And you've won.......a Xmas Pudding !

Heanor 10k - 56.54

There it is to the right.... a bloody great big Xmas pudding, the replacement today for either an event t-shirt or indeed a medal - and when I'm tucking into it on Xmas day, I'll think back to a windy day in November !

Like I've pointed out in previous threads, the end of this year is all about building up that 10k base going into the New Year and to assist with this I'd entered three 10k events between 21st November and 19th December.

First up then, the Matthew Walker Heanor Xmas pudding 10k , or the Heanor 10k as I think it is best that we call it. The object today was to get round in under an hour, as I had been suffering with a stiff calf after my two previous training runs, and rightly I was a little cautious about pushing things too much. To combat the calf, I wore my 2XU calf supports, and to make sure I wasn't laughed at, I disguised this fact by wearing running tights. It was a good job that I had so many layers of clothes on in the end to be honest, because it was bloody cold today, not just cold , but really through to the bones nasty cold - and I felt for the supporters, because us runners just need a few minutes of a race to warm up, the supporters have to wait around in it for upto an hour and a half - kudos to them !!

No race timing chips today folks, it was down to me and the measurements of the old Garmin 50 ! At almost bang on the advertised start time of 10.30am, an airhorn sounded and we crossed the rather shaky spray painted start line and we were off on our adventure.....

The first couple of kilometres take you around a loop of the industrial estate, and you pass the Matthew Walker factory twice, (cheers for the pudding!), before heading out of Heanor, via a bloody great hill, and into the countryside. First two kilometres were ticked off rather conservatively at just under the hour pace, and then during the third kilometre, and after the bloody great hill had been climbed, I started to feel a little more comfortable, and tried to keep pace with a couple of blokes in front who I estimated were running at a pace that would bring me in under my PB. I tracked these two at a safe non stalky distance up the ups, and down the downs, and at 5km was there or there abouts for a good time. It then became a case of trying to knock off each kilometre as it came, and keeping pace with my pacemakers. Between 5 and 7km's, I think I ran the most fluent and fastest couple of kilometres that I ever had, and as a result at 7km I was well ahead of PB pace and thought I was on for sub 55 - but as things sometimes do, the wheels began to wobble a little bit, my two pacemakers started to edge away bit by bit, and between kilometres 8 and 9, I struggled.

At 9km, I thought - Right, just one kilometre left - ramp it up, and I did, I ran as hard as I could, I ran up what I thought was the last hill, only to see that there was another even bigger hill right before the finish- and that was that, a real killer , just three hundred metres from the line - a direct parody of the course in Sheffield, and because of this I crossed the line, completely mullered by the course, less than 20 seconds outside of my personal best time !

I don't feel gutted, sad or disappointed, because that was the best race I have ever run, in terms of how I paced it and how I felt, and I know that if I can stay healthy over the next few weeks then the PB will fall without a doubt in either Sheffield on Dec 5th, or Bolsover on December 19th.

Getting ready for Heanor !

For the past few weeks I have been busy trying to get back to regular training with two aims in mind -firstly, to get ready for the four races booked in before Xmas, and secondly to build a base level of fitness going into the 2011 season.

Running - I'm up to 5 miles so far and have another 9 days before I have a run out at the Heanor 10k. I'm hoping for a steady run, to break the hour mark, and most importantly, bag a Xmas pudding !

Cycling - Sunday cycling is now the norm, and the milage covered peaked at 34 miles last week. In the next few weeks I'm hoping to take the distance past the 40 mile mark for the first time since late June.

Swimming - No more public swimming for me (thank f**k), I've joined a private gym and get access to a practicly empty pool whenever I want to - now I just need to learn how to swim properly !

I'll catch up again after next Sundays race..

The road opens......

Every single distraction is now out of the way and I can now turn my thoughts and ambition to the third of July 2011.

It is on that day, that I will make an attempt to become an 'Ironman' by completing 3.9km of open water swimming, followed by 180km of cycling, topped off with a full marathon, 26.2 miles of running. Its sounds crazy, it is crazy, but it is very do-able with the right mix of preparation, motivation, and common sense.

My preparations started this week with a 3 mile stop start run, 40 lengths in the pool, another more successful 3 mile run and tomorrow the cycling will start with a 2 hour ride.

The plan is to build up to a sound 10k running base for the new year, whilst keeping a decent level of cycling and swimming going, this will give me an idea which training plan is more suitable for the New Year.

I have entered three 10k races for late November and December which will give me a short term focus.

Lifes about to get very interesting....

BUPA 30th Great North Run

This is the first time that it has taken me a couple of days to write and post a race report. This is due to two things: firstly due to the massive congestion exiting the event which meant it was really late by the time we got back to Lincoln, and secondly, I wanted a couple of days to reflect on the day before I started typing.

I had been struggling in the weeks following Antwerp with knee pain, and doubted at that point if I would be able to rock up fit enough to the start line of the GNR. However, week by week, steady progress had been made and although things are not sorted 100%, I was able to complete two 8.5milers and an 11.5 mile run in the two weeks before. So not what I would call Antwerp fit, but able to complete 13.1 miles at a steady pace if I was sensible.

Race day itself started with a 4.45am alarm call (Black Sabbath's Ironman) and away in the car at 6am in the wet. The route was not overly complicated being mostly A1 and we arrived with no fuss into the centre of Newastle by 8.45 and managed to park near to St James' Park football stadium for only £1 for the whole day - bobsyfandango !!

From our handy little car parking spot the start area is about a mile away, so it was a slow steady walk to try and eat up some time. The start area on Claremont Street really is a sight to see as it stretches back a good kilometre and was full of people, as well as a line of yellow buses which were used to collect baggage, as far as the eye could see. I think it was the busiest place that I had ever been in my life and I think that it was then that the full scale of the event really hit home. I stretched, I stretched some more, jogged for a bit, went to the toilet, stretched some more and then decided that I could not kill any more time and then made my way to my start pen like a good competitor a good twenty minutes before the pens closed. These pens were rammed with people and I had to chuckle when the warm up guy was going through his routine whilst 40-odd thousand people attempted to do the same in a squashed cramped fashion.

The elite women were announced and were sent on their way first, and then the elite men with the largest cheer of the day going to Mr. Gebrselassie, the distance legend who had turned up for his third race against me. Ant and Dec were todays celebrity starters (thank f**k it wasn't Sting) and they got us underway pretty much bang on time - it then took a good further 20 mins for my wave to get past the starting line. Once I had gotten going finally, I tried to keep a sensible pace on my Garmin and also tried not to get pulled into zig zagging around people too much. the plan was too run the first half of the race and a steady pace and hope that in the second half I had some mojo left in the tank to finish at a good pace. The first mile went very smoothly and I loved the 'oggy oggy' chants as we passed under the bridges - truly memorable ! I passed the first mile in about 9.30 and realised that I was getting pulled along by everybody else and of course the occasion. Again, I focused on trying to bring the pace down a touch in the second mile and again tried to calm it down and take in the surroundings which I tried to do going over the famous Tyne Bridge( see phot at the top). At the end of the second mile the pace dropped sensibly and I was able to get into my running.

Just after the two mile mark I passed a chap carrying a fridge on his back ! A fridge ! For 13.1 miles - now thats hardcore. At the 5km mark the clock showed just past 30mins, which would be a bloody fast HM if I could keep going as I was. Truth be told though, the first few miles are slightly downhill and I found this out with a bang as at about 3.5miles there is a slight incline for a good two miles on this course and this is where the legs start to feel tired. You are also out of the city and running mostly on dual carriageways, which touch on a few estates where the locals were doing their best to be very supportive of the runners. I got to 6.2 miles in about 1.01 and normally the race would have strung out a bit, but no not this one - we were still congested at this point.

At about 8 miles something really strange happened - I had a complete loss of power in my legs and the speed just disappeared. This was to be my slowest mile by far and when I reached the water station at 9 miles I walked through it and drank the whole bottle of water which seemed to do the trick. I found a comfortable pace at this point and tried to work on 11 minute miles for the last four miles in an effort to gain an all HM (including triathlon) personal best time of 2.12. However, the legs did go again a bit and I walked the water station at mile 12 just to get the water on board, and this left me just too much too do in the last mile along South Shields seafront and I missed out by 30 seconds or so. I was disappointed, but on reflection, I could not have run any harder or faster on the day, I was just not fit enough race day to grab that PB. I crossed the line and gladly took posession of my finishers medal and commemorative t-shirt which actually fits me - yay !!!

Good things about the GNR - well organised, great atmosphere, large screens at the start, some of the supporters were excellent, great goody bag.

Bad points about the GNR - very congested, zig zagging is no fun for 13 miles, other competitors lying about how fast they would be, chav supporters squirting water, 1.5 hour queue for the metro to get back to the car at Newcastle.

2.14.18 then for my second standalone half marathon, and three minutes quicker than my first in Coventry last year.

Coming up.. I'm going to have a few weeks off and will be getting married. I will rehab the knee and start some light run training in early November. I've entered an Aquathlon on 21st November , and then a couple of 10k's in December to finish the year off and to give me a running start to 2011.

Great Yorkshire Run 10k

I had never been to Sheffield in my life and I was expecting today to be a bit grim to be honest, as really Sheffield as a place hasn't ever been the most appealing venue I could think of travelling to, and after seeing the Full Monty, I think I could have lived without going.

Nevertheless, as todays race fitted in nicely with my Great North Run schedule, I had decided to enter another of the Great Run series - the Great Yorkshire Run 10k - in grim old Sheffield !

I like the BUPA races for two clear reasons, firstly, the field starts in waves of similar ability which means that I don't tend to be overtaken by hoardes of people and coversily don't get held up behind fat fairies ! Secondly, and most importantly, a nice medal to put in the old medal treasure chest aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggh ! (pirate noise)

We arrived in plenty of time, which gave me plenty of time to do some proper stretching for a change and have a walk around, so that we knew where to meet after the finish. Todays race was also the first race that I will be doing without an ipod. I know that I haven't been using ipods during triathlons and managed a half marathon without one, but stand alone running races have been a different animal and I have always 'needed' one - well today that comfort blanket was most definately being removed !

Sheffield itself was surprisingly un-grim in the end and it was shaping up to be a good day out. The race itself starts in the city centre and heads out towards Hillsborough before looping around and finishing back in the city centre - it is a lot like the event in Manchester.

I set off at intentionally even pace, and tried not to get too pulled along by the excitement, as I didn't want to blow myself up too quickly. The first couple of kilometres went by without incident and by 3km I had overtaken todays TV celebrity (not in the same league as Rory Underwood so I'll keep quiet this time !) I saw a bloke with triathlon calf protectors on, and then a young lad with a cheaper version of these - knee high football socks ! still, I bet they did exactly the same job.

At 5km, we reached the turnaround point, where there was a large screen showing all of the runners running towards the bend. I looked for me, found me, then tried to smile as I could see myself looking a right miserable bastard on the massive screen !

The rest of the race was a battle to try and keep a the pace a good one with an eye on trying to achieve something near my PB time for the distance. At 8km I was convinced that I was on for a personal best and felt really good, however, this dissipated along with the potential PB when we hit a hill just before the 9km mark. A hill was not really what I wanted at this point and it took a lot out of me. Once at the top of this incline I tried to make up any lost time and thought I was making inroads and then with 400m to go....... another f@@**ng hill !!! That was it I'm afraid, it was only 200m long, but the energy had gone out of the legs and I struggled over the line in 57.22 which is less than a minute outside of my PB.

In all then, happy to finish in a decent time in the end, happy that my knee held out and seems in good order, and of course happy that there is more bling in the treasure chest ! aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh ! Oh, and running without an ipod is the dogs nuts ! you get to take in so much more !

I am seeing the physio tomorrow evening about my runners knee injury and hopefully will get the go ahead to continue on to the Great North Run in two weeks time. I will post again after that event !

National Club Relays - Race report...

Yesterday, I turned out for one of the Lincoln Tri teams at the National Club Relays event held at Holme PierrePont near Nottingham.

I was the third man in a four man relay team for the afternoon race, in a team called the 'Horny Imps' - boy, it was gonna be a long afternoon !

I followed my usual routine of turning up at the event about an hour and a quarter before my published start time, which usually gives me plenty of time to have a good look around, set things up, register etc. Well, next time, remind me to turn up a least a day early, cos it was very, very busy with what looked like every triathlon club in the country represented. First job then, find the rest of my team, this took an age, cos there was so many people milling about. I found the club's gazebo, where another team were looking for their last team member, who also had inconveniently forgotten to turn up at least a day earlier !

Eventally, I found them , we sort of got ourselves organised and I started to be able to relax a little bit. I made my way upstairs for a race t-shirt, but they had run out !!!! There was a pile of XXL left and that was all, a bit piss poor really....um ! Nevermind at least there was the beautiful summer weather to look forward to......or not!!

It rained ! When it wasn't just raining it was raining torrentially, conditions were very wet to say the least ! As a team we did a walk of transitions and agreed where we would stand so that we could find each other to hand over the baton (or purple elastic band as it is otherwise known) at the end of our individual legs of the relay. this done, I lubed up, slipped on the old wetsuit and we made our way on mass down to the start line, where we stood for many minutes in the pouring rain, trying to make out what was being said in the race briefing. This was my part of the race..

Swim - 9.56

I stood where we had agreed would be the best place to find each other to exchange the baton, seems that every other team had picked the same spot and it was like trying to get served at the bar in a very busy city centre bar on a saturday night. There were arms waving everywhere, and how my team mate saw me I don't know but see me he did and it was time to gracefully ?!? enter the water in a sort of stumble come belly flop ! I swam well, sighted very well and thought I had made good time, but when I stood up at the end of the swim, we all had to negotiate walking along a cobbled section before getting onto the matting. This wasted a lot of time, so the time of 9.56 was my first sub 10 minute 400m swim, but it was a minute faster than that in reality at least !

Bike 25.34

The good thing about the relays is that you have lots of time between your legs, so I was able to go back to the gazebo to get changed at a more leisurely pace. I walked the bike down to the transition area and then waited for my team mate to bring me the hallowed elastic band( baton). Whilst I was waiting it absolutely bucketed it down, and once I had the baton, I was off in the pouring rain. It was balls out(not literally cos that would have been painful and cold) the whole way round for me, and knowing there was going to be a lot of time to rest at the end, I gave it everything that I had. There was also a new addition to the animals that have tried to kill me whilst out on a bike - this time it was Geese !!! I had to do a last minute swerve to avoid becoming geese feed !

I overtook some people on the ride, and was overtaken by lots of people, and when I got in their wake, I enjoyed a spray of mucky water that freckled me. 25 minutes and 34 seconds gave me an average speed of 21.5 mph which is 2mph faster than I had ever managed before. Bobsyfandango !!!

Run 27.19

From the end of my bike leg to the start of my run leg there was a gap of around an hour so once I changed into my run gear I had lots of time to have a look around and spent most of it in the Planet X stand trying hard not to give in to temptation. I eventually made my way down to the holding pen where we were waiting for our runners to come in and hand over. Whilst we were waiting the torrential rain came hammering down again. Brilliant ! To be honest, we train in it, we swim in it, we should be used to it !

My run leg started in the hammering rain, and apart from not being able to start my garmin, my pace was good considering the first quarter of the lap is run on grass which I hate, and was hilly which I'm starting not to mind too much. After about three minutes, I managed to start the garmin so that I could be sure of my pace which I tried to keep fast to have a good chance of beating my PB. I ran 58.18 in a 10k around this course last year and knew what I needed to do to be under 29 minutes. I had though, forgotten how bloody boring running around the lake at HP really was so I tried to catch the man in front of me to break up the monotiny - but I couldn't quite manage it though, however, by tracking this athlete, I got round in a very good time. in total the Horny Imps came in 137th out of 237 teams with a time of 3.39.35.

Overall then a very wet day, three personal bests, no t-shirt, no race pack freebie at the end, no impulse bike purchases(thankfully), injury no worse than it was , and a great feeling that I did my absolute best for my team. A good days work !

Post Antwerp knee pain !

As I write this entry, which I apologise for, as it won't be a exactly a 'war and peace' effort today, I have been unable to start run training due to pain in my right knee.

After the race a fortnight ago, the knee has been tender whenever I put weight on it, either going up or going down stairs. I did try a run on Tuesday evening of this week, but half a mile told me that it needed more rest.

Interestingly enough, I can cycle and have completed two sessions so far, just as long as I don't get out of the saddle that is ! And my training partner is back !!

Today, it feels on the mend and I will have another go at a run later in the week. I was scheduled to run the Jagermeister 10k in Nottingham on friday evening and as much as I really wanted to do it, I pulled out in the end which was the right thing to do.

On a brighter note, today, I marshalled out the Outlaw Iron Distance Triathlon at Holme Pierrepont, and I was humbled by the athletes as they toughed their way through the day. I certainly will need to have put in the training miles before I start my Ironman next year. These guys were awesome !!

Next up for me ( provided the knee is in working order) is the National Relays on 21st August - I will let you know how I did, or did not get on !