Category: Races

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Inhalers Go In The Other End

I’ve had a couple of disappointing races recently. The fourteen and a half miles down the A143 to a town called Scrotum – or something like that – in the Round Norfolk Relay were in the middle of a damp night. I had an asthma attack. That interfered with things just a bit. Then I ran out of energy and had to have a word with myself just to get going again. The Bourn to Run 10k on Sunday was also a bit of a struggle. I’ve enjoyed it the last couple of years and it’s my PB race. I just didn’t have much oomph at the weekend. I’ll blame my flu jab and my sore feet for falling short of last year’s time with 45:14. I worked hard for it if you go by the length of time I spent retching into a hedge at the finish. I’m racing again on Sunday in the wonderfully-named Wimpole Half Marathon Hoohah. It’s an off-road course and it’s not flat so it’s not going to be a PB attempt. I’ll treat it as a quickish long run and see what happens.

Last night’s training session was… It was an interesting experience. It’s always an unusual night when your inhaler almost disappears up your bum. Well it is for me. Maybe it’s what you do for diversion of an evening. A warm up, the usual dynamic stretches and drills followed by a 1k time trial which I thrashed in 3:45. I have run that distance more quickly but it felt good. I think my post-jab gronkiness has gone. We followed that with 4 x 1k at a slightly more relaxed but still very brisk pace.

Now, a brief diversion: I was wearing a pair of skin-tight track shorts last night. Nearly all my shorts have a zipped pocket on them where I can stash my car key, inhaler and a tenner in case I need to get home from a long run on the bus or by cab. These don’t so I usually only wear them at the track where I can stash all those things trackside in my race bag. I left my car key with a friend who needed to stash his bag while he was running and who would be back before me and pushed my inhaler into the back of the waistband of my shorts. I couldn’t find the little pouch on a belt

I set off on the third rep having had a quick puff a the end of the second. I was a little rushed and didn’t quite hook the jutty-outy bit over the top of my waistband. I pegged it off up Clerk Maxwell Road and as I started to climb the gentle rise onto Madingley Road where everyone else seems to slow down, I felt the inhaler jiggle down into the back of my shorts. I could have slowed down at that point and fished it out but I’d just worked hard to overtake a couple of other runners and I didn’t want to let them past so I just kept going. The further along Madingley Road I went, the more the inhaler disappeared down until it was nestled uncomfortably between my bum cheeks. There were a couple of moments as I ran down J J Thompson Avenue when I thought the sodding thing was going to work its way up inside me.

I got to the end of the rep with an inviolate anal sphincter and pulled the inhaler out of my  shorts. It was sweaty but not smelly so I tucked it back into place more carefully before I headed off on the final rep. I can’t imagine that even if you were so minded to push an inhaler into your fundament that you’d get much pleasure or satisfaction from it. There are probably better butt plugs out there.

And no, I’m not going to road test any butt-plugs for your amusement.

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Duelling Affletes

Recently, I have been Thunder Running across scorched earth during daylight and through the sort of quagmire unseen since the Somme in the First World War. I have been riding my bike on high days and holidays and having a whale of a time. I still think cycling is still cheating, mind. I have swum in a lake and not drowned myself while chilling the fuck out and calming down. And all of this was in preparation for the Cambridge Triathlon which took place yesterday.

Only it didn’t. Thank you, blue-green, pestilential and poisonous algae. You can bugger off. Cyanobacteria produce toxins which can kill people to death and sadly they showed up in the lake at Mepal where we were due to swim yesterday. I thought that drowning was going to be a greater hazard than poisoning and have practiced really quite a lot so that I hardly drown at all these days. The organisers took the view that losing participants to something which still has the hump at us for being out-evolved a billion years ago was not an acceptable risk so changed the event to be a duathlon of 6k/40k/6k. The organisers are always right but I do wish that the bloody algae would just let it go. Your time has passed, my little blue-green friends.

I had planned to get out of the lake not last having enjoyed a bit of a splash around, bimble the bike leg waving cheerily to the marshals maybe overtaking a couple of ladies of a certain age if they didn’t mind and have a wee jog round the run course, chatting to friends as I encountered them. That plan went out the window because I would now have to actually do some racing. I had a steady first run during which I was overtaken by a handful of competitors from the next wave back. They were flying. I timed the run at 27:49. I didn’t know exactly where the transition lines were so it doesn’t reflect my official time. I didn’t faff too much in T1. Helmet on. Shoe off, shoe on. Shoe off, shoe on. Bike off the rack and run with it across rough ground to the start of the bike course. I have no idea how all that took 2:16.

I had overtaken some of the women from the previous wave on the run course and one of these nailed me right at the start of the bike. She was off like she didn’t fancy being chased round the bike course by a skinny, middle-aged, bearded bloke with pubes poking through his trisuit. I wonder whether the Brownlees shave down there. Maybe they just wear thicker material. It was a fun ride. The course was as flat as week-old roadkill and I was catching and passing some of the women regularly enough. The quick guys came past me at astonishing velocities. I could hear the whum-whum-whum of their wheels as they came up behind me. One came by so closely and at such speed that I was momentarily blown off-course. On a few occasions, someone came past and then struggled to make headway. I would overtake them again and try to pull away. I managed that once, never to see the rider again. Once I yelled at someone much younger to try it again and make it stick this time. He did and was gone off up the road after his next victim. Finally, I duelled with a bloke between Earith and Haddenham. He finally got away from me on the only climb of the day, a short 300m or so up to a junction in Haddenham itself. I must have demoralised the one guy on a time-trial bike I overtook somewhere between Chatteris and Somersham. Chris gave me a huge lift when he came past me halfway round the bike course. I was yelling and shouting and may have whooped a bit. I dug in there and continued my race all the way to Haddenham. I timed the bike leg at 1:19:35 which gave me an average speed of 30km/h, as near as makes no bollocks. It was the target Chris gave me so I’m quite chuffed with that.

T2. Oh, T2. It’s when you find that someone has taken your legs away from you and left you Christy Brown’s instead. Unclip the right foot. Stop at the dismount line, Attempt to unclip the left foot. Go on. Fucking unclip. That’s it. Swing your leg over. No, the other leg. That’s not working. First leg again. That’s better, Jog through to the bike rack. No, walk through to the bike rack. Walk slowly to the bike rack. Smile at the supporters. No need to swear at them. They’re being nice. Where the chuffing fuck is my bag? That’s it! No, it’s not. That’s it there. Right, rack the bike. Helmet off. Drop shades. Bend to pick up shades. Ohhhhh fffffffffffffuuuuuuucck! Why does that hurt? Shades back on. Shoe off. Fuck! That’s sore. Shoe on. Wince. Shoe off. Shoe dropped, Fumble. Swear, Wince. Swear again. Shoe on. Jog to the run course. Walk a few steps. Remember you’re supposed to be a runner and just fucking run. 2:41. Worst experience of the day.

I thought I would not be able to run at all. My back was aching. I had some intimate chafing issues because I’d forgotten to apply my chamois cream in the morning. As it turned out, I ran slowly but well. I think it was only my technique which got me through. I had little energy left and no strength at all. I turned out to be in better nick than the people I was overtaking. I kept thinking about light steps and using my arms to drive me forwards. I tell my athletes that your arms will get you home when your think your legs can’t. Drive back with your elbows not forward with your wrists and your knees will come up themselves. You’ll keep some poise and balance. There were some very, very tired boys and girls out there. I tried to encourage them as I went by. There must have been some people overtaking me too but I don’t remember any. I caught up with Clare with 2k to go and tried to encourage her to stay with me but she was completely spent. She had a stonker of a day overall though and came 4th in her category. I’ve been given a time of 13:48 in the provisional results for my second run. 31:48 would be closer since I timed it at 28:55. I made my overall time 2:21:18 which was reasonable since I would have happily have taken 2:25:00 when I set off.

Finishing isn’t the end. No. Then you have to try not to throw up over anyone important. Chris was waiting by the finish. It was a huge pleasure to see him there. There’s something about the snot you generate in course of vigorous exercise which makes it far more viscous and unpleasant than usual. I couldn’t find my inhaler because I’d left it in my car that morning along with the tissues I keep for removing mucilage. I was using the water I’d been given to dislodge the mucus which was making me gag and looking at the banana in my other hand as if I’d never seen a banana before. It was an alien object. I’d no idea whether to eat it, use it as a weapon or take it home as a pet. I saw Clare come in and then Glyn a few minutes after that. So, I beat a girl and an elderly man. Woohoo! I feel really good.

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PB Saturday

I hadn’t really planned it. I seldom do. I thought it likely that I’d be needed at Wimpole Estate parkrun on Saturday morning so when Paul said he had a full roster and that I wasn’t needed, I thought I’d have a trot round Cambridge instead. I’d planned to have a real go at my Mile PB at the Fetch Summer Mile which was on Saturday lunchtime at the university track. It’s traditional to have a bit of a blow at a parkrun first, I thought I’d take the opportunity to have a pop at my parkrun PB while I had a decent set of legs. Training’s been going very well and I haven’t had an injury for a few months so I knew I was in good nick. I’ve been running at the back of the quick groups at C&C’s Tuesday night training sessions and not being too far off the back of the group.

I thought I’d be able to hold the pace I needed. My previous 5k PB, set in March 2012 was 21:03 and I’ve been running 800m repeats in around three minutes. I knew that pace was unsustainable over 5k but I should have been capable of running much more quickly than seven minute miles for the distance. I asked on Facebook for pacing help and Peter Stephens and Neil Tween both volunteered. I thought I’d need to be kept in check a bit at the start. I have a tendency to go off like a teenager at a porn party. There was a chance I’d blow up at 3k if I went off at my usual harum-scarum pace.

On Saturday morning, I had my perfomance porridge (not at all Scottish – made with honey, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries) and a coffee. I remembered to finish my orange juice but not my banana. All done before 7:30am. I need to have my breakfast to run properly but I can’t have it too late or I park my porridge on the finishing line and that’s just not pretty. I met Neil and Peter at Milton. Peter was in a very nice Tweed jacket. He intended to wear it on his run. Chris Darling has a reputation for dressing up on his pacing days so Peter thought that the least he could do was look smart. He looked very smart.

I warmed up. I don’t bother when I’m just jogging round but I needed to be on it from the start. I did the shorter first lap of the course and ran up the finishing straight to check conditions and to visualise crossing the line. I like to say that I don’t have a ritual before a race, that I just rock up and run but that’s not quite true. I need to get my heart rate up before I start or I spend the first half mile running through treacle. I do the same warm up and stretches each time I run hard. I suppose that counts as a ritual.

I ran just behind Neil and Peter for the first lap, It felt really easy. I nearly tripped on another runner and then nearly tripped her. The first lap can be really congested at Milton. I moved past the pace group just past the 1k board. I thought I’d cruise along just ahead of them for a bit in case Peter came in a little behind his target. I gradually pulled out a bit of a lead. I wasn’t wearing my watch so I had no idea how quickly I was running. I ran up behind a junior in a C&C vest at the far side of the lakes. I pushed out a few words of encouragement as I went to pass him and he kicked on a bit. Each time I caught him he would speed up a bit and I nearly fell over him a couple of times. I was a little frustrated but impressed that a boy who couldn’t be in his teens yet was easily keeping pace. He was right there for almost the entire lap. I finally got past at about 3k, I think. Martyn Brearley had overtaken us just before the long straight going back down to the Slippery Bridge at 3.5 and I set about trying to keep him in sight.

As we went through the final lap, I gradually began to close the gap to Martyn. I try very hard not to slow down on Milton’s many corners and each time I ran round one, the gap would come down a little bit. I finally came onto Martyn’s shoulder with a huge effort going past the cafe for the last time and kicked hard to overtake him on the straight just after the final left-handed corner onto the starting straight with 400m to go. I was sure that not only Martyn but Neil and Peter were right up my chuff and I gave the finish everything to stay ahead of them. That finishing straight goes on for fucking ever. There is nothing but pain in your legs, nothing but fire in your lungs, the very hounds of hell in the form of a very gentle, kind and tall man are chasing you down and you can’t look back. You. Can’t. Look. Back. Look back and you risk falling. Worse than that, you give those chasing you heart. They think you’re worried about them. I was.

I crossed the line, collected my finisher’s token – number 45 – and then glanced back. Martyn was there. I had no idea of my time. Neil and Peter came across the line a few seconds later, Peter’s watch stopped on 21:00 so I had a new PB. I didn’t know what my time was then. I waited at the finish funnel for some more friends to come through and then wandered off for a coffee with Julia, Martyn and Alex. It was a happy, happy and completely exhausted time. James gave me my time before I left. 20:38 – a PB by 25 seconds. Job done on PB Saturday, part 1.

And then I had my Mile.

Once again I had a pacer. John Oakes is a legend. He consistently runs at the front of races up to Half Marathon distance and regularly wins his age group. He is another quietly driven, self-effacing, personable and very generous athlete. I had asked for a 5:50 pacer, once again more to stop me going off too quickly. Ours was the fourth of five rounds and it was the busiest. I settled in just behind John after the off and concentrated on moving as efficiently as possible round the track, hugging the inside of lane 1 on the bends. I had Martyn there again. He moved just ahead of me and sat on John’s shoulder at the end of the first lap. We cruised up behind Stacy Wheat, the only woman ahead of us at the 1k mark and this is where I came unstuck. John and Martyn overtook her on the straight before the bend but I was still on the inside of lane 1 and had to move round the outside of her to overtake her because I was losing ground on them. I took the entire length of the bend to do it and then had to work hard to close the five or six strides which had opened up between us.

I didn’t do it. Martyn was flying and I couldn’t close the gap. I took maybe two strides out of him in the final lap. I crossed the line in 6:06, three seconds outside my PB and 16 seconds outside my target time. It was silly to expect two huge PBs in a day but I had so much fun trying. I then ate far too much cake.

I would like to publically thank Peter and Neil for their time and generosity at Cambridge parkrun and John for his pacing at the track. Chris Hurcomb did a grand job organising everything at the track. My thanks to him as well.

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Boston

I’m trying to make sense of things, so this is going to ramble even more than normal. When I became interested in running marathons, I heard about Boston. It has a mystique, a reputation beyond other mass-participation races. You need to qualify for it and the qualifying standards are high. You need to be a very good club-standard runner to get to the start line. What happens then is up to you. The course is net downhill and very quick on a good day. You run past Wellesley College and I’m told there is nothing quite like a Wellesley girl. You need to cope with Heartbreak Hill towards the end of the course when you’re really beginning to feel it. It’s the oldest marathon race in the world and it’s on the bucket list of lots of us who run marathons.

And now it’s changed for ever.

A cunttard or cunttards unknown have attacked the Boston Marathon. Cowardly cunttards. Cunttards with access to pressure cookers, nails and ball bearings. Cunttards who can follow a schematic  downloaded from the internet. Hateful and hate-filled. Weak, pathetic little cunttards who can’t attract attention for their cause. Ineffective cunttards, incapable of persuading people by the force of their argument so he or they build a couple of bombs and left them in black holdalls to detonate near the finish of a race. A race. In spite of it being the Boston Marathon it was just a race. And it was the spectators and supporters who took the fullest force of the blast.

As runners we rely on our family and friends for all sorts of support. We shouldn’t have to rely on them as shields against bomb blasts. It’s all just so fucking horrible and pointless. There is nothing, nothing which warrants such an attack. It’s affected me more than other attacks because it was at a race. I suppose that from the point of view of cunttards, that’s job done. Except they haven’t claimed responsibility or tried to explain their fucked up reasoning. They lack even that little confidence in their convictions.

There is a problem in all this, apart from all the obvious ones about blowing people’s legs off with bombs made from pressure cookers and nails just to make a point. If these bombs had gone off in a market in Pakistan, we wouldn’t have heard quite so much about it. And I’m not going to go into state violence because frankly, the whole thing sickens me and I can no longer bear to think about it. I run in part to escape from the dark thoughts and the anger which used to drive me. At the moment all I feel is sadness.

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Duathleticism

I have committed cycling the last couple of weekends. I know. I always said that cycling was basically cheating. I used to hate those smug bastards with their two-wheeled ways, spinning along merrily in sociable bunches of two or three, chatting away easily as they cruised past me on my long runs. I was the one working hard. I was the one who was making a real effort. Not them. Not them with their silly helmets and their carbon crotch rockets and shorts Linford Christie would think twice about putting on. They didn’t appear to be doing anything at all. Cycling? Pah! It’s for people who weren’t hard enough to run.

Ummm…

I have silly shorts you have to smear unguents into now. I have shoes I can only wear one one bike. I have two bikes. I have one bike made from carbon fibre and air and the other of aluminium and spite. I have to wear different shoes for each bike because the pedals are different on each bike. I have a helmet which makes me look like a weird hybrid of Alien and Scot. I have discovered new ways to spend money I really, really don’t have on stuff I’ve found that I really, really need. And sometimes I properly need things like food instead of gels and to pay a bill instead of a new tyre and things become all tense and angsty.

I am obsessing over my time up the hill to Fulbourne. I have become a slave to Strava. If you don’t know about Strava and you like your stats or are a bit competitive but already have a full online life, do not – and I can’t emphasise this enough – do not look at Strava. Don’t.

The last two Sundays, I’ve run in the morning and ridden in the afternoon. It was easy the first week. I’d just bimbled round the Gogs and Wandlebury in the morning and I was still feeling quite fresh. Yesterday was different. Yesterday, I smashed myself in a PB attempt at the Cambourne 10k in which I went off a little too hard and died on my arse at 4k. God knows how I held on. For the rest of the race, I kept Stuart Mills’ words of wisdom in the front of my mind, “It’s not pain. It’s a challenge.” The TORQ Trail Team selection doobrie paid dividends. There was a strong wind at times, and some insidious climbs at least two of which were into the wind but I just about kept it together. The bit I normally enjoy is a downhill section around a lake just after 5k. Yesterday, that was straight into a 20mph headwind and it was tough work. I was running at the front of a group for most of it because nobody else would take on the wind. I got round in 44:41 for 81st gun time (44:31 and 83rd on the chip), over a minute faster than last year when I was 143rd. I was completely broken by the end. The sprint finish I needed to stay in front of a group who were chasing me down finished me off. I took one place from a woman on the line but lost two to other blokes in the final couple of hundred metres. I thought that one of them was a club mate who had started beside me but they were a bit further back.

So, how do you recover from that sort of effort? Recovery drink, a massage, a proper protein and carb meal and the afternoon in front of the telly watching a re-run of the F1, right? I suppose you could do that. What I did was have a cake, a bit of milk shake, a cup of tea and a couple of rice cakes with peanut butter before I anointed bits of myself with chamois cream, got into those ridiculous shorts and headed out for a 30 mile ride. In the end, I cut it short because I couldn’t face the climb up to Balsham into that headwind yesterday. I did just over 30k in an hour and ten.

Cambourne is my anniversary race, the first one I did when I started running so it’s a bit special for me. When I’m Dictator Presidential Emperor of Earth for Life, I’m going to have the New Year start on the same weekend as the Cambourne 10k and make everyonel celebrate by running around a beautiful 10k course instead of getting drunk and having inadvisable sex. The first year I did this race, I spent the afternoon eating pancakes with cream and Nutella. Last year, I celebrated my PB by sitting in a jacuzzi. This year, I flogged my guts out on the bike because I could. I was shouting at the wind and singing songs to the grass verges and having one of the best afternoons of my life – not actually spent in the intimate company of my beloved wife – and I didn’t feel like I was cheating at all.

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I Am A Trying Afflete

I’d intended to blog about the Easter Beginners’ Triathlon in Newham on Sunday when I got home from it but triathlons are exhausting and I fell asleep. I was still knackered in the evening when I had another go at it but I couldn’t think straight. I suppose it was fair enough because I couldn’t swim straight in the morning. I was tucked up in bed by 8:30 last night and comatose ten minutes later. I was still wiped when the cat stood on my head at five this morning. I haven’t been so completely ruined by a race since my first half marathon in Edinburgh in 2011.

I was late arriving. Of course I was. I put off leaving for two reasons, neither of them particularly legitimate. I was replying to an email which probably could have waited until I got back. I also didn’t really want to arrive too early and have time to get nervous. Registration closed at 9:45am and I rocked up just after 9:30am. I’ve found in my extensive racing career that if you want to compete, you really need to enter the race. I’d been wittering on about doing this race for weeks but had somehow forgotten to enter it until Thursday. I sent the organisers a text and got a reply saying that I should hand-deliver my entry to their office in Stratford. I was busy taking Anne up to Nottingham that day but I had time to do it on Friday. Which was a bank holiday. Which meant the office was closed when I rocked up. I popped the entry through the letterbox and hoped for the best.

I didn’t really have time to worry about it because of the TORQ Trail Team day on Saturday. When I arrived to register at Newham Leisure Centre on Sunday morning, they hadn’t received my entry. I offered to help out instead. I was terrified of making an arse of myself in the race but Corral said that I’d brought all my kit so I should go ahead. She gave me an entry and I’m glad and grateful that she did. I had time to listen to the first part of the race briefing before I went to rack my bike. I set up my first transition there with my towel on which I would dry my feet, my arm warmers and gilet to keep me warm on my bike and my bike shoes and run shoes. I faffed a bit doing all that and missed the next bit of the race briefing. I’d regret that.

The other competitors were sorting out their first transitions outside the pool when I went to rejoin them so I pulled my carefully-arranged transition apart and set it up again right under a lamppost. I thought I’d be disoriented when I came out of the pool so I picked a huge landmark I’d be able to find easily. I asked one of the organisers about this and she said that they didn’t want to have competitors run round the outside of the building to their bikes in their bare feet. I wouldn’t have minded. I’m hard, me. I went to get changed once I’d arranged my T1. I’d left my running shoes by my bike. That’s the bit I would come to regret.

I had time to get nervous once I’d got changed into my trisuit. I was one of only two people in such fancy gear. Everybody else was in swimming trunks. Most of the blokes were in baggy shorts. Some of the youngsters were in more streamlined gear. I distracted myself by talking to some of the other competitors and to the dad of one of the boys. He wanted to see his son compete but had to leave to go to work. He was immensely proud of what his son was going to do.

The competitors were set off in waves of three or four, juniors first. My wave was due to start at 11:10am. We were supposed to wait outside the pool but it was far too cold for me to do that so I hung around near the start area and tried to look inconspicuous. It was hard to do, given I was in my body condom. I was watching the other swimmers looking for last minute tips. Nearly everyone set off in front crawl but quite a lot of people didn’t manage to get to the end of their swim still doing their crawl. The juniors only had to do 50m. I was in the Challenge event and I had 200m to do. One of the marshals was waving a huge white board under the water at the end of the lane when each swimmer had done 150m to let him know he only had a couple of lengths to do.

I got into the water when the last of the swimmers from the previous wave had cleared the pool. I swam a few strokes to reassure myself that I still knew how to swim. I was surprisingly calm. The starter set us off. There were four of us in the 11:10 wave. The only other bloke in a trisuit was one of us and I think he was the one who shot off into the distance. I was right against the side of the pool for the first couple of lengths until I managed to get ahead of the young man beside me. I took the decision not to try bilateral breathing. It was causing me stress when I was practicing it and I just wanted to get through the swim in one piece. I was concentrating instead on slowing down my stroke and relaxing. The swim was over quickly. I lost count and didn’t notice the huge white board being waved under my nose at 150m. I had to check with the marshal that I was finished. I hauled myself out of the pool by the steps and headed out to T1.

I pulled on the bike shoes, gilet and armwarmer remarkably quickly for a change and trit-trotted round to my bike where I put my helmet on. I pulled my bike out the rack and headed over to the bike start line. The marshal gave me the go-ahead to start. I couldn’t clip in. It wasn’t happening. I tried the left pedal. Nothing. I tried with the crank at the bottom and then at the top and it still wasn’t happening. Half a minute had passed at least. I tried the other pedal. Still nothing. I was buggered. The marshal was asking me if I had problems. I wanted to scream. I just pushed off and used the wrong side of the pedals to get going. Finally first the left cleat then the right one clicked home and I was off and rolling.

We were cycling round the outside lanes of the Newham athletics track. I forgot how to operate the gears on my bike. It took the best part of half a lap to remember how everything works and hit my pace. I had to do twelve laps and I kept track by counting to myself all the way round each lap. “One, One, One, One. Two, Two…” I was moving quite quickly. Mine was one of only a handful of road bikes. There were lots of mountain bikes there and even one or two BMXes. I lapped one bloke about three times. On the final straight I dropped off the big ring and started spinning my legs hard to get them working for my run and tried to unclip. Then I tried again going round the last bend. And again on the way to the line. I had to cling onto a barrier and struggle for valuable seconds to get my shoes out of the pedals. It took forever. For ever. And my running shoes were the best part of 100m away. I briefly considered running the 1,200m barefoot but one of my toes was bleeding already.

I ran back to get my running shoes and swapped over to them. The best that can be said of my run was that I didn’t get overtaken. One of the guys I’d overtaken on my bike was 10m ahead of me and I thought I’d easily overhaul him again and pull away but my legs just refused to co-operate. I tried shortening my stride and upping my cadence and I got slower. I tried lengthening my stride a bit and got slower again. The man ahead was 30m away now and dropping me. On our second lap, he stopped to tie his laces and I closed him down again but he dropped me easily. I had nothing left. At least there was nobody behind me to make me look even slower.

I crossed the line at the end of my third lap and received my medal. I was chatting to the marshals and timekeepers at the finishing line when I saw one young man walking at the other end of the finishing straight. I thought I’d go and run in with him. I encouraged him to start running but he stopped running again after another 200m. I was doing all I could to get him moving again even running backwards ahead of him. I found out that his name was Robbie. He started running again as he crossed the line for his final lap and began to drop me. Instead of clinging desperately on to him I headed across the D to the finishing line to welcome him in. Robbie was still running strongly on his final bend.

Robbie was typical of the competitors. He was giving it everything to finish. It was an excellent event. The organisers have lots to be proud of. They had forty or so people out on Easter Sunday morning swimming, cycling and running when they could have been giving themselves a chocolate coma. I loved the event. The atmosphere reminded me of a parkrun. It was warm and supportive. If you get a chance to try one of Keep it Simple’s events, do so. I’m looking forward to the next one. They may be able to use the Olympic Park next year and that will be very special .

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I’m All Torq

I feel slightly sick. I spent a chunk of today learning about nutrition strategies. TORQ Fitness, purveyors of fine nutrition products to the running and cycling classes invitied me along to an assessment day for their new trail running team. I spent a fascinating few hours learning about nutrition for exercise, psychological strategies for success and a little bit of injury prevention. I put all that to good use this evening by not stretching after my run this afternoon, driving home, getting cramp in my calves, eating pizza and half a family-sized tub of very nice Green & Black’s vanilla ice cream. With maple syrup. I’m pretty much every kind of awesome.

I’ve been thinking a lot about nutrition for performance of late. Julie Pashley at GCAN put together a couple of coach workshops on nutrition for beginner athletes and elite athletes respectively. They were excellent. There was lots of science I didn’t understand at the time. I’ve had to go away and do more reading on physiology and energy use in the body. I love that, I really do. I like it when one thing that you read leads you to another and another and then you find yourself reading and learning about things that you never expected. I haven’t done that since since I was at university and lost weeks because I tried to read Fleurs du Mal instead of getting on with Chekhov and the collections of really, really dull 19th Century Russian verse I was supposed to be reading. My French wasn’t up to Baudelaire but that didn’t stop me. I was enjoying the intellectual journey too much.

The nutrition session today was what originally attracted me to take part and it was excellent but the highlight for me was Stuart Mills’ talk on the psychology of success. Stuart is an ultrarunner, a Kiwi who has represented Great Britain in the ultradistance world championships. He is also an academic as in sports science and has a blog which I’m looking forward to reading immensely, If I remember what he said accurately – and I wasn’t taking notes so I may get things very wrong in places – his attitude to race preparation is to concentrate as much on mental preparation as on physical training. He might acknowledge negative thoughts and feelings but only to find positive strategies for dealing with them. Pain is a negative. Challenge is a positive. Live in the moment even if the moment is full of pain, or challenge as he would have it. Don’t count down the miles. For example, when you get to Mile 20 in a marathon don’t think “Great! Only 10k to go!” We run because we love it. Why would we want the run to end?

I try to turn that into a positive. I’ve reached 20 miles. How fucking incredible is that? I’ve been running for about three hours and I’m still going. For someone who didn’t run three years ago, that’s tremendous. I do get a huge kick out of movement, rapid movement. Well, rapid for me. There is joy in movement even when continuing that movement is a challenge. To answer the question about wanting the run to end, we have a goal in every race that we do. It’s usually a time goal, and one that’s tied to the end of the race: 26.2 miles and not our time at Mile 20.

Positivity can only carry you so far. You need the physical preparation, the long runs, the tempos and hill session and the run until you puke reps on the track. Confidence is good. I have my “Train hard. Rock up. Run like fuck.” thing going on. I think this is the common ground Stuart and I share. He notes that training hard gives you confidence which leads to an improved perfomance. It’s not the training which improves your performance so much as the confidence that training engenders. It’s an interesting idea. My performance at the Cambridge Half was all down to a couple of really good training sessions in the week before the race which gave me the confidence to rock up and run like fuck. I could have run 1:42 and change but I just sneaked under 1:39 because I was feeling incredible.

There’s a lot to think about and a lot to process. I really want to carry on with this process and having the support of the TORQ Trail Team would be a help. I might spend even more time training on the Roman Road. I’ve entered an 18 mile trail race in the Lake District in August as a way to relax after the stress of the Cambridge Triathlon. I’m contemplating another in October after the Great Barrow Challenge. I could do 25k reasonably easily but today has got me thinking about doing the 50k instead. I’ve said I’m not doing a marathon this year but I didn’t say anything about not doing an ultra.

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How Not To Say “Fuck” On The Radio

I was on the radio again today. It was Andie Harper’s Mid-Morning Show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The producer contacted me thanks to Sue Dougan who is a runner and Radio Cambridgeshire presenter. I’ve been on her show a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

We were talking this morning about wearing headphones when out running and in particular during races. I was on after Adam Moffat from One Step Beyond, the organisers of the Cambridge Half Marathon. They have banned headphones from the race on safety grounds and I think the Beeb wanted a runner’s perspective as well as the organisers’. Cue Rich.

I had much more notice when I went onto Sue’s show. I had a good couple of weeks in each case to worry about it, to tell people about it and then to worry some more. I was most worried about allowing a little sweary word out inadvertently. I’m a sweary man. I know little about mass press and public relations but I know that if you want to get invited back to day-times shows you can’t be sweary. What I am sure about is that I have to try really hard not to say “Fuck” on the radio, All the way there in the car, i kept saying to myself, “Don’t say fuck, Don’t say fuck.” I thought about writing “Don’t say ‘Fuck'” on a post-it note and sticking it to the desk in front of the microphone but that wouldn’t have been politic in the circumstances.

I’m not going to rehearse the arguments for and against wearing headphones when out running. There doesn’t seem much point. I don’t like wearing them because they’re just one more thing between me and the world. They’re a distraction. I understand how someone else might feel just the opposite. Still, they’re wrong…

And I managed not to say “Fuck” this morning. Aren’t I good?

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It Was All A Bit Runny

One day, not so long ago, a writer went off to do writerly, authorial things with her writerly authorial friends and left her runny husband behind to attempt athleticism for the weekend. They both had a marvellous time. She was witty and erudite, met lots of friends, networked subtly, drank very nice whisky in a dark bar with an illustrious new chum and all in all had the sort of weekends writers can only dream about. Meanwhile, her husband ran so much and so hard he was sick. Twice. He loved it. Not the puking, that would be weird.

They say that’s it’s good for couples to have shared interests and it’s true. It’s also good for them to have things they can do on their own. I had a completely brilliant weekend of running fun and Anne did her thing in peace and quiet. We do have a shared interest in books and history. I love wandering around museums with her, even if I spend far too much time reading the labels on the exhibits and she’d rather take in the objects and do more research at home later.

This weekend, Anne was doing her own thing again. I ran my 50th parkrun at Milton Country Park on Saturday morning, had a wee jog round the course at our new parkrun at the Wimpole Estate and then today gave my ugly, weak legs a complete thrashing at the Cambridgeshire Cross Country Championships where I came 100th in a time of 53:13. I didn’t really have time to enjoy my 50th at Milton because I was in too much of a hurry to get out to Wimpole and get set up for our test event. I posted a respectable 23:30, had a brief struggle with the Chunder Monkey on the finishing line – which I won, by the way – grabbed a very good mocha from Cafe Diem and escaped from Milton only 20 minutes behind schedule because I was too chatty with my mates there.

When I got to Milton, I dropped the Great Big Box of Stuff off and went for a jog round the course to check conditions for the briefing. They were damp in some places and downright muddy as all fuck in others. I even lost a shoe at one point. It’s a challenging course with one major climb finishing at the 2k point with my favourite view of Cambridgeshire. During the summer, it’s going to be a quick one but it’s too boggy just now for outright speed. There are a couple of places where it’s actually ankle-deep in water but you soon thrash and splash your way through those.

The test event went well, everyone had a good time, nobody got lost and the marshals and volunteers were top notch. Our first official run is next Saturday morning at 9:00am. Please come and join us.

I was only slightly broken after a brisk 5k followed an hour later by a challenging one so I wasn’t too worried about the Counties this morning. I had a complete shocker at this race last year. I was 103rd out 109 in 53:02 and felt dreadful all the way round. I was 11 seconds slower this year but felt quicker. I probably paced it much better. I started from the back and cruised up the first hill. I enjoy hills and mud. Anne said to me this evening that she doesn’t understand a definition of fun which includes running up and down a muddy, slippery park. Once I got into the rhythm and began to take the brakes off on the downhills, I really began to enjoy myself.

I managed not to come last. I was 100th out 121 this year. It’s just possible that three of the men ahead of me last year died in the interim because I had my arse handed to me in grand style by some fairly elderly gentlemen. I hope not. Everyone behind me today was either older than me or carrying more weight than me. So were quite a lot of men ahead of me.

We were all out in our club vests. My vest means a lot to me. When it goes over my head, I feel part of the team and our team did very well today. I was never in a school sports team. I lacked both the raw talent and the will to train and improve so I didn’t deserve a place ahead of boys who have both talent and a work ethic in training. I work at training now because I want to give as much to the team as they have given to me.

I have had such a splendid weekend of running with my friends during the day and coming home to fine dinners in the evening. I’m a very lucky man. Weekends like this happen so infrequently and unexpectedly. I’d like to thank everyone who has made mine so good. You all know who you are.

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Getting Carried Away With It All

I was going to write a race report about last weekend’s Amsterdam Marathon and Half Marathon. My achilles injury prevented me from running but I went out anyway to support my friends and clubmates because I’d paid for the trip already. I had a tremendous time and everyone had a stonker. There were amazing marathon debuts and PBs galore.

I may have got carried away with it all. When my friends do well, I want to do well too. It’s partly a result of having heroes for friends. My running heroes are not only Mo, Galen, Haile and the untterably beautiful David Rudisha. Nor are they Cram, Coe and Ovett. I’ve been inspired by all of them, of course but it’s what my club mates do which drives me on more than anything.

ChrisHurk set his new PB in Amsterdam and it’s only three seconds slower than mine. I have no doubt that he could have gone faster on a less congested course and a small, embittered, obsidian-dark part of me is glad he didn’t manage it. We’re going to have a bit of a smackdown at the Cambridge Half as a result. It’s a pancake flat course and while it might be a bit congested in places the atmosphere is such that we’ll have lots of support to cane it. I joked that I’ll just sit on his shoulder until the final 100m then outsprint him to the finish. I think it would be more accurate to say that we’ll pace each other round and really go for it only when we know that we’re going to get home in PBs. If things go well over the winter then we’ll go faster than 1:40 but I was so carried away with things that I had visions of 1:35. While it’s good to have ambitious targets, there are practical limits to ambitions.

We were talking about the Marathon Talk Magic Mile on the Saturday night. I was really impressed with Tom Williams’ improvement from 6:07 last year to 5:00.3 this year. My mile PB is 6:03 and I rashly said that with Marathon Talk’s six months of perfect training, I could match that. It was only when I remembered that Uffish’s mile PB is 5:07 and brotherjohn’s best is 5:10 that I worked out just how ridiculous I sounded. I wasn’t even drunk but I was as high as a kite on friendship. My friends’ enthusiasm wound me up like one of those old chattering clockwork teeth toys and set me off across the table. I was only embarrassed later and that is embarrassing too.

This entire post was partly inspired by Simon Freeman’s post on his blog. He says that what we need are heroes and he’s right. I like knowing that elite athletes are out and doing great things. I do want to emulate them in small ways. I’m more driven by the great things my friends do with a fraction of the time to train available to them in comparison to the elites. Just because they have 20% of the training time doesn’t mean that they give anything less than 100% in the time they have.

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