Colomba Chemo Classic Sportive

....or what should more accurately be described as ridiculously stupidly hard sportive !

The reason behind doing a sportive this late in the year was that, yes, it was full of hills and it would give me a starting point to gauge next years progress as both of my 'A' races would both be hilly and tricky.

This sportive is based in Richmond , North Yorkshire and is laid on by the folks at the Colomba Cycle company, it costs £15 to enter, and the ride takes place in the Yorkshire Dales. Because of the location I had to be up at stupid o clock, and leave the house at 6.20am just to be in Richmond by 8.15am. The HQ was a cricket club just off the main street in Richmond and had a handy carpark complete with public toilets - life saver !!

Once registered, I had to unpack the bike from the car and then simply pop back in to tell them that I had left, one I had done this I was on my way.

Well, the first few miles were a joy, because the sun had just risen, the roads although bumpy were relatively flat, and I managed to tag on the back of a 20 strong peleton. That strategy soon faded though as 3 miles down the road, the undulations started and I fell away from the back of it. The scenery remained stunning with beautiful landscapes, rock formations and waterfalls, but the ride was becoming increasingly difficult with multiple climbs coming in quick succession. This is the ride profile to give an idea :

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/10783176

I merrily sat back spinning up the climbs and deliberately not getting out of the saddle for the first 20 miles of the ride, but enevitably as the legs started to wobble, and some of the inclines got stupidly steep, I had to resort to standing up and really grind my way up - I sweated so much on some of the climbs it was dripping off me. There was though a massive sense of satisfaction when I reached the crest of these monster climbs ! One the way up Coverdale there was a photographer taking pictures and it was on a particularly steep slope - I managed to get on with it and keep riding, but then was overtaken by the days celebrities - Alex Dowsett & Ben Swift from Team Sky - that will be the only time that I lead some professional riders up a climb !!!

Some respite came at the feed station at c. 37 miles as we stopped at a village hall - I made the most of it - refilling my drinks bottle, and then enjoying a warm cup of vegetable soup along with some bite size sausage rolls, and then some of the nicest flapjack that I have ever tasted.

It was a good job that we stopped because once back on the road silly season opened up and we were presented with more endless climbing. Honestly I would reach one brow only to see riders snaking onwards and upwards in the distance. Some of the descents were breathtaking though - if massively dangerous and at times it took all of my braking just to get round some of the more acutely angled ones !

The best climb was saved for near the end as we made our way up the toughest of the days ascents - a climb from 528ft to 1475ft which lasted for 2.96 miles at the 46 mile point of the ride. By the time that I got to the top of this one I was truly beat but felt like a cycling god !

I massively enjoyed the descent from this one, and looked back in awe at the behemoth that I had just scaled.

I managed to complete the 61 mile couse in an official time of 5hrs 11mins , but after taking into account the stop for the feed station, the actual ride time was around 4.50 for what was a slow and brutal course. Back at HQ, we were treated to more free food and a nice warm coffee.

In all, a very sadistic way to spend a saturday morning then, but the more I reflect upon it, the more rewarding the experience was - I will have to make sure that I look to book some more sportives for next year !

Its official....

After a tense set of negotiations lasting several minutes, I am now entering Ironman UK for 2012 !!

Fantastic !

No Walk In The Park 5k

Following last weeks exploits at the Worksop Half Marathon, It was time to go back to Chesterfield and and have a third crack at North Derbyshire Running Clubs monthly 5k park run - ' No Walk In The Park '.

My last two attempts, in February 2010 (27.08), and then February this year (25.30) had both been very enjoyable outings, and as such, I was looking forward to this all week !

We arrived at Chesterfield Cricket Ground then at 8.45 having taken an hour for the trip, and was quickly registered in the Pavillion, I was given my race number of 40 which had been kept for me since February.

After a warm up, we all gathered for the start, and I found a fellow Netrunner in Dom Stevens to talk to. Within seconds we were given the off, 40 odd runners full of adrenaline hurtling around an opening lap of the cricket pitch. I was aware that I was definately further up the field than I had previously been and a check of the watch showed that my initial pace was through the roof. I held this as far as I could and although it dropped, it didn't drop too much as I worked very hard for the first couple of laps of the Park to maintain my position.

By the third lap though I was hanging on just a little, and by the last lap the early pace had taken its toll and I was truly marmalised. I did, however, have enough left to up the pace again for the last 300m even though I was eventually reeled in by Dom, who came past me like a whippet in the last 100m, that last burst bought me home in under 23 minutes.

I crossed the line in 22.41 which is a new PB for me, and not far behind a man, who when I first took part in this race last year, I thought I would never be as good as - there is now just less than a minute between us ! It will be one of my goals for next year for sure.

Next up for me then is a trip to the North Yorkshires Dales for a cycle sportive event next Saturday morning - http://www.colombachemoclassic.org.uk/

Worksop Half Marathon

Today was another stop off on the journey of attempting to run a Half Marathon in under 1 hr and 50 minutes. Having run the Robin Hood Half last month and getting 1.53 have been determined to beat that and take my PB down into the 1.40's.

I arrived in Worksop then with a plan to better my Robin Hood time and then take that to the flat Norwich Half Marathon in three weeks time and get the time that I wanted.

There was no way that I was going to get it today as the Worksop Half is notoriously hilly with a whopping 186m of climbing within the 13.1 miles of the route - I would have to have a good day to trouble even the Nottingham time....but this is how it went.....

J'arrive !

Nice and early having taken just 40 minutes to drive from Lincoln. We found street parking just 30 metres or so from a car park and in the process saved ourself a gargantuan £1.20 !! A ten minute walk, if that, into the centre of Worksop then followed and then we found the registation area - things ran like clockwork and I very quickly had my race number and timing chip. I had a jog around to warm up trying to look like I knew what I was doing and then joined the queue for the toilets - big mistake, as there were clearly not enough toilets for the amount of competitors and the queues moved very slowly - to fix this the orgainsers could have organised stand ups for the chaps but hey ho ! When I eventually managed to 'get in and out' as it were, and had about a minute to get myself down to the start. Seeding myself towards the front of the sub 2 I managed to filter myself in from the footpath as the Klaxon went to signal the start of the race.

The race

I had been told that the first mile of the race was uphill and that is true, but forgivingly its not steep and it comes right at the start so with adrenaline still pumping my pace was better than expected. My runners world pace band said 8.42 and I was little over 9 so no panic - I knew the first mile would be slower as the pack had still not settled down. Mile 2 was undulating, but the faster downhills meant that I picked up good time here and manged to get myself into credit against my target pace !

Miles 3 to 5 continued to undulate and to be honest I enjoyed the downhill sections but was getting a little fed up looking ahead to see a sea of bobbing heads going upwards !

I got through 6 miles in 49 minutes or so which is only a minute outside my PB 10k time - no wonder then that it felt like hard work. At this point we were in Clumber Park for the middle section of the race - and parts looked very familiar from the Duathlon earlier in the year. This was better too, with not many if any hills, just 'deceptive' flats as I recall.

At mile 9 , I began to feel tired and my pace dropped a touch - which I think was down to the earlier battering my legs took on the hills and the fast start. At mile 10, my ankle started to feel painful and I think it cramped up - this meant that I had to stop a couple of times to stretch it out and give it a wiggle ! This helped and I was soon on my way again and even managed to chase down Elvis during this section - uh uh !!!!

During the eleventh mile , I finished the last of my gel, and thought another runner asked me what I was doing - in fact it was David Greenwell and we ran together past the mile 12 marker, but Davids pace was a little too fast for me and I dropped back from him. The last mile as previously mentioned is all downhill and I tried to blast it as much as I could. There was nothing left in the tank by the time I turned the corner for home , but was elated to be under 1.50 for the first time, crossing the line in 1.48.18. That is a further 5 minutes off my PB, and 26 mins for the year.

I found the t shirt to be great and must applaud the work of the marshalls and the organisers for a great race.

Whats next ? Well theres the No Walk 5k next Saturday and the a cycle sportive in the Yorkshire Dales the week after. I am tempted to give Norwich a miss now but will make a decision on that later in the week.

BUPA Great Yorkshire Run

I've had a little bit of a hazardous weekend if truth be told:

Firstly I played Golf yesterday morning which can have a bad effect on my back, and secondly and more dangerously, I had a night out at the 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' last night, where I dressed up as main protagonist Frank n Furter complete with high heels - that was a sprained ankle waiting to happen I can tell you.

It was with some relief then, that I managed to rock up this morning in Sheffield to compete in my second Great Yorkshire Run, the first having been completed in September of last year. On that occasion I was a white wave runner, very much centre of the pack, but this year having had a great season of improving times, I found myself in the first wave of starters for the first time - the orange wave. The plan today was simple - run as hard as I could over the first 9 kilometres to lessen the effect of the PB killing hills in the last stretch that dampened last years performance. To assist with this, I made my own pace band http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/racing/runners-world-pace-band-generator/3918.html which if I followed it correctly would give me a PB.

We walked to the start area, and after using the world most indiscreet open air stand ups, I joined my fellow wave runners for our 10.00am start. The professional athletes were introduced to the masses along with todays celebrity - Life On Mars very own Ray Carling, actor Dean Andrews - a much better celebrity scalp than last years effort.

We were soon moving forward, and then jogging, and then back walking, and then finally over the start line and away ! The pace was immediately fast, and knowing that this was downhill, tried to make the most of it in the first kilometre. My pace band told me that I needed a 4.58 first km, but was delighted with a 4.37 effort. Things calmed down a little bit and I was able to settle at a hard pace but a manageable one as we passed the 2nd kilometre marker and entered the effectively 6k out and back section of the race along a dual carriageway to the Hillsborough stadium. This section went very smoothly, I was disappointed though that there was not a big screen this year at the turnaround as there had been last year - to make up for this though I did notice the Hillsborough stadium, which last year I was completely oblivious to even though it is massive !

The first half of the race passed in around 23-24 mins which was good pacing, the second half of the race though was tougher and I found that even slight inclines were hard work. I managed to keep the pace constant though and as we made our way back to Sheffield City Centre there was no real slippage in the time that I had in the bank ahead of plan and I ran hard to make sure that this did not happen. Just before 9km, the first climb came and went and there was time to recover with a downhill, before the PB killer came up. I tackled this head on and although the pace dropped considerably I continued to attack it and although a lost half a minute by my reckoning, I was still able to cross the finish line in 48.26 - a new PB by over a minute and I can't be anything over than delighted with that.

Overall then, 834th on the day and in the top 17th percentile of finishers - the kind of performance that I just want to keep improving on. Next up for me is the Worksop Half Marathon on the 30th - and until then I will be giving some though to some goals for the rest of the year and some for 2012.

Robin Hood Half Marathon

Everybody panic !

Hurricane 'Malcolm' or something is about to hit UK shores and we had been told for most of the week that this was going to land sometime Sunday/Monday. Image my surprise when I opened the curtains this morning to lovely blue skies with hardly a cloud in the sky ! Not too warm and I'd say ideal conditions for a nice 13 mile race.

I left sunny Lincoln at 7.45, and arrived dead early again in Nottingham 45 minutes later. This meant we had plenty of time to park the car away from the race centre and enjoyed a nice walk along the embankment to the race village. One there, I resisted buying yet another race day technical T-shirt (I clearly have too many !), and then failed miserably to bump into any fellow NetNutters ! - there was no tardis that I could see so I mingled around the Lucozade tent for a bit where I managed to get a pacing wristband which I think is brilliant. I opted for the sub 1.55 band, which having all the expected mile splits wriiten on it gave me something to focus on.

After a bit of a warm up I headed down to the start area, and into my allotted pen which looked to be getting a little congested the nearer to race time we got - some big hairy bloke came and stood practically on my toes for the final couple of minutes. At a little over 10.00 am though there was movement at the front and we started moving forwards - always a good sign that a race has started !

The race...

The start of larger races of this type are always congested for the first couple of miles and I am used to this.... but today it seemed stupidly so for the first kilometre along the embankment or so as the race had to sort itself out and those people that again started in the wrong pens had to be navigated. As a result I didn't get to settle down until we were near the one mile marker and a quick look at my watch and at the pace band told me I was about about ten seconds behind schedule already.

Having settled down though I found that even though it was busy, if I managed my lines correctly I could always find space and not get myself too boxed in. As a result I made up time in that second mile and edged in front of target. There was a lovely long climb in the city centre which strung the runners out a little before we headed out towards the Trent University campus for some scenic running around the park and around a lake. I felt the wind here for the first time as it had got up a little but was enjoying the surroundings a little too much to care !
Quite a bit of this section was familiar as it was partially the same course as the Jagermeister 10k from August so I knew that we were going to going up some climbs very shortly.

At mile 5 I was ahead of schedule by about 40 seconds or so, but then we had the climb into the Trent building which was again a long incline and I had to make further time up on the way down - I also overtook the bloke that I had been using for pacing at this point and had to search around for a while for another target - and finally found one in the shape of a young woman - a perv me...noooooo.... racing reasons only I swear guv'nor !

We made our way out to Wollaton Park, which seemed peppered with inclines and the worst of the days climbs but as long as I didn't overcook things going up, I found I could quickly get back on track when things levelled out on top and of couse enjoyed the declines where I was able to get a bit of respite. My pace had not dropped and I still had those 40 seconds in the bag as we passed mile 10 and made our way through the city towards the finish. With all the ups and downs mostly finished, things flattened out and the wind began to pick up again - I started to stiffen a little and my gel bottle now looked like warm milk as I finished that heading through the final water station. At mile 12, I tried to quicken but could not manage too much and found myself running next to a fellow triathlete ( yes there were at least two of us dressed like transvestites!) , and we spent the last mile grunting events we had completed to each other, before he completely did me in a kick for home. I managed to get over the line in 1.53 something which was a 21 minute personal best for me and then got a super medal ( I'm a bit of a medal tart TBH and although a tshirt is OK you can have too many! )

In all, a super day at the office, at a gem of a race, and I might even be back next year.

Lincoln Wellington 5k

Lincoln Wellington Athletic Club host a four race series of 5,000 metres over the summer months at Yarborough Leisure Centre. Having competed earlier in the year at a similar event in Chesterfield, I was pleasantly surprised by both the size of the event and the organisation behind it - and the best bit was that it was super cheap to enter - just a £5, bargain !

The race

I turned up very early again, but this time it was because I had been suffering from DOMS in my hamstring for the preceeding couple of days and wanted to make sure that I spent enough time warming up before the race - besides warm up was on the running track and it was a great running surface. I also met up with John from UK Netrunner, himself looking to break the 25 minute mark for the first time - you can follow Johns blog here :http://runner795.blogspot.com/

We lined up at half past seven and after a short race briefing we were set on our way. The course is made up of a short loop, followed by three larger loops, all run on the cycle track which follows the perimetre of the leisure centre grounds. The pace for the first lap was a bit quicker than I am used to as I found myself running with John ( the netrunner peleton! ) and I was struggling to keep with his faster pace. As we hit the first of the larger laps though I managed to settle down into it and found myself targeting one of the runners about twenty metres ahead of me.

She was still in my sights for most of the second lap, but towards the end , I managed to squeeze past on a corner just before I got lapped by the race leader. For the rest of the lap, I concentrated on not dropping my pace and getting re-taken.

On the final lap, I found the pace hard work, but decided to try and keep going as long as I could. For the final 400m I could hear someone beginning to catch me and it took all I could muster to finish just ahead in a near sprint finish.

23.37 then for the night, and a PB by nearly two minutes at this distance - a good evenings work.