Posts Tagged ‘running’

I’m a marathon runner. I have a medal to prove it. And it was a hard-earned one because running it was quite possibly one of the most miserable days of running I have ever had.

Last year I ran the Yorkshire 10 Mile and it was cool and dry. Great running conditions. This year it was cold and wet. Last year there was no queue for the shuttle bus. This year there was a 25-minute queue. On the plus side, this removed waiting around before the race as I only made it to the start line with five minutes to go.

The first 13km was pretty miserable as the idea of four hours of running in the rain soaked through. The next 7km was occupied by trying to find a toilet, which finally turned up 7km later. And the last 42km was mostly occupied by pain.

By 35km I was ready to walk. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that I was only just ahead of the pace required to finish in under four hours. In the end, I promised myself I could walk up the hill on the finishing straight (what a terrible place to put a hill, right?). But, by the time I got there, I decided I could keep going and kept putting one foot in front of another until I reached the line.

My final time was:

3:57:17

My goal was just to complete it, with a stretch goal of sub-four hours, so I’m pleased with that time.

People tell you that it is an amazing feeling to finish a marathon. But it’s not. I knew it wasn’t going to be because I’ve spent all summer racing triathlon. But, what I wasn’t prepared for was the dramatic increase in pain after I crossed the line. I was limping in both legs and my ankles were screaming. They continued to hurt even after I swallowed the two ibuprofen I had with me.

The rain fell all morning and continued for the entire run. I was absolutely soaked through by the finish. I brought a full change of clothes, except for pants, so even after I got changed, my wet pants just soaked through my jogging bottoms again. Even with my two t-shirts and winter jacket on, I was so cold that I kept biting myself.

Thankfully, by the next morning, the pain had faded and I felt a little better. I was feeling sore and stiff, but not injured. And I was able to walk down stairs.

Would I do it again? Probably. I haven’t been bitten by the bug: I’m not looking forward to signing up for more races. But I could be tempted by a few of the famous ones.

Technically, I’ve now run a marathon. I’ve been gradually pushing up the distance on my training runs over August and September, and gone as far as 36 km. But, last weekend, I went for the granddaddy of distances: 42.2 km (26.2 miles).

I took the photo about 13 km into the run. My face didn’t look that happy by the end. And no, I have no idea what was going on with my hair.

I started by going down the towpath of the Aire & Calder navigation. There were rowers practising all along the waterway, right up to whether I turned around somewhere near Rothwell. I then headed home, with a quick stop to pick up a new bidon and more gels, before heading up the Leeds Liverpool Canal towpath in the opposite direction to complete the second half. In the end, I completed 42.4 km.

I did the whole thing in 4:06:25, but I paused for Garmin for the few minutes I was re-supplying in the middle, so my actual time is longer than that. I feel okay having done it. Recently, I’ve been feeling pretty ill at the end of these long runs but I felt good after this one, perhaps because I had drunk a little more than usual. The day after I had a little soreness in my toes and my calves were aching but otherwise, I felt good.

Having reached this milestone, I’m now looking forward to moving my training runs back down to sensible distances.

It’s been three years since I earnt my Parkrun 50 t-shirt, and, at the very start of 2017, I completed my 100th Parkrun. Since then I’ve been waiting for my t-shirt. Well, that days has finally come.

I’m pretty annoyed at Parkrun, as an organisation, over the whole affair. 21 months I’ve been waiting for my t-shirt to turn up. I feel a little lied to and let down. Arguably, they are a charity and the t-shirt only costs £4 (which is a delivery charge). But if anything, their charitable status only means they should hold themselves to a higher level of integrity and if they promise a t-shirt, they should deliver on that.

Of course, now they have. And it’s a pretty nice t-shirt, too. It is more of a mesh than the previous ones: if you hold it up to your eye you can see through it. I took it for a spin at Parkrun #169 it it felt good (inspired me to a PB no less!).

I’m really pleased to finally have it. The next stop is 250, which I will hopefully hit sometime in 2020.

Surprise Parkrun PBs (personal bests) are the worst PBs. It’s like drafting Tom Brady in the sixth round. Sure, you’ve accidentally drafted the greatest quarterback in the history of American football, and you’ve done it for an almost-worthless draft pick. But it shouldn’t be an accident. An accident suggests you got your planning wrong.

So it is with Parkrun PBs. My existing PB of 22:39, which I set in May, felt like my best effort. I had gone out to set a PB and I had achieved that, and now I could die happy knowing that the time reflected my best performance.

When I started Parkrun #169, I had no intention of beating it. I didn’t think I could. But I did know that my training schedule said I had to go hard. So, I did. And my time was:

22:06

A good 33 seconds faster than my previous time and giving me a 58.67% on the age grading.

Having said all of that, I’m pleased with the result. I spent the summer doing a lot of training and in the past few weeks I have been focussing on my running, so maybe that is paying off.

Here’s an updated graph because everyone loves a graph:

Last week the Berlin marathon took place and at the event, Eliud Kipchoge smashed the world record. The event got little media courage, which is a shame because it was so no small achievement.

Berlin has been a favourite place to break world records. Since Khalid Khannouchi set a new record in London in 2002, the subsequent seven improvements have all be done in the streets of Berlin. It’s flat and takes place in September so the temperature is usually mild.

Kipchoge set a time of 2:01:39. That’s 1:18 faster than Dennis Kimetto’s 2014 time. To put that in perspective, the last time someone made such a large dent in the existing record was Derek Clayton in 1967.

Kipchoge is the same guy that ran the 2:00:26 in Nike’s #breaking2 event. However, that isn’t considered a world record because of the amount of cheating going on in the race design. This time, however, there is no doubt about the result.

Thanks to C.Suthorn for the photo.

When did it start getting light so late and dark so early? It’s only September.

Getting back into the swing of things now my MSc is over has been a challenge. University was flexible; clients are less so. So, the only time I could fit one of my training runs in last week was at 6 am in the morning before Elina gets up.

I assumed it would be getting light at that time. But I was wrong. So, my planned route had to be changed to a jaunt around the city instead.

In June, I launched my Running For Beginners course. It quickly became the most popular online course I have ever taught, with nearly 2,000 people signing up in the first two months alone.

The course has received great ratings, but some students wanted to take it further. Some were existing runners and found the course content too basic. As it was a beginners course, I didn’t want to make it too advanced. So, I started work on a new course for existing runners looking to take their game to the next level.

The result is my new course, Resilient Running. It will teach you to run faster, longer, and stay injury free. It covers technique, training, injury prevention, nutrition, psychology and more. It’s targetted at people who already run on a regular basis, so we get straight down to business. There are no beginners steps because that’s all covered in my first course.

Will it prove as popular? I certainly hope so. Over 1,000 people have signed up in the first 48 hours.

Here’s the trailer:

Every year, the Pride team turn up to Parkrun to cheer people on and hand out free goodies. Last year, I got a pair of rainbow laces, which I was wearing at this year’s Pride Parkrun.

I had a triathlon to so the day after, but I also felt like I was losing fitness. So, I decided to forgo the “take it easy” approach that would involve resting my legs and instead, go hard and hopefully give myself a confidence boost that I was still performing well.

I did and I got it. Thanks to a sprint finish when I realised I might just make it within the minute, I managed to run:

22:58

This is 19 seconds off my personal best, but it is only the second time I have managed to go sub-23 so I was very pleased with it. Did it give me the confidence to smash it at the Allerthorpe Classic triathlon? Find out soon…

Going on holiday has always been a tedious chore, but now that I have a training schedule, it’s even more of a headache. What’s wrong with home, where there is an adequate supply of toilet roll in a brand that you have tested and trust?

That said, it was nice to run somewhere other than the Leeds Liverpool canal. As beautiful as it is, a chance is often welcome.

I did two runs while I was other there, one up to Lake Lahti, and one to Soukainen and back. It was so warm that I had to be out the door at 6:30am for my first one and wait until gone 9pm to start my second one.

Even then, I found it hard going. Despite the second run only being 10 kilometres, I couldn’t hold a 5:00 per km pace, and something about the heat or the extra hydration I took on to compensate for that upset my stomach.

Importantly, though, I didn’t get eaten by wolves. Which I found out afterwards that Elina’s mum was quite worried about.

Last month, I went out for a 24-kilometre run. Specifically, I went out for a 24.1-kilometre run, which meant I would set a new distance record by 0.1 of a kilometre.

It was the day the rains came after the long heatwave. I set off at 7:30am and given it was so early on a Saturday morning and raining heavily, you might think I would have the canal towpath to myself. But other endurance athletes are, of course, as crazy as I am.

The rain continued, including two brief but torrential downpours that left me soaked to the skin. Thankfully, I had lubed in the correct places to stop any chaffing and despite my ankles being a bit sore from driving in Finland, I felt fine in all respects after the run. My 162nd Parkrun featured in the middle of it.

The levels in the Leeds Liverpool canal were shockingly low. You can see some of it from the photo, but it’s not the clearest example. At some points, it was a good half a metre below the usual level.

I could clearly see the bottom for long stretches. No bodies, thank god. I did see several hundred tyres, though. They were every metre for a good hundred-metres. There were so many in there, I wondered whether they were put in there intentionally because it must have been a massive fly-tipping exercise to get them all in.

You can check it out on Strava here. And, while you’re there, why not follow me? Please be my friend, your kudos are the only thing that validates my ego…