Posted on Jul 19, 2010 under Training Diary |
Well yesterday was a milestone with marathon number seven. I now have less races to do than I have done, which is a great feeling. The Fairlands Valley Challenge is organised by the Fairlands Valley Spartans AC and has been running for a number of years. Similar to the Cheltenham event last month this is a trail run but whereas Cheltenham had route markers (for all the good they did me) this was a completely self-navigated route. Several distances were available, both for walkers and runners, with each being a slightly different route so following someone else was not a good idea unless they were on the 26 mile course!! The instructions however were very clearly written with enough detail for you to orient yourself with landmarks along the way. You did have to keep track of where you’d got up to though as trying to subsequently find your place in the list was quite a task. We were also given maps but apart from occasionally using it to get a rough idea of how far round I was I pretty much relied entirely on the written instructions.
As with Cheltenham, you had a route card to be stamped at each checkpoint (which were also water/feeding stations) and you could effectively turn up and start at your leisure but they did have two organised mass starts, one at 9:30 for walkers and one at 10:30 for runners, which was the preferred option to make the timekeeping easier. After a few miles everyone seemed to settle into similar paced groups, which helped with the navigation and encouragement. This time around I managed to stay on course 100% and each checkpoint distance was almost spot-on with what my Garmin was telling me. The checkpoints were almost like mini cafes with a selection of sweets, biscuits and homemade bread pudding! as well as water & squash. This time around I didn’t stop the watch for the checkpoints so my time of 4h 43m was total time out on the route which is an improvement on last month. This was mainly due to the terrain being much more “runnable” as it used a lot of byways, bridleways and tracks that allowed us to keep the pace up – with the inevitable stop-start every so often to read the map etc…
I found this to be a very well organised event and one I would certainly do again. The free barbecue at the end was definitely a welcome sight after crossing the line too!
Posted on Jul 14, 2010 under Race Days |
Last week I participated in the JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge, an annual event in Battersea Park that is now in it’s 34th year! The race is part of a series that takes in all of the major cities of the world culminating in a championship final for all of the best teams. This year Singapore is the championship host. Teams are made up from companies all over the UK (though mainly those which have staff in London) and I have captained the team for my employer for the last 3 years. This is an all-ability and the course is only 5.6km in total so it makes for a pleasant jog in the park if you can negotiate the crowds. This year’s event attracted over 25,000 participants from over 622 companies and has for the last few years been split over two evenings to accommodate the sheer numbers but even so, the 13,000 runners we had on Thursday night were still packed in pretty tight!
This is the first year that they have also introduced a wave start, grouping runners into time pens allowing the faster ones off in advance and gradually letting each group go in intervals. This has no bearing on times since it’s a fully chip-timed race which makes life a lot easier for the team captains who originally had to collate everyone’s times as reported by the runners themselves and since this year one company fielded over 1000 runners that would have been no mean feat!
In the end I managed the course in 26:00 exactly, which is shy of the 21:00 I was hoping for but to be honest I could comfortably do with shedding about half a stone at the moment! Anyways, marathon number 7 is this coming Sunday and is another off-road trail run so hopefully I’ll sweat a few pounds off then… Other than that, training is going ok – although probably a bit lax compared to earlier in the year but the plan is to go for a PB in Berlin in September as I have a six week gap between races so I can get some quality speedwork and distance runs back under my belt. As always, marathon report will be published a day or two after the race so see you next week.
Posted on Jun 21, 2010 under Race Days |
Well they call this the “prettiest marathon in Great Britain” and I would certainly agree with that statement because this was definitely a change from the tarmac torture I’ve endured over the last five races. However, to call this a race would be a a bit of a misnomer because you start on your own!! Basically this is a 4-stage trek around the outskirts of Cheltenham, starting and finishing at the racecourse. On arrival you register at the HQ and then when you are ready you get your timecard stamped and off you go. At each of the checkpoints your card is stamped and you get the option to return to the start on the minibus, allowing you to do as many of the sections as you feel able. The whole route is 26.2 miles however which is why it qualifies as an official “marathon” but don’t expect a PB when doing this one! I decided at the start that I would take my Garmin time over the clock time and would stop the watch at each checkpoint for a short break, which proved to be a good strategy in the end as I spent quite a while at one checkpoint with a bad case of the runs (yes ok – too much information). So, while my watch time came in at 4:57:28 as actual time spent on the move I would image the course clock time would be closer to 5:20 or so.
Off into the hills!
Anyway onto the course itself, the first stage starts out on single track roads and you start heading towards what is quite a significant climb up onto the panorama overlooking Cheltenham. It was only after a mile or so that the first waypoint took me off-road and into a field, which wasn’t too bad to start with as the ground was quite even but as the hills approached the gradient really started to take it’s toll and I was soon down to a stride as I was literally climbing up a steep grassy bank. I decided that the best approach to this race was going to be walk up – run down (wherever possible) and only run on surfaces where I wasn’t going to risk going over on an ankle and – and there were certainly plenty of those!! As well as the tracks and open fields there were a lot of passages through hedgerows and small bridges over streams to negotiate as well as countless stiles and kissing gates – and this was just the first section… The first checkpoint was a welcome sight, not just for the water but also to reassure me that I was following the map ok. 
This was not repeated on stage two when I managed to get very lost having missed one of the small waypoint markers on a fencepost and ended up in a small village street that I couldn’t find on the little hand-drawn map I was given. A local passer-by couldn’t really make out where I should be going and just suggested I ran down the main road until a got to a road sign which I duly did and managed to get back on a heading to a village that was on the map. By this point I was worried that I’d completely messed up the route but when I eventually got to checkpoint two, the official half-way stage, my Garmin clocked me in at just over 13.1 miles so despite missing out on some of the scenery I was still ok as far as distance was concerned and decided that was good enough.
Yes, that really is the path!!
After a water refill in my new Camelback belt (really good!) and an energy bar I was off again and this time paying more attention to the map. Section three was called “Fields” and they really were not joking as most of the route was across completely open terrain with only the faintest hint of where the actual path was but thankfully there were plenty of walkers on the route taking time to read their OS maps and GPS’s so I found them to be a reliable indicator of the route. At checkpoint three there was the offer of free squash and biscuits and a request to sign a petition to stop developing on greenbelt land, which was a small price to pay for a couple of fig rolls, and then off onto the last section known as “Villages”. As the name suggested this had far more of the solid surfaces I was used to and I was able to actually run a decent pace for the final few miles but this soon dropped back into the cross-country terrain as I hit mile 23. By this time, negotiating a stile with tired, stiff legs was becoming quite a strenuous exercise and having banged my knee in the same place on about 10 or more of them by now I was starting to hate every one but soon the racecourse came into view and that last mile magic kicked in as I jumped the last stile and ran down the road to the HQ to be stamped out after more than five hours of being attacked by nettles, thorns and just about anything else that the British countryside could throw at me.
Still, this was without doubt one of the most enjoyable races so far and the overall event organisation was superb with plenty of water available, a friendly family atmosphere and some spectacular views. I fully intend to come back next year and do this one as a walk so that I can better appreciate it. Full marks to Cleveden Vale Rotary Club for a great event.
See the races page for a link to the route I took and the gallery contains a few more pictures.
Posted on Jun 12, 2010 under Training Diary |
Well another week gone and only a week to go until the Cheltenham Circular Challenge which will be marathon number six, marking the half way point in my challenge. It will certainly be a good feeling once that one is out of the way! This week has seen me finally getting back on form after what has been around a month of coping with a knee problem. I’m glad to say that it has now completely cleared up and I’m getting no problems now whatsoever so that has been a real confidence boost and has allowed me to start getting some decent speedwork back into my training.
My pace is slowly creeping back up to what it was too. Thursday night’s speedwork was hitting the kind of split times I was getting back at the start of the year and hopefully this is a sign that I will be able to start coming in with sub-4:00 times again. However, I doubt that will be the case this month since it’s a multi-terrain trail run and the course record to date is 3:33:10!!
Today’s run was a pleasant 10 miler in the sun and I maintained an average 8:30 pace all the way round so hopefully I can keep improving on that over the next six months. Not a lot else to report this week really as it’s just been a case of business as usual apart from the fact that my wife has finally got the running bug now and is training for her first 10K in July. It’s a race I’ve always done every year but I’m going to drop out this time around so that I can cheer her on – that and the fact that I have another race that week too so best not to overdo it…
Posted on Jun 07, 2010 under Training Diary |
Well it was quite an interesting weekend in terms of training as I learned a valuable lesson in maintaining hydration on Saturday. Having had a busy morning I didn’t manage to get out on the road until about 3pm, by which time it was pretty warm and it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d not drunk anything since a couple of coffees early that morning. I should have realised the mild headache I had when I went out was dehydration but off I went on a planned 14 mile run. I realised things were going wrong after about 2.5 miles when, despite the heat, I hadn’t so much as broken a sweat and my legs were getting heavier and heavier to the point at which I ground to a halt with a feeling of zero energy. I was wearing my hydration pack fortunately and had added ice to it to keep the water cool but I simply could not get fluid into myself fast enough to get myself back on-line. I carried on with a jog-walk-jog but had already decided to abort the session and arrived back home after 5 miles in total – still without breaking a sweat! It was at least an hour later and after 2 or 3 pints of water that I started to feel normal again so that was a good lesson learned.
The following day, having taken on board the warnings from Saturday, I went out fully-hydrated and easily clocked up 13.1 miles. The first 4 miles I spent coaching my wife along who is now training for her first 10k so it made a nice slow start for me (don’t tell her I said that) before I headed off for the remaining 9 miles at my usual average marathon pace. You can see Sunday’s route here.
I only have 2 weeks now until Cheltenham so will probably do another 13-14 miles next weekend with the obligatory speedwork in between but as this next race is a trail run I’m really not sure what to expect – one thing I know for sure though is that it will be a slow one as I think the course record is nearly 4 hours!!
Posted on Jun 01, 2010 under Training Diary |
Well it’s over a week now since Edinburgh and I’ve settled back into the usual routine. My recovery run last Wednesday was quite hard as the knee was complaining a bit but loosened up after a mile or so. Saturday was my first post-marathon long run and I ran a sedate 10 miles without any trouble so that was a good confidence boost. This week has come on leaps and bounds. My usual post-weekend short run on Monday turned into just under 4 miles of speedwork, helped mainly by the fact that I’m suffering no discomfort whatsoever in my knee so it looks like the physio has really done the trick. I will definitely be keeping up those glute and VMO exercises going forward the anterior knee pain has gone!
Anyway, planning to hit the speedwork again on Weds with some quality intervals and then aim for a 16 miler at the weekend as Cheltenham is only 4 weeks away. I’ve been looking at the route and whilst it’s probably going to be one of the most scenic races I will do this year it’s certainly not going to be one of the fastest! However, the rest of the family are going to walk the first two stages so I should hopefully get to the finish about the same time they do. Not sure if they kids realise they’re doing a 13 mile walk yet but glad I’m going to be running ahead!
Posted on May 25, 2010 under Race Days |
If I had to describe the Edinburgh marathon in one word it would be HOT!
In complete contrast to the weather forecast, which promised overcast skies and light rain (which would have been perfect) it ended up being one of the hottest days of the year so far. Initially, the predictions were true. Looking out from the hotel room window on the morning I was greeted with a grey sky and the city almost rendered invisible in the mist – this continued through the start but after about 6 or 7 miles the cloud cover just simply vanished and we had the full effect of the midday sun for the remainder of the race.
On to the race itself, Edinburgh is hailed as the fastest marathon in the UK and it’s easy to see why. The first few miles weave their way from the city centre down to Meadowbank through Holyrood Park and the local roads in a gentle downhill gradient. This certainly helps to up the early pace without incurring too much fatigue and of course the crowd support during this stage is fantastic. After Meadowbank, the course levels out and heads down to the coastal road where you are taken past the finish line at Musselburgh stadium before carrying on along a pretty flat out-and-back for approximately 17 miles. It wasn’t long after mile 10 that I encountered the first of the elites coming the other way and gradually the oncoming “traffic” increased as we headed towards the turning loop. The only soul-destroyer on this route is a short spur road at mile 16 which serves no purpose other than to correct the distance – probably as a result of some other route change – but a water stop on this section would have been most welcome! The 18 mile marker was effectively the point at which we headed back down the coast road towards the finish. As we headed back down the final 8 miles the casualties of the heat became more apparent with a lot of people being treated roadside for clear cases of heat stroke (including some of the front runners!) with wet towels. The water stops seemed to be getting further apart and at one point I resorted to retrieving a half-full bottle that had been discarded by an earlier runner – yes I was that desparate!!
By mile 21 I was seriously going into meltdown myself and seeing a sub 4:00 slowly ebbing away I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and dropped into a run-walk-run pattern for the next few miles. As the 25 mile marker approached the finish boost cut in and I managed to sustain a reasonable pace all the way through to the finish line, crossing in a chip time of 4:17 in front of a Gradstand audience. Obviously, the atmosphere of such a finish is always going to get you over the line and I watched folks in clearly considerable pain conquering the last 285 yards as I filtered through the medals and goody bags queue.
Overall, it was much harder than I expected but defnitely one I would do again. Edinburgh is a fantastic friendly city and only spending a short weekend there does not do it justice.
As always, I’ve uploaded the Garmin data from the race which you can view by clicking here.
Posted on May 15, 2010 under Training Diary |
Just completed a 10 miler in the sunshine this afternoon. My knee is still a bit stiff but it’s not slowing me down any more so I’m just hoping it will keep improving as I go. I also just passed the 500 mile mark since I started recording my progress back in November so a bit of a milestone as that’s when I effectively started this website too. I shudder to think how many miles I’ve racked up since I started running seriously!! Looking at the months ahead I think I should definitely crack 1000 miles by the time I’ve done Luton in December, which was another little personal goal of mine 
Anyway, just a few medium-easy runs this week in the lead-up to Edinburgh on Sunday. I’m not going to set a target time as I don’t know what I’ll be like by the time I get to mile 20 having not done any serious long runs since Stratford but we’ll just see how it goes. I’m hoping that the significant downhill element of this race will give me a little boost to make up for it though.
On the fundraising front I’ve had a little flurry of donations recently which has boosted the totals up considerably. I’m up to £1458 plus another £378 in gift aid across the four charities so that’s about £2964 left to go if I’m going to hit my £1200 target for each one. Many many thanks to all who have donated so far and please keep spreading the word.
Posted on May 11, 2010 under Training Diary |
First run last night since I had my knee trouble and so far all is well. Just went for a gentle 4 miler to see how things have been healing and apart from a bit of mild discomfort at the start I was able to get round without any of the problems I was having before. My knee actually felt better afterwards!
My visit to the physio in the morning was quite enlightening. Basically I had no biomechanical problems that he could diagnose – everything seems to be aligned quite well thankfully. However he did suggest some VMO and glute strengthening excercises to ensure that nothing goes awry in future. As far as the pain was concerned, that was pretty cut & dried as his tests revealed that the back of the patella was roughening up and that was aggrivating the tendons so not a lot we can do about that other than allowing the cartilage to regenerate and zapping it with ultrasound to help it along. The eye opener (and probably a contributor) was the tightness in my calves. Seems like I’ve only been stretching the main calf muscle and not the secondary as I was hopeless at the mobility test for that and it explaines the achillies tightness I get when I wake up! So, lots of new stretches on that one…
Anyway, just need to start building the distance back up over the next couple of weeks – I think speework and hills might have to be neglected for a bit as I try to regain my endurance ready for Edinburgh at the end of the month. Other than that I’m just glad to be back out on the roads again!
Posted on May 06, 2010 under Training Diary |
Well according to the doc I’ve not done anything serious or permanent to my knee – probably just a strained tendon but I’m booked in with a specialist sports physio on Monday to get a more detailed diagnosis and some help. In the meantime it’s off to the gym for a session on the cross-trainer (unless it hurts) and a few weights just for some exercise. I’ll probably do the pool this week as well as I’m getting really irritable not being able to go out for a long run!
I’m still determined to participate in Edinburgh in one form or another but I will take the physio’s advice for sure. Like I said before – I’ll walk it if I have to!!
