ill effects from the run at all, not even that tired the next day.  Maybe Maria is right, maybe I should do my long runs off road.  Will I do it again, very probably.

I've made this a quiet week, mostly because I've had a brutal week at work, but good to ease off for a few days and fit in a bit of recovery.  Back to the schedule tomorrow.  Route below if anyone wants to work it out themselves!

On on............

 

Ballbuster Autumn 2011 - DONE

I entered this race on a whim.  I've always read read race reports from others that have done this race with some awe.  Starting on the top of Box Hill, one of the highest points in Surrey, the race rotates five times around an eight mile road loop.  The first time round is run, then three loops on the bike and the final lap done on the run again; making it a fairly brutal duathlon.  It's also a relatively local race which makes it so much easier, and cheaper.  Even with all of the creature comforts of the motorhome, there is nothing like having a proper nights sleep, albeit foreshortened, in your own bed!

So to the race, and, the now traditional, race report.

There is something magical about racing on a Saturday: there is no stress about having to go to work the following day.  Getting up at 0430 hrs doesn't have the same shock factor on a Saturday as it would do on a Sunday morning.  So I found myself arriving nice and early at Box Hill Car park to see the few trade stands still setting up and then being stacked by a hi-viz marshal into the car park in such a way as made it immediately obvious that no-body was going home until the last person had finished.  I don't know why, but this made me giggle.  I had no pre-race stress, my kit was ready and prepared in the car, I was 20m from transition and I knew the layout of the registration area.  The registration process was relatively easy and in a completely puerile way I smiled to myself, as I always do, as I showed my BTF licence to the first lady in the process - I still get a buzz about showing my "International Race Licence" at the beginning of these races.  I'm still not sure that in my heart I feel the same connection to this credit card sized certificate as my training would otherwise suggest that I should.  Maybe it's a British thing not to wish to be arrogant.  Or maybe it's a private acknowledgement that I still don't associate with the pointy end of the field!  I'm now quite comfortably being mid-pack. 

And so to the race.  The course is either uphill or downhill.  Seemingly in equal measure.  The roads are mostly narrow and were all slick with early morning dew, leaf mulch and mud washed off the banks by weather and traffic.  This was not going to be a fast orbit of the hill on the bike, but on the run it was magic.  An 0800 hrs start saw me jogging slowly off the starting field and chatting to some new found mates (also Pirates).  As I warmed up I started to stretch away and settle into my own zone.  The race results don't lie and race chip timing records a first lap on foot in just under the hour; wow!  I'm guessing I should stop blaming a now old injury for poor race performances! I had no grumbles from my hip abductors.  In fact during the first lap I felt very strong and as if I was holding back.

I've uploaded the results to Google Docs as a reference of splits and therefore speed around each lap and through each transition.  Scroll down to position 257 to find me, or just enjoy the performances of everyone who finished!