Those who follow my progress on Strava (which, is not many) will have noticed the past couple of weeks have seen two or three runs where the term marathon HR has been mentioned. The desire to test my marathon pace has not been out of idle curiosity, although I’ve always valued the positive training merits of a good marathon paced training run. For the past month or so I’ve toyed with the idea of taking part in an Autumn Marathon – something I’ve never done before.
Normally the early autumn months for me are where I target a half marathon or two. This year, because of the way the F1 calendar has panned out, all the best options for a quick autumn half have been ruled out. I was banking on being able to take part in either the 2015 Manchester or London Marathons, but with the provisional 2016 F1 calendar revealed I can do neither of those, so a spring marathon looks unlikely.
So, with the recent flush of unprecedented good form surely representing my best chance yet of cracking the hitherto elusive sub 2:45, I’ve made the decision to enter an Autumn Marathon. That marathon will be the 2015 MBNA Chester Marathon, held on Sunday 4th October, which was twelve weeks away at the start of this week. There are other marathons available at that time of year but, based on highly positive reviews from runners whose opinion I trust, and having sung its praises to others who have gone on and entered, I thought it only right that Chester should be the marathon of choice.
That makes this week the first week of marathon training. I’ve made a decision that unlike my previous attempts I’m not going to train specifically for the marathon. Instead I’m going to continue broadly on the lines that I have been doing for the past couple of months as they seem to have yielded great results. This is, broadly speaking, a diet of cycling; elliptical trainer and other gym CV equipment; the odd swim; and, of course, a fair amount of running. There is no grand twelve week plan, more a macro day by day, week by week, training intention based on how I feel – which worked very well for me this time last year.
Normally the opening weeks of training would be lots of long slow runs building up mileage with the odd marathon paced run thrown in. However, the coming weeks and those just past have seen me enter a few shorter races, which require more speed specific training. So there has and will be more interval sessions than normal (with marathon heart rate runs playing more of a role than the Rotterdam 2014 effort) and less focus on working towards big weekly mileage. I anticipate a lowering in volume for a week or two over August with holidays, before working towards the early October marathon with some long runs hopefully thrown in somewhere.
So far this week training could hardly have gone better (running wise anyway). Monday was meant to be an interval session of 3 minutes at half marathon heart rate and 3 minutes at marathon heart rate, x6 with a recovery in the middle. I was relying on a workout I devised on the Garmin website and transferred to my watch. Suffice to say it didn’t work out as planned (Garmin got very confused) and so I just ran eight miles at marathon HR after a two mile warm up. The ten miles was clocked at 6:02 pace; the 8 miles at marathon pace worked out at an average of 05:44.
If I, by some very unlikely chance, was able to replicate this over a marathon, I would come home in 02:30:13. What is more plausible is that, if I stay injury free and healthy, 06:17 miles will feel much easier than they ever have in a marathon. Indeed my easy HR runs have seen me running just a few seconds slower than 06:20 pace, so indications are very good.
Tuesday saw the only blip of the week where I was meant to take part in a Witham Wheelers time trial, but punctured just as I was ending my warm up. Thankfully a very kind fellow club member took pity on my total mechanical ineptitude and fixed the tyre at an unbelievably fast rate. It was though just a tad too late to take part in the time trial. I decided to save my energy and run a revised Wednesday long run of 14 miles, mostly off road on trail or the canal path from Woolsthorpe to Grantham, where I took off at marathon heart rate and closed each of the final six miles in sub six minutes. Truly unprecedented times for yours truly.
Yesterday was a glorious club run in idyllic conditions again over a mostly off road route to try and get me in shape for my first half marathon of 2015 – a trail race in Somerset in a couple of weeks time. It was one of those evenings where it felt truly great to be out running.
This morning saw a sweaty two hour effort on the elliptical trainer, a relatively easy effort ahead of this Sunday’s novelty sporting activity – a hilly sportive in Yorkshire, which I am looking forward to and dreading in equal measures. For now – rest after a very good six days of training.
The first thing to state is that I’m very much aware that to post a parkrun report in Race Reports is something of a faux pas, the free to enter timed 5k run is very keen to stress that it is not a race – no matter how similar it may feel like being one from the moment you arrive at one to the text message you receive an hour or two after the event telling you your time and finishing position.
From the onset however mentally I was treating my participation at Peterborough parkrun, if not as a race, as a very serious time trial, a serious stab at beating my very old parkrun PB of 17:20, set at Coventry back in 2012. The week’s training had been moderately easy – an 80% effort at an intervals session on the Tuesday, which confirmed I was in good shape and the other session of note a 13.5 mile club run on the Thursday which saw us neck high in crops at one point and then tripping over a poorly dumped roadworks barrier late on in the run.
That last incident very nearly saw me not take part in the parkrun. The Friday saw the right shin quite sore and when that cleared up on Saturday morning I found myself limping a touch with a very tight quad. Thankfully some last minute foam rolling before setting off appeared to alleviate the limp. The drive down to Peterborough was rather blissful, the fact I had the sunroof open and windows down pointed at the temperatures already being warm.
I arrived a little later than planned, which meant after the customary call of nature I only had chance to do a short 1.5 mile or so warm up – which was one loop of the course. The legs felt a bit stiff and the sun pretty warm, but in the last minutes of the warm up I felt the body loosen off and feel ready for the assault.
After the customary parkrun briefing we headed to the start and I made my way to the front, having a final brief chat / excuses tick off with fellow GRC runner Rob. A couple of minutes late and we were on our way. I was pleased to have just in front of me a couple of runners who were willing to take the early pace, and another runner just behind as we eased away from the field. I felt comfortable sitting in third as we completed a mini lap of the lake and headed off on the first of two larger laps. I was chopping the stride slightly but there was none of the inadvertent tripping I was doing at the recent Solstice.
We went through the first mile in 5:10, which is one of my fastest ever miles but felt comfortable – especially as I’d covered 800m earlier in the week during intervals at sub 4:40 pace. We then went over the only real climb on the course in the form of a pedestrian bridge. The climb is just a few seconds but it was enough to cause a slowing on the descent. I decided that this was the moment to push and I took the lead and didn’t look back. We were already passing backmarkers, who had been instructed to keep to the right. Most did but there were occasions when I did have to shout quite loud to get someone’s attention. Thankfully there were plenty of runners who were also shouting to others to keep right, so at no point was I held up.
If this wasn’t a race it still continued to feel like it. The Peterborough parkrun course is held on nigh on exactly the same course as the 5k race held there as part of a summer series, albeit I imagine the parkrun has significantly more crowd support, especially with the enthusiastic cheering of the Peterborough Sweatshop Community Runners, who risked wearing bright yellow t-shirts (And in so doing became a magnet for all sorts of insect life) to give the run a race like feel.
As I completed the first large lap and headed for the final tour, I worked out from the applause of spectators that I had a comfortable gap on the second placed runner – and it was now a time trial to the finish to try and get that PB. Mile two was covered in 5:19 and I still felt fairly fresh. I then hit an exposed bit in terms of the sunshine and wished I’d worn a vest rather than a t-shirt. It was over 20C (40 minutes later when I got in the car the temperature was 23C) and I was having to play mind games to convince the body it wasn’t hot.
The second climb of the bridge numbed the legs and the final mile began to feel like an awful long way. It was here the crowd support and the generous enthusiasm of lapped runners really helped me to the finish. As I took the final left hand bend and began the final 400 meters or so I glanced at my watch and saw it had only recently clocked 15 minutes. I knew a sub 17:20 was assured, it was now a question of how quick I could go. I didn’t register the third mile split at the time (it was a 5:15, but it felt slower) it was an all out effort to the finish chute.
I crossed the line and heard the official shout 16:36 which, to a tenth of a second, tallied with my Garmin time. The tiredness soon flushed out of the body with the elation of a big new PB – 44 seconds for parkrun and 19 seconds for 5k (the Peterborough parkrun course is certified as accurate, apparently).
The fact I finished first didn’t really matter at all – my effort was true to the parkrun ethos that it is a run against the clock and to better yourself rather than necessarily others. That said I couldn’t help feeling that I’d been to many races that felt less like a race than Peterborough parkrun, but today I wasn’t complaining over the rights and wrongs of parkrun. It was a good day.
June 14th saw my long awaited debut at a triathlon. Preparations had gone reasonably well. The cycling was improving week on week, the days proceeding the triathlon saw another Witham Wheelers Ten Mile course PB at the club championships, then an entertaining first-time chain gang ride on the Thursday evening which averaged over 22mph for the 40 mile ride. The running has inexplicably been better than it has ever been and the swimming…. Well the less said about the lack of swimming training the better. An indication of how little training I did was that my googles broke mid-swim six weeks ago and it took me three weeks to get around to replacing them.
I was probably more nervous for this triathlon then I’ve been for many a year at a running race. What was immediately apparent the day before when preparing kit was that there is so much more to remember to pack for a triathlon than a running race. I thought I had it all covered when my wife suggested I pack my swimming goggles at close to midnight – probably the second most important bit of kit required.
An early six o’clock wake up call and a military operation to get everyone up and out of the house before seven am went smoothly. The drive to Woodhall Spa was painless and we were there just under two hours before my allotted start time. We were very lucky to get the last car park space in the main car park close to the event. Had we been a minute or two later we would have had a lengthy walk which, with no buggy for the two year old, would have been interesting.
I collected my race number and caught the last few minutes of the race briefing. Nothing too complicated, just a few rules that had to be adhered to or face the risk of time penalties or worse. Back to the car and it was time to reassemble the bike, which thankfully was mostly painless. I changed into my Aldi special tri suit and went to rack my bike. An immediate school boy error was that most other entrants had bought some kind of box to store all the kit required for the run and swim. I had bought nothing and had to improvise with a plastic bag. Nothing too disastrous but it would make things a little trickier than necessary.
Once bike was checked over and racked up I went for a 10 minute run warm up. That at least felt familiar and I was pleased to see that the running legs felt good. After saying farewell to the family, who were firmly entrenched in the kids’ playground, I headed to the pool where we would begin the triathlon with a 400 meter swim. I was there 20 minutes before my start time and I took the time to check over the procedure and protocol and generally become more nervous.
At 9:36 I was called with five other swimmers to our lanes. I was in lane 4. The gentleman next to me I think was a fellow novice, a fellow novice also in an Aldi special tri suit, who was not convinced it was going to last the swim. I reassured him that I had tried the suit once in the pool and it hadn’t disintegrated, so I hope that put his mind at rest.
At 9:38 we were off and I headed off for a long 400 meters. The pool is 33m long and heated, which most proper swimmers dislike, but I rather enjoyed. My front crawl is inefficient and ripe for ripping apart from a coach and improving, but for now I just swam the best I could without killing myself through drowning. I counted down the lengths – 12 of them – which seemed to take an eternity, but I had my family standing poolside cheering me on which helped immeasurably.
Finally I’d completed the 400 meters and I clambered somewhat ungracefully from the pool, pulling off the swim cap and hurling my goggles at my wife, which she amazingly caught. I’d put 10 minutes down for my predicted time, and, according to the results, 10:00 is what I clocked, so at least I know I’m not very good at swimming very accurately. The triathlon was run as a time-trial so I was surrounded by fairly similarly untalented swimmers – the results show I set the 412th fastest time out of 663 who completed the swim. If I ever do another triathlon then it is clearly the swim where I can make some significant gains.
Another area where I can improve dramatically is transition. My first experience of swim to bike was nothing short of a farce. I struggled to find my socks in the plastic bag, then couldn’t tighten properly my cycle shoes. I struggled with the cycle mits then the gel number belt. I dithered over whether to wear a long sleeved cycle jersey, the temperature sitting at around 12C. After 20 seconds of further indecision I opted not to wear it and with the aero helmet on I wobbled off in my shoes to the transition line – where I stopped again to try to fasten the shoes before climbing the bike and heading off, having set just the 549th fastest time through T1.
Once I’d settled into the saddle at least now I felt I was tackling something I was relatively familiar with, having tackled a couple of months of time trials. The legs felt surprisingly stiff after the swim, but I soon began to pick off cyclists ahead of me. The 25km course is fairly technical with plenty of turns and some rough surfaces along the way. I tried as best I could to remain in the tuck on the tri bars and pushed at around 90% of what I have been doing in the time trials. The ride got easier in the second half as it turned out we had been mostly climbing gently for the opening 20 minutes or so. In fact I was just getting my legs used to pedalling when I realised that we were coming back towards transition.
There were two tips I took with me to this triathlon. The first was to put talc in my socks to allow them easy passage onto my feet after the swim. This worked a charm. The other was to drop down on to the small chain ring and pedal at more than 100rpm for a km or so before the end of the bike ride to help the beginning of the run, where I should try and maintain a high cadence of more than 190bpm for the first half mile.
Entering the bike to run transition.
As the transition came to me rather abruptly, I only had 20 seconds or so to spin the high cadence before I was screeching to a halt and unclipping the shoes from the pedals. No thoughts of trying to get the feet out of the shoes while on the bike. I kept things simple and waddled as best I could in my cycle shows to my bike rack. The second transition was still not that quick (dithered over removing gloves and sunglasses) but happily better than the first one – a mere 406th fastest and only 30 seconds or so slower than most of the quicker guys and girls as opposed to 90 seconds at T1. The bike ride though was a much more pleasing state of affairs – my split of 42:16 turned out to be the 56th fastest bike leg – only six quicker than me were not members of a triathlon club.
It was now the moment of truth – how would the legs feel after the bike and swim on the run leg? I know from a few previous attempts at a post bike ride run (Known as a brick run for reasons I know not), that it can feel alarmingly bad, as though the legs are almost disconnected from the brain in terms of working properly or feeling normal.
Thankfully the moment the run began they felt almost as though I hadn’t cycled or swam at all. I didn’t have to worry about the high cadence thing and cracked on with the run. The only difficulty I had with the run was that the Garmin – which I’d used on Auto Multisport for the first time, for reasons best known to the circuitry contained within, decided to swap my familiar pace guide of minutes per mile to minutes per kilometer. I didn’t have the foggiest what pace it was suggesting I was running and so could only rely initially on old fashioned tips such as it felt quite quick, it felt comfortable, and I was passing people regularly and not being passed.
It was though a huge relief that the watch beeped to give me a mile split – 5:31. I was a little shocked by this – this was the same sort of pace I ran at the BUPA 10K! Boosted by this positive split I pushed on again, not letting the somewhat dull course and the brief emergence of some warm June sunshine put me off. I ignored the drinks stop at nearly half way and clocked the second mile in 5:34. At this point we were running on a narrow pavement which was quite uneven and with not much room to pass runners. It wasn’t a huge issue but it slowed me a touch.
I recognised at a corner that we were heading back towards transition and I realised that the legend of triathlon distances being a little fast and loose in terms of accuracy would hold true, for it was no time at all that I was ushered off the pavement and into the finish chute, which, according to my now metric Garmin, was around 200 meters shy of 5km. I averaged 5:35 for the final mile and felt no ill effects after the finish – a million miles away from the similarly paced 5k I ran at Melton Parkrun just a month earlier.
First Triathlon – Done!
Once I’d had my transponder removed and I’d reunited myself with family, I went to get my finishing results, which were then verified the next day. The run split was timed at 16:37, which was the third fastest of the day and bettered only by the winner overall and the seventh placed finisher. That rapid run saw me finish in 1:12:44 which was good for 67th position, which was exactly a third better than my unstated desire to finish in the top 100. Clearly there is a lot of work to be done on the swim, bike and transitions, but there could be a future in triathlon – if I can get myself a load of money!
Still feeling fresh I decided not to try and disassemble the bike into the back of the car, and set about riding the 30 odd miles back home which was a pleasantly leisurely affair. I had chance to mull over my first triathlon and whether I actually enjoyed it. I concluded that it on the whole it was a good experience but I am not sure whether I enjoyed it that much. That, more than anything, was down to it being a sprint triathlon. All three disciplines are over so fast that it was all a bit of a blur and I didn’t have the opportunity to appreciate the surroundings or maybe embrace the experience with fellow competitors and spectators like you arguably can at longer events or at an event where you are taking part just to finish. The same holds true of my comparative dislike of shorter running events like 5k and 10k over the longer disciplines. So, to conclude, it wasn’t the discipline I didn’t enjoy, it was more the type of discipline that perhaps isn’t my cup of tea.
It’ll probably be another year before I tackle another triathlon, but I hope to do a duathlon in the Autumn, fitness permitting. Until then it is work on the cycling, the swimming and the running…
I’d entered the BUPA London 10,000 (Which, from now on I’ll just call the London 10K as BUPA have had enough publicity and using 10,000 for a road race just feels wrong – makes it sound unnecessarily tough or self-important – it’s just a 10k) back in March when I was recovering from the second sacrum fracture that forced me to not run for seven weeks. The entry was something of a gamble as I had no idea what form I was likely to be in. Moreover, because it was a championship entry, I had to be picked my Kenilworth Runners team captain, who took something of a gamble in picking me, knowing that my recent injury woes had left me short on mileage.
The build up to the race, since the London Marathon had seen the left hip slowly improve so that by the parkrun last Saturday, I was running virtually pain free, and by the time set there (17:25) a little bit of pace had come from nowhere. The last few days of build up were dictated by a busy weekend covering the Monaco GP. I did though, thanks to the rain there on Thursday, get out for an unexpected, but welcome 14 mile evening club run. Then Friday morning, with the guys and gals recovering from their hangovers, I was able to put in easy six mile run and eighty minutes on the elliptical trainer. Saturday didn’t go quite to plan – a super busy day meant just three miles of running in the morning, and then Sunday saw an early morning hour on the elliptical trainer followed by 15 hours straight at the desk covering the GP. I didn’t get to bed until midnight. Hardly ideal pre-race prep.
Five hours later and I was awake again.
Race Day Build Up
The five am wake up call hit me like the proverbial brick but there was little time to dwell – Operation Get Out was in full swing. Computer on. Downstairs: cup of strong coffee made. Back upstairs to the computer a little bit of post GP work done and coffee drunk. Shower. Change into clothes. Wake youngest daughter. Get her changed. Hurl everything and everyone into the car. Leave the house. Remarkably this was all done in 50 minutes.
Originally it was the plan to get the train down to London. Then there was the train strike. Then that was called off. I looked at prices but the only affordable train got us into London just a bit too late to be comfortable. So we drove on a blissfully empty A1 all the way down to New Barnet, parking close to where I used to live and just a minute’s walk from the train station. Once Oyster cards were primed, kids tickets bought and not bought, for some of their journey would be free, we were on the seven forty something train into King’s Cross. It was the youngest daughter’s first trip on a train and she squealed with delight at each and every tunnel and bridge we passed under. This much amused doting parents; fellow passengers surely less so.
Once in King’s Cross there was chance for a brief Platform 9 3/4 photo opportunity – our eldest daughter now besotted with all things Harry Potter.
Something Harry Potter Related
That piece of history captured and it was time for the next adventure – first ever tube journey with both kids. Thankfully we had chosen two stations (Kings Cross and Green Park) with lift access and there being no rush hour on the Bank Holiday the trains were relatively empty – so our first trip was pretty painless.
The race village could not have been better located for public transport users – the exit of Green Park led directly into it. We were there by 08:45 – 75 minutes before the race start, it could not have gone any smoother. I enjoyed a queue free trip to the portaloos and began to get changed.
The only kink in otherwise meticulous preparation was that I’d forgotten to put my Garmin foot pod on the trainers I was racing in. Somewhat ridiculously, for a minute or so I genuinely didn’t think I’d be able to run without the knowledge of having accurate instant pace. Not knowing my cadence or steps per mile I could just about live without, but instant pace is a big deal to me. Looking around and failing to see a Garmin stand at race HQ, I resigned myself to being without this data and altered the display on my 910XT to show average lap pace and my speed in mph instead (the last one of no use whatsoever but gave me something else to look at rather than a line in the cadence field which would have served as an irritating reminder of my forgetfulness.
I bid farewell to my family who made their way to the start. I changed fully into my running kit and put my bag in baggage. I then went out for a warm up run in Green Park. Being a British championship race (As well as your standard fare masses race) I felt a little inadequate as I went through my usual routine of a mile very easy and a minute or two of faster running. There were swarms of runners who were going through meticulous warm up routines – strides, bounding, stretching, flexing, sprints and the like. I’d planned to run two miles for warm up but gave up at 1.6, bored of running around in circles.
As usual I needed a last minute trip to the bathroom and as usual queues had multiplied beyond all comprehension in the 45 minutes since I’d last used the facilities. The ones in the race village were so long I couldn’t actually work out where they ended, so I headed to the start, thinking there must be some there. The advertised last toilets before the start had queues almost as long as those at the village. I summised there was no way I’d be using them in time, so instead made my way to the start and hoped they were lying about there being no more toilets.
My gamble paid off. There were small pockets of portaloos stretching along the the start line at The Mall. It was a ten minute wait to have my turn but I never sensed any danger of not being able to take my place somewhere near the front of the field in the championship start pen.
I made it in the hallowed ground seven minutes before the start. I stumbled upon fellow Kenilworth Runners’ Jimmy, Rachel, and Louise. I knew there were others but I’d little chance of spotting them. I wished them luck and made my way somewhere closer to the start, settling somewhere just behind where the really quick looking guys were standing. The anticipation was ramped up a touch when luminaries of the British running scene Andy Vernon and Jo Pavey were announced to warm applause. There was then 30 seconds to the start.
The Race
At ten o’clock exactly we were off. I made it past the start line around 10 seconds after the gun and was quickly into my running. And to my relief everything felt comfortable, indeed it felt a little sluggish but the pace was good, not going off too quickly and allowing the HR to rise gently to my estimated target rate of 175bpm.
A swarm of runners surged towards and through a road block in the form of some pillars in the road which, now looking at the map of the race, was Admiralty Arch. The only real drama of the race came immediately after at the roundabout that followed. With an extra narrowing of the course and a chicane to negotiate there was a faller close to the front of the pack and as runners struggled to hurdle or doge the fallen athlete, I was tripped as the pack condensed and slowed briefly in the bottleneck. Thankfully I was able to keep upright and used a pair of shoulders to maintain equilibrium and resume normal racing.
The race had a feel of it being around 80% of how the Leeds Abbey Dash felt when I ran it in 2013. It was inspiring running with loads of quick runners, but there weren’t as many runners around me as there was at Leeds and I felt though I was running quite slowly, whereas at Leeds I felt like I was running first. I was pleased therefore to cover the first mile in 5:34 and felt my pace increase a touch as we headed towards 3k. The course was also rather eerie. It had pockets of support but in areas it was rather deserted as we ran down what are usually some of the busiest roads in the country. I’m sure we passed a fair few landmarks too but they were wasted on me as I concentrated on following the backside of whoever was behind me.
Garmin, allowing for usual discrepancies and the rather obvious fact we were surrounded by a fair few tall buildings (aka GPS scramblers) had me complete mile two in 5:18. I wasn’t sure whether to trust it, but I was pleased that I was still feeling comfortable and the HR was bang on where I thought it would be. My next concern was, as we headed out on what was quickly becoming apparent an out-and-back course, was whether my swift opening to the race was being aided by a tail wind.
Fortunately as we came to halfway at 5k and turned back towards the finish the wind continued to feel much the same as it had done – I concluded we were enjoying predominantly a side wind. By five KM I was starting to become a little isolated, little pockets of runners ahead, no one obviously behind me (I think it was one of the few races where I never once looked behind me). I looked up at the official clock at 5K and it read 17:10. It took a little while for my clock page to scroll through on the Garmin and it said much the same. I didn’t though clock the distance at the time, which was probably for the best.
It didn’t take too much of my brain power to work out that even going by the official clock, if I matched my efforts over the opening half in the second half I would come in 14 seconds inside my old 10K personal best of 34:34. This undoubtedly spurred me on, but it also became a touch harder as the efforts of the opening miles began to take their toll and the left quad began to ache a touch – thoughts of the cramp suffered at parkrun began to fill my mind.
Unlike at most other races where I prep myself to know what average mile pace will bring me home in, I’d done no such preparation here and so, although I knew what pace I was supposedly running at, had no idea whether it was good enough to bring me in under the old PB. To be honest going into the race the only ambition I’d harboured was to come home in something under 36 minutes – a PB was never a consideration.
After the third mile 5:25, the fourth flashed up at 5:28. I was pleased to be maintaining good pace, but the fifth mile was living up to its reputation as being the toughest mentally, as well as physically. What kept me going was that although I was beginning to suffer and struggle, the pain and suffering was nowhere near as bad as the recent cycling time trials I have subjected myself to recently. Whenever a bad patch swept through my body, I thought about the cycling on a bike and kept on pushing.
The fifth mile was 5:31. I’d forgotten what the fourth mile split was, so was unaware I was slowing. Instead with the lure of a surprise PB a possibility I pushed on in the final mile reckoning it was just six minutes or so of suffering. I pushed on again, vaguely recognising the surroundings of Birdcage Walk – which is exactly where, around a month ago, I was shuffling along in a world of cramp induced misery at the conclusion of the London Marathon. With that thought in my mind and mindful that no matter how much I was suffering now, it was nothing compared to the suffering then, I pushed out on a long sprint for home as the 800 meter marker was passed, and then the 400 meter. At 200 meters I gave it my all as we turned into the finish outside of Buckingham Palace. I glanced at my watch and it gave me 45 seconds to cover 200 meters. I knew I had a PB barring disaster.
In the final 80 meters I spotted my family and gave them a beaming smile. I saw the official clock in the 37 twenties and in a rare gesture of race celebration swung both arms in the air as I crossed the finish line. It took a second or two to stop the watch. The all important time: 34:24! Nine seconds inside my old PB. I was elated!!!
Post race I made my way to collect my T-Shirt and goodie bag. I walked to collect my baggage and stumbled upon McKarkiss Elite Project runners McCarthy and Simkiss, who had finished ninety seconds or so ahead of me. They are clearly good luck mascots over 10k for the last time I’d met them was at the Leeds Abbey Dash 10k where I PB’d too. As they headed off for a post race cool down I felt a tightening in my quad and passed up on the offer – I had hours of walking around the Science Museum to face.
A post race meet up with the family, a couple of photos and a swift change and the race was done. Eleven hours later and we were home. The results were (briefly) out and my official time was rounded down to 34:22. A totally unexpected and very welcome surprise, given the lack of running in the past eight months and, aside from a couple of treadmill sessions, a steady 10k, a parkrun, and a half hearted hills session, I’ve done no real speed work at all since April.
Suddenly there is an urge to find races to take part in – but next up something totally different: My triathlon debut!
Following the Time Trial in the last post, I ran an easy 8 mile the following morning and then an hour on the elliptical trainer in the afternoon in between covering the F1 Post GP test at Barcelona. The left hip and groin continued to give concern which continued into Thursday’s long club run with GRC, which saw the hip ache for much of the run. It wasn’t enough to slow me but the ache was similar to what I experienced when the second sacrum fracture occurred, so it wreaked havoc on the mind as I feared the worst with every stride.
Thankfully no ill did materialise and the body was grateful for a scheduled rest day on the Friday. I woke early on Saturday morning to head to Melton Mowbray Country Park for a second stab at the parkrun held there. I arrived a little later than planned and so could only do just over a mile for a warm up. The nagging pain in the left hip was still there; I prodded quite firmly in the lower back and felt a release in the hip area. We were called to the start and was delighted to feel no discomfort at all from the moment we set off.
I was in fourth for the opening 100 meters or so but took first position by the time we reached the narrow bridge and set off up the steep hill for the first time. I formed a group of three who soon split from the rest of the field. The other two were unwilling or unable to take the pace so after the first mile (5:26) I made it my intention to try and make a decisive break so they couldn’t use me as a wind break on what was a fairly windy day.
The Melton parkrun course is a busy, twisty, two lap affair made up of sections of off road, gravel paths and part footpath. It meant there was little opportunity to pour over the Garmin data during the run. So aside from the mile splits and an occasional glance at the (pretty high) heart rate, it was a rare case, for me, of running to feel.
At the start of the second lap I still had my two shadows in tow. As we hit the big hill for the second time I knew that would be my point of attack and I pushed hard. It worked, for by the time I reached the summit I had a four or five second gap. There was to be no more looking back and I pushed on down the gradual descent on the other side.
It was there I suffered cramp in both lower quads. It was a similar cramping to what I experienced on two occasions post Christmas last year. I put it down then to Christmas excess and dehydration. I think I can claim I was dehydrated too at the parkrun. I also noted that on each occasion I’d eaten spicy food the night before, so there maybe a connection there. The pain was quite severe. If I had not been leading or if I wasn’t on for a good time, I probably would have stopped. However the lure of both a first place finish and a good time willed me on. Mile two was covered in a slower 5:46, but I dug deep to keep pushing all the way to the finish, clocking 5:36 for the third mile and crossing the finish line first in 17:25.
To put this time in perspective, it is a course PB for me by 1:29 and is currently the second fastest time run by anyone at Melton. It is my equal third fastest parkrun on any course (My best is 17:20 at Coventry, then 17:21 at Peterborough). Both those courses I consider to be much quicker than Melton, which is hilly, twisty, and half off road. I was very pleased with the time; a little less happy with the cramp in my legs.
This ruined plans of a long warm down, instead it was an effort to walk back to the car, which I had parked in a hurry and couldn’t quite remember where it was. Thankfully by the end of the day the worst of the effects of cramp had worn off and I looked forward to cycling with Witham Wheelers the following morning.
The Sunday morning club ride was a lot of fun. It was a group of around 20 riders and I, from the off, was feeling quite strong, taking turns at the front into a headwind. At around 30 miles I joined a group of four who formed an informal breakaway to the coffee stop. I struggled at times to stay on their wheels, but I was a lot stronger than I was four months ago. Following a tea and Bakewell Tart, the run home began gently enough but soon the pace picked up and I was again comfortable in staying somewhere near the front of the pack and taking turns. At times I could have gone faster but we were under instructions to keep the group together as best we could.
We were split a little by a level crossing, so the final miles I wasn’t in the front group. I saved my efforts for the final hills in the Belvoir area and was pleased to clock the tenth fastest time on Strava up Countesthorpe Hill and the second fastest time on the drop back down into town from Barrowby. Seventy eight miles was covered in a shade under 19mph and I felt as fresh at the end as I did at the beginning, which is very encouraging.
Monday was a bit of a shambles. I was supposed to row, run and swim at the gym, but I was delayed getting there and then forgot my swimming trunks, so could only manage the row and run. The treadmill run though was pleasing – eight miles covered in a progressive manner in 55 minutes, culminating with ten minutes at 16-17 km/h. Not being able to swim (and test my new goggles) is not great preparation for the upcoming triathlon, but at least it is only 400 meters of swimming to be covered, which I should be able to do on a minimum of training. To make up for the lost exercise, I put in an easy 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer in the evening.
Yesterday’s Time Trial with Witham Wheelers also didn’t quite go to plan. It was meant to be a lap of the road race circuit (Around 12 miles), but a lack of marshals (And competitors) meant at the last minute the TT reverted to the usual ten mile effort. I was cold and wet, my feet numb, and I struggled to keep up the heart rate over the course and nearly came a cropper on a couple of the wet bends, both covered in loose gravel. My Garmin time of 26:47 was therefore pleasing under the circumstances, as was the post ride brick run – 5k covered in 20:00.
Following an easy run this morning over some hills and trails, the plan now is to consolidate ahead of Monday’s BUPA 10k in London, which will be quite easy as I will be flat out working for the most part on the Monaco GP, which is always one of the busiest F1 events of the year. I’m hopeful if I can stay injury free and avoid a repeat of the cramping episode I suffered at parkrun, I could put in a half decent performance on Monday. It will be the first time I’ve raced in anger since last September, so it will be interesting whatever happens.
