Author: Black and Tabby

Long Slow Run vs Total Wipeout

After a good week’s running, managing all of my runs with no mix-ups of weeks or distances or pace, I set off for the last run of the week -mmy LSR. I’d planned 8 miles to the canal, along the towpath to a beautiful little town, and back again. Sorted!Weather was cool, which was a good start. Parked up no problem, and set off.

You know its going to be a good run when you pass a bench with this inscription

The disused canal is lovely, as I’ve run along it over the last few years I can see the work they’ve done to renovate it, and I see a change each time I go. No cars, just runners, dog walkers and a few cyclists. Lots of wildlife, especially squirrels (they even have their own bench). Lovely!

They’re still working on this bit of the canal lock system

Two miles into my run, and I spot this ahead of me.

Hmmm – not what you want to see

Towpath closed. I ran up and down a couple of times, then decided to run back up into the big town instead. This route is alongside the river, and is a 2 mile ‘extra’ I tack onto my canal run when I need to make the miles up.

Unfortunately I’d forgotten about the torrential rain, and flooding we had the previous weekend. Parts of the path along the river bank were incredibly muddy, but I met my nemesis on the concrete slope that takes the path down under the road bridge.If you’ve ever seen ‘Total Wipeout’ (essential Saturday night viewing in our house – we have very sophisticated television taste) you’ll know that at the start of the qualifier the contestants have to run down a steep slippery slope with water running down it. They often simply slip and go straight down onto their backsides, legs still spinning (cartoon style-e). The trick seems to be to run as fast as you can whilst keeping your balance. Well, this is exactly what running down this slope was like. Desperate not to fall over I sprinted wildly down, with windmilling arms whilst inadvertently shouting “WWWAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!”  It was only as I reached the bottom (still on two feet) I noticed a poor dog walker waiting to climb up the slope, looking absolutely terrified at this wailing writhing banshee descending at speed towards her.

One day I will learn to trip, fall and slip silently. One day.

On the plus side, I did manage to complete my 8 miles, and it was most definitely slow, so mission accomplished!

P.S. Just realised, the canal is part of the Wilts and Berks Canal, which is peculiarly apt as I often ‘Wilt’ on long runs round here, and I did feel like a total ‘Berk’ on this run!

 

Sometimes it goes wrong, but sometimes it goes well!

Last week’s runs went wrong. I have a very simple schedule but still managed to mess it up.

My LSR on Monday wasn’t long or slow enough. Wednesday’s intervals with 6 repeats somehow became 7. Saturday I set off for a quick 30 minute tempo run in the half hour before it got dark. Got back, saw I didn’t have a tempo run on my schedule for that week. Doh!

This week – a fresh start! I will read my schedule properly before I set out. I will believe my Garmin when it says its time to go home. I will stick to the paces I’m supposed to be running at.

Full of resolve I set out this morning for a MP run. My schedule says “Up to 1 hour. 10:44 pace”. Actually ran just over an hour, but average moving pace was ….. 10:45.

I’m not going to beat myself up over an extra 6 minutes run, nor my pace being off by 1 second a mile. I’m claiming this as a Successful Run To Schedule!

However, still no success in trying to photograph myself running.

Oh what a beautiful morning!

Wiltshire Sun on a Frosty Morning

Snow on Sunday, heavy frost this morning, but determined to get out for a run as the children have finally gone back to school after half term, and just realised its less than 3 weeks to my next race (more on that another time!)

The view above was surely enough to entice anyone out into the sunshine this morning, however I only saw one dog walker so maybe no one else was brave (stupid) out.

After the snow and floods of the weekend, I planned my route carefully as I really didn’t want to wade through muddy fields, and wasn’t anxious to see the bullocks again either.

I obviously had a problem with my planning though – this freezing puddle was within half a mile of home which meant my feet got soaked and frozen as I set off, and then re-soaked and re-frozen as I was nearly home.

Uh oh!

Still had a smile on my face though – Roll on the Winter training!

Oh Bullocks!

So I ended up at this gateway…

Having to wade through here…

In order to avoid the footpath that runs along the other side of the hedge here…

Sadly the camera on my phone is too rubbish for you to be able to see that peering through the hedge is a whole herd of bullocks. I spotted them in the field that the footpath runs through, and took a tactical long cut into the next door field. As I ran with the hedge separating us, I could hear the whole herd galloping (do bullocks gallop? Don’t know, but it sounded like it) on their side of the hedge, parallel to me.

Somewhat scary, not least because a woman was killed by a herd of cows recently in Chippenham, and also because I’m a complete wuss.

Must go and wash my new trainers. Again.

New shoes

New shoes vs old shoes. Spot the difference!

Checked my Garmin stats, and saw I’d run 385 miles in my Asics GT2170 turquoise and lime beauties. This included the London Marathon, a 5k race, a 10k race and 2 half marathons.Was it time for some new shoes?

Well, odd twinges and aches are most unwelcome after running (not going to name them as I’m in denial) but in my opinion can often be cured by new shoes. Sometimes. Maybe. Worth a try, anyway.

So I ordered the shoes, same as last time as these have been so good. Went to collect them, and found these purple beauties waiting for me. Fantastic! (and a much more practical colour for Winter training!)  Thought they deserved a new pair of socks for their first run, dug my last pair of brand-new-supermarket-cheapy-but-great socks and what do you know? Turns out they are white and purple too.

I’ve never been so co-ordinated!

Sadly though, the washing machine seems to have eaten one of my fantastic new purple socks. How does that happen?

Bristol Half Marathon 2012 Report

Despite my worries, niggles and moans, as expected Sunday morning saw me up and eating porridge just after 6am. I had finally made my plans late the night before, so unfortunately hadn’t had much sleep. Nevertheless, adrenaline got me up and out of the door by 7.00am. I’d decided to use the Park and Ride as I’d assumed Bristol would be very busy, and as I was good and early there was no problems parking, and even a toilet there (most important on race day!) On arriving at the bus stop, the lady sitting next to me (who looked vaguely familiar) asked if I knew where the bus would leave from to go back to the car park. As we chatted, it turned out that this was the lady I’d talked to at the end of Malmesbury Half a week ago, when I was waiting for my bro-in-law to finish, and she was waiting for a friend. Small world!

We made it safely to the harbourside area which was already bustling, then she headed off to find the ‘other’ start area, whilst I went to find the statue of the dung beetle which was the designated meeting point for a group of Runners World forumites. (Yes – there really is a statue of a dung beetle. I didn’t believe it until I saw it!) Found the statue, grabbed a cup of tea, and over the next few minutes my 3 friends arrived. Always lovely to meet people in real life when you’ve been chatting to them for months online!

We chatted, we queued for toilets, we said our ‘good luck’s and set off. I was to start from the College Green start so found myself passing the start / finish line and then climbing some steps with a crowd of other runners up to College Green. It was very scenic round here, and atmospheric with the cathedral’s bells ringing out. I watched the first wave set off (so I knew where I’d have to go), then dropped my bag and queued one last time for the loo.

As I joined my pen, I noticed that the Yellow and Pink pens were basically just one long queue, which would eventually join onto the back of the Green and Red runners. As I was near the back of my pen, I was basically starting at the very back of the entire race. Queuing up with men who had inflatable crocodiles trapped to their backs should have warned me what was to come.

As with any big race, 10.00 o’clock (start time for the second wave) was marked by a slow shuffle. We shuffled down a hill and round a corner, then we shuffled a bit more until finally we could see the start line, and crossed it at 10.13am. Again, as with any big race, the road was very crowded and the first mile was more start-stop than go go go! As everyone settled down and we set off on the long straight section along the Avon Gorge we could already see runners coming back the other way. As anticipated it was exciting running under the Clifton Suspension bridge, but that was the best bit. At just over 4 miles we did a u-turn and started running back exactly the way we’d just come. The only thing to look forward to was that running back under the bridge would mark round about half way. The road was good and wide here, but I was still finding it hard to get into any sort of a rhythm as I was having to constantly overtake people, weave around others, and check  my Garmin to try and stick to my planned pace of 10:30 minutes per mile.

Coming in to the Finish Line.

After the bridge we headed back towards the city centre. At around 8 miles there was an energy gel station, so I took the one I’d brought (as I knew it wouldn’t upset my tummy).  On into the City Centre, with very little support from people in the houses we ran past, no music or bands playing. A couple of the charity cheerpoints had live music which was great to hear. The course wound its way through squares and along back streets and main roads. We seemed to often spot runners going the other way and not knowing the course I didn’t know whether it was runners ahead or behind of us. There were a couple of ‘slopes’ just to catch out the more tired amongst us, and one nasty slope around mile 12 (I think) which did seem to go on forever. More annoyingly though, even more people were walking which meant more weaving and overtaking. At one narrow bridge an entire block of people were walking, with no space to get around them. Grr!

It was amazing to spot my family 3 times – just after the 10 mile point, a bit further on, and then just before the finish. Always a relief to know they’ve managed to get up and out of the house! Very relieved to cross the finish line, great to get another PB by knocking another 1 minute 23 seconds off last week’s time, but also a tiny bit disappointed as I’d hoped to knock even more off.

Rocking the ‘oven ready chicken’ look

One pain at the end was trying to get back across the end of the course as we needed to get back up the steps to College Green to collect my bag. Marshalls were very sensibly controlling the crossing, but this did add an extra 5 minutes of standing around and getting cold. Then in order to get back down to the harbourside area for some lunch, we had to cross over again. I did think how much easier it would be if the organisers had transported our bags down to the Harbourside… However huge thumbs up to the staff of ‘Los Iguanas’ Mexican restaurant though, who gave me a free glass of fizz because I was wearing my medal!

So overall, mostly good on the day organisation, with lots of efficient marshals. Atmosphere sadly lacking though. Am I glad I did it? Yes. Would I run it again? Probably not – sorry Bristol!

Recovery vs Taper

I’ve discovered a problem with running two races so close together – the problem of tapering / recovering simultaneously.

In theory it should work well. Both involve resting, running less and good hydration & nutrition. In practice I don’t know if the aches and pains I’m feeling are just taper madness (which should be ignored), or post race niggles (which should be mollycoddled whilst polishing well earned race medal).

I know all about pre-race nerves – I wrote about them last week so they’re still fresh in my mind. I know its just nerves, and I know how well last Sunday’s race went . However, this week’s nerves are just as bad and just as unsettling. It probably doesn’t help that the Bristol Half is a much bigger event than Malmesbury. Think long established, big city event vs. first time, small market town event. Think 15,000 runners vs. 500 runners. Think needing to plan transport there and worrying about parking, think about the impossibility of trying to meet people there even though its always great to meet online ‘virtual’ friends in real life (if only to prove to my husband that these people do exist!)

Ah well, I’ll pop another ice pack on and take more vitamin C and will no doubt see you in Bristol on Sunday morning!

Pink Start – yuck!

Malmesbury Half Marathon 23rd September 2012

After setting the alarm for 8, I was hoping for a good night’s sleep before the Malmesbury Half. Young cat had other plans though, so it was a slightly grumpy racer who got up to eat porridge at 8am. After seeing the awful weather forecast I was quite pleased to see that it wasn’t actually raining at this point.

We set off a few minutes later than planned, but were still on time to first pick up a friend who was also running, and then my brother-in-law who was running his very first race. The rain had started very gently as we parked up and walked to the registration point (this included a long flight of steps up – not great before the race had even started!)

We collected our race packs, and retired to the changing tent to shelter from the increasing rain. Despite my worries about being late we still had an hour before the race started. We hid from the ever-increasing rain, pinned on our numbers, and slowly (somewhat reluctantly) peeled off our layers down to ‘Lycra’ level.

A 5 minute walk to the start line in the High Street (up another slope) took me to find the wide street full of soggy runners, with sadly no indication of where to line up according to your pace. I was just thinking I had better take my black bin bag off before the race started, when suddenly I heard “GO!” and people around me started moving. I frantically struggled out of my bag just before I crossed the line, and even found a bin to put it in.

The race started quite fast, as a downhill slope encouraged everyone to speed over the line and round the corner. Feeling like an experienced racer now I didn’t worry about this, but just waited until the crowds thinned out and there was space for me to run at my own pace. The rain was pouring down now – those big fat drops the look like hail stones. I was passed my a chap from the Veteran’s Association in a hand cranked racing wheelchair. He made me an offer I nearly couldn’t refuse – if I helped push him up the hills, he’d give me a lift down the other side. I then found myself next to another lady and we started chatting. Turns out she was practising running at 2:20 pace (so 10:40 Minute Miles) as she was pacing someone at Swindon Half in a few weeks time. This was quicker than the 11 Minute Miles I’d planned to run at, (which would give me a 2 hours and 25 minutes finish) but it felt comfortable so I stayed with her.

I rang with this lady for the first 4 miles or so, then came a hill and she left me behind. I chatted to a group from “Slinn Allstars” for a mile who were pacing a lady to a 2:30 finish (although they were going faster than that!) before I overtook then. I could see my 2:20 friend just in front, so reckoned if I stayed between her and the Slinn Allstars my pace would be fine.

Made it to the 6 mile point, and then the 10K split. I managed to mess up my Garmin at this point by trying to press the ‘Lap’ button and actually pressing the ‘Stop’ button instead. Some frantic fumbling with cold fingers sorted it out though.

Somewhere around this point was a long slope down, and then a horrible slope up – really tough. This was hard work, but I was determined not to stop running as I’d finally warmed up and didn’t want to get cold again.

Pressed onto the 7 mile marker, and thought gratefully that I was over halfway. Then I realised my legs were feeling tired and had a little panic that I’d set out too fast after all. My pace was still hovering around the 10:40 mark. Had to talk some sense into myself, remind myself that the route (overall) sloped upwards for the first half, then downwards towards the finish. I decided to have my Gel with caffeine at the 8 mile point. I reckoned this would then kick in coming up to mile 10 and would give me a boost over the final 3 miles. At this stage of the race I was just making it from mile marker to mile marker. I had my gel (yum yum) (not) and as I finished it I ran past an open wheelie bin so popped it in (how convenient!).

By now the runners had really strung out, and at a few junctions there wasn’t a Marshall, just signs. I found myself running all by myself down a deserted, wet road and had another panic that I’d taken a wrong turning. Somewhere along this section of the route I ran past the best named pub ever – “The Cat and Custard Pot”. I’m still not entirely sure if this was real or a hallucination. Fortunately as I rounded a corner I could see other runners up ahead – a great relief. I could still see my 2:20 lady, and was amazed I was still keeping up with her.

Mile 9 was grim – was having a real wobble. The wind had shifted and was blowing into my face. My eyes were stinging from the rain, and my whole body was complaining. I heard my phone ‘bing’ to say I had a text, and managed to get my phone out to read it. It was from my husband, asking how I was doing. I replied saying I was wet, and at mile 10. After I stuffed my phone away again, I realised I was only at mile 9 – wishful thinking, obviously.

Mile 10 went past in a blur. At mile 11 I passed another runner, and commented how I was fed up of the rain now, and was just thinking of my warm fleece waiting at the end for me. She agreed, and added she was thinking of a Hot Chocolate from the drinks stand. I practically drooled at this thought and added it to my mental list of ‘things to get me to the finish line’.

We passed the ‘Welcome to Malmesbury’ sign, and seeing the Mile 12 marker was great. I’d seen the mile 13 marker as we left the registration area, so could visualise it and feel it getting closer. I has no idea where I was as I don’t know Malmesbury very well and had completely lost my sense of where we were. It was a surprise to suddenly see signs to the pool were I used to take the children for swimming lessons, and exciting to think “I know where I am!”

Just one (and 0.1) of a mile to go – I’d been assured there were no more hills, so easy right? Actually, no. This final section cut along a footpath that ran between the backs of houses (well, that’s what it felt like). It sloped down, and up again. It was narrow and full of people with umbrellas coming towards me. It was full of runners clutching goody bags and medals coming the other way. At this stage there was no way I could weave between everyone – one runner advised me just to shout to get everyone out of the way.

It was a relief to get out of this path, and onto the final downhill road to the finish area. At this point I realised I was next to the 2:20 lady and gasped at her “I didn’t think I’d catch you up!” She kindly moved aside, and said “I’m slightly ahead, so if you push on you’ll get 2:20”.

Smile of Relief. Now where’s my hot chocolate?

I overtook her and dashed down the narrow path to the finish area. I passed the Mile 13 marker I’d been visualising. I could see the clock saying 2:19:56 as I entered the finish ‘funnel’. I could also see my soaking wet family waving and shouting me on. I stumbled over the line and stopped my Garmin.

I gasped that I thought I’d done 2:20, and then bossily ordered my husband to get me a hot chocolate NOW! (Remember – I’d been thinking of it since mile 11!) Saw my friends, who’d also had a great race. Friend had been hoping for sub-2, and had got 1:56 so he was very happy.

I sipped my hot chocolate, collected my bag and struggled into some dry clothes. As the tent was just an open tent I just had to pull them over the top of my wet running clothes meaning my trousers were soaked through in about 3 minutes.

We waited to cheer my brother-in-law in. As his first race, and with plans to walk parts he’d been hoping to break 3 hours. We cheered a few more people in, and then my children ran up the final straight to see if they could see him. Just a few minutes later they reappeared, escorting BIL in. They left him to cross the line by himself, and I was very proud to see him pull off the only Usain Bolt impression of the day. Despite being similarly cold and wet, BIL was delighted that he’d  achieved all his aims for the day: he’d finished, he wasn’t last and he’d beaten 3 hours – by about 10 minutes.

It was a great relief to arrive home, to get clean, warm and dry, to have something to eat and then slump on the sofa. The children lit the fire for the first fire of the winter.

It was the first time this half Marathon had been run, and they’d limited the numbers to 500. Although the route was mainly lovely, there are things they’ll need to change if they’re going to run this even again with greater numbers. On the whole though, a good race, and a GREAT medal!

My offical Gun-to-Finish time is listed as 2:20:09, but my Garmin (which is the true Start-to-Finish time) is 2:19:46

For the geeky nerds amongst us, my splits are:-

Mile 1-10:18
2 – 10:37
3- 11:01
4 – 10:52
5 – 10:43
6 – 10:40
7 – 11:21 (this is where I messed up my Garmin at the 10K split, but I think its right!)
8 – 10:43
9 – 10:46
10 – 11:03
11 – 10:38
12 – 10:25
13 – 9:54
final 0.1 run in 53 seconds, at 8:46 pace. Amazing what the smell of a finish line can do!