Posts Tagged ‘running’

Sheffield Castle parkrun is a proper Sheffield parkrun: hilly. My watch recorded over 100m of elevation gain. It’s difficult to know how accurate that is, but it is believable that it is hillier than both Temple Newsam and Cabo. It takes place at Manor Fields park and there is no castle. Full-size castle, I should say, as there is clearly one in the picture. Everyone was friendly and they even had water on the course during the heatwave.

This is my 9th parkrun beginning with S.

A mile is pretty short for me. I wouldn’t usually run it, but I’m trying to get more involved in the club championships and also it was next to my house. All of my training this year has been for God’s Own Backyard Ultra and then for triathlon so I came into the race having done no speed work whatsoever.

Which was unfortunate because when I signed up, I didn’t really think about what time to put in; I just put six minutes because that’s what I put last time. But last time I was in the middle of a three-Ironmans in a year season shattering all of my personal bests. This year, the best I had run was 1,500 in 6:50 and now I found myself in the same heat as Dan and Curtis.

Luckily, it wasn’t all bad. One person was slower than me, and I managed to catch a second fairly quickly as well. I under-paced myaelf because I had no idea that I was capable of and managed to catch another two or three on the line. And to be fair, it is really hard to know how fast you will run unless you train for that distance. In the end, my time was:

6:23.7

Pretty respectable. That was the gun time; chip time was 6:21.8. Faster than four days previous and only 45 seconds slower than when I was on fire in 2021. Plus, it was a heatwave so take a couple of seconds off for that.

I also marshalled this year. I’m usually pretty protective about my sport time as it’s not work/parenting/charity (if you ignore the coaching and the run-leading) but as it was the club race I made an exception and had a lovely chat with Lucas while we marshalled.

Thanks to Anne for the photo. Beautifully capturing my flying feet. Bit worried about the landing angle of my foot.

Roberts Park is in Saltaire. The parkrun is two laps of the park and an extended bit down the river. There are a couple of choke points that slow everything down but its reasonably scenic and they had an army of volunteers. Thanks to everyone who made it happen.

Six years ago, Toby had a dream: that every hour, for twelve hours, we would run three laps around Woodhouse Moor. After the psychiatrist discharged him from hospital, he set about making this dream a reality. Around the Park, Around the Clock was born. This year would be it’s sixth running.

The weather was good this year. Warm but not too hot and no rain all day. It was only a week after God’s Own Backyard Ultra meaning that if you include both weekends, ABC and parkrun, I was looking at 182km of running over the week. Luckily, no injuries, just fatigue.

The big race news was that Rich was away in the Lakes. Rich, Toby and myself were the only three to have done all twelve laps all five years and now sadly we’re down to two. There was no lack of experience, though. We worked out that Toby, Robyn and myself have now done 612 laps of Woodhouse Moor as part of this event. And probably over a thousand more if we threw in parkrun.

Loads of well dones and thank yous to give out: Toby, Robyn, Helen, Lara and Matt for completing the full thing. Naomi also completed a lap every hour. Elina for brining the picnic and Venla for getting a few laps in. My mum for completing an amazing 20k setting a new personal best distance, as did Sharron with 25k, and Donna running her first marathon/ultra with 45k complete. Toby for organising, another set of dozen facts, and the post-race pint. Everyone who dropped in and out to keep us company. And Robyn for making the trip over to provide her excellent company, despite having a 50k ultra and Windermere Marathon coming up on consecutive weekends.

A wee bit of touristing in Knaresborough. It’s a two lap course with a few short but steep hills in, and a large amount of trail. I ran into Pip on the start line. Didn’t manage to spot Paul but later learned he was also there too, so a good showing from Harriers.

This was the last “c” I needed to finish the Pirates challenge: Cross Flatts, Chevin Forest, Corkagh, Cabinteely, Carlow Town, Christie, Conyngham Hall and Roundhay.

It turns out that five days is not enough recovery time when you’ve run 107k at the weekend. The uphills were hard and the downhills were harder. Still, I made it around in:

1:03:40

Congratulations to to everyone who finished, including several Harriers who took home prizes, and thank you to Horsforth Harriers for staging the event.

When I did Leeds Marathon earlier this month, I decided to treat myself to the VIP experience on the basis that A) it would be a nice welcome home present to myself and B) me eating small finger sandwiches would contribute to valuable research on supporting motor neurone disease.

It was in the Howard Suite which gives you a view of both the rugby field and the cricket ground.

Most of the appeal of all was better availability of toilets. This is a real source of stress for me and has had a big impact on my running so if I can throw some money at it and make the problem go away, that is money well spent. They also provide food before and after the race and somewhere to sit down, although the seating was pretty limited.

I did manage to squeeze in a pastry before the race. There wasn’t much of a lunch buffet after, but they did have some sandwiches and I had a few of those. They had a separate room for baggage with plenty of space, although you could just wander in and out of there so it was less secure than a standard bag drop.

The most challenging part, though, is that with it being in the Howard Suite, these were the stairs we had to navigate. Not ideal after just having run a marathon :D.

Back in the day, Leeds had a marathon. Then, in 2003, just before I became an adult, they stopped having one. And for twenty years there was no city marathon. In 2022, I went travelling. And Leeds announced they were launching a new city marathon. Finally, in 2026, my schedule and the Leeds Marthon schedule lined up. I feel like Baddiel and Skinner should write a song about this.

I’ve had a tough time with marathon running recently, most recently running Dublin Marathon on my birthday. This time, I felt quite anxious for the first four kilometres or so. Maybe it was that feelings of “this is going to be hours of suffering ahead”. After this, though, it mostly went away. I had some light headedness about 16 kilometres in, but otherwise felt good.

I also moved well. My last few marathons have all been around 4:30 mark, so I was expecting to be slower than this with the big hill coming back from Otley. But it just never materialised. I kept ticking kilometres off at just over six minutes. I think I had mentally prepared myself for it to be super hilly, and so once I was up onto the ridge line, and even coming back from Otley, it just never felt that bad. I ran almost the whole way up to Bramhope with only a short walking stint to eat.

At about 34k, the marathon and half marathon routes merge. This meant those of us running a marathon at six minutes a kilometre, and those running a half at what I would guess would be 12ish minutes, were jammed together on the same road. It was hard to find space, and I felt sorry for the half runners who suddenly found themselves swarmed by marathon runners. It was crowded the whole way down Otley Road and into the stadium. Lovely finish line, though.

My time was:

4:02:50

Elina and Venla came to meet me after the race. It was tricky finding each other as both o2 and Vodafone’s networks were down around the stadium.

The support was excellent. I’ve never done London but I’ve done Dublin twice and I would say in Dublin, there are people watching more than there are not people. Leeds wasn’t quite Dublin good but much stronger than any other race I’ve done. I think that says quite a lot given it is not a city marathon: Dublin stays within the city at all times, whereas this is an out-and-back to Otley and still enjoys great support along a lot of the course.

Overall, great race. I would still say it is pretty hilly to make a PB attempt on it, and you risk getting trapped behind half marathon runners. But as a nice day out with great support, it’s a lovely race to do.

Track sessions are back in full flow at Hyde Park Harriers, and I was back coaching last week. I also had the pleasure of leading group one on Monday, including loads of people running with the club for the first time.

Last Sunday I did my final big training run before God’s Own Backyard Ultra. Modelled on last year’s mega run, it was a little shorter: five hours moving time over six hours, rather than six hours moving time over seven hours. But, on the plus side, I did make it almost as far, clocking up 50km, 3km short of last year. Although it is difficult to compare across different routes.