Race Report - Action Heart 5

It was cold this morning as a few of the brave souls huddled together in the Action Heart marquee made their way outside to watch the walkers set off, half an hour ahead of the main event, and then dashed back inside, teeth chattering and knees knocking - or was that just me? Anyway, a short while later we went for a short jog down to the loos and back, then I pushed my way into the pack to try to get warm again.
The start was just a few minutes late, waiting for official photos (you may be able to see my hand waving, about 27th from the left...) and for the Deputy Mayor to say something or other, then we were off, just as the rain started.

As usual, especially in races I've not run before, I started too far back and was overtaking clearly slower runners for a while before I was able to get any speed up. This was compounded by a Birmingham Half Marathon-esque bottle neck immediately after the start line.

I'd been warned that this was not a PB course as it's quite hilly. It's pretty much uphill for the first couple of miles, then as the route forks left from Wolverhampton Street onto Himley Road the horizon dips and it's fast downhill for about three quarters of a mile, levelling briefly before dropping down again for another half mile along Coopers Bank Road. I must have made up more time than I realised on this section, as I was pretty much resigned to a slow run and was not checking on my pace.

Turning left again towards Pensnett and again onto the High Street, the last mile and a quarter was tough heading back uphill, with just the last few hundred yards seeming to level out as the course snakes through the hospital grounds to the finish line. I was caught by surprise when a marshal said it was only 300 metres to the finish, and I should have been well into my sprint finish! I picked up the pace, but sadly failed to pick up any places. It was only later that I realised I was within a lick of my PB!

The results were published commendably quickly and I was just ten seconds off the PB I set in January last year. I have a doubt over the accuracy of the results though. My pal Joe, who was definitely there (I saw him finish, and he drove me home!), is nowhere to be found in the results.

All in all, that was a great result for me in the circumstances, so I'm looking forward to smashing that PB at the Centurion GP race next Sunday!

Long Slow Run

It possibly wasn't a good idea to run ten miles this evening, given that my back isn't quite right yet and there's a race coming up on Sunday, but that's what I did.

I did make it a slow run though, which I always find difficult but I kept reminding myself to keep my pace down and my back also reminded me a couple of times!

So almost 90 minutes for ten miles, but I found myself getting bored after about seven miles and wishing I was home. That's not something I recall experiencing before.

Full rest until Sunday. That will be boring, too!

Frustrating Non-Running Injury

Well the weather hadn't improved much on Sunday, plus I had family stuff to do, so I put my long run off until Monday afternoon, back in Brum. Of course when I got back the weather here was pretty horrible too, but not so bad as to preclude an outing. Unfortunately, unloading the car I put my back out! As a result, I never got out Monday or Tuesday, but felt that it had recovered sufficiently for an gentle run on Wednesday - usual route, anti-clockwise. As it turned out, my running buddy Joe has had a virus so he wasn't on top form either, so there was no hurry at all.

I'm about 16 miles down on my training schedule but I'm certainly not in any hurry to catch up, not least because I have a race at the weekend. I'm not sure what my approach will be for the Action Heart 5 Mile, but as it seems by all accounts not to be too 'PB-friendly' I may just try to enjoy it!

I'll hopefully get a run in tomorrow, but what sort of distance and pace it will be will depend on how I feel. After that, I'll rest on Friday and Saturday, volunteering at Cannon Hill parkrun.

I've been lifting my mood by listening to a fabulous album - Becoming a Jackal, by Villagers. Not exactly a floor-filler, just wonderful tunes and lyrics.

Race Report - Leeds parkrun Event 174

A somewhat reduced field this morning, and I can't really blame anyone for staying away - the weather was horrible. Of course some may have been at the National Cross-Country Championships at Alton Towers.

It snowed throughout the morning, coming down as slush, and the wind was strong enough to blow it under the peak of my cap into my eyes. There's one corner near the skate park which is quite muddy and has steep, alternating cambers. I checked it out as I left the nearby car park and made note to be careful. Even so, first time round I nearly came a cropper, only keeping my feet (and dignity) by swinging a few yards off course and returning over a grass bank.

All hopes of a Leeds parkrun PB were gone before even starting, so my only remaining goal was to finish 1st M50 for the third time of three.

I forgot, or perhaps just didn't bother, to stop my watch until I'd been in the funnel for a little while, but I figured it to be, unsurprisingly, my Leeds parkrun PW.

When I uploaded the data from my Garmin I was surprised to find that it recorded a total distance of only 4.89 km, when on my previous visits it had been much closer to the nominal 5km. I can only put this down to the atmospheric conditions 'confusing' the satellite signals, unless it was something to do with the solar flare I've been reading about!

My result came through at 12:47 (they're always pretty fast, though Coventry are often faster still) and my official time is indeed my slowest for Leeds, at 21:34, but at least I retained my 1st M50 status!

I may take a run round the villages in the morning - on the other hand if the weather hasn't improved I may just put it off until I get home on Monday!

A Plan Needs to be Flexible

Back in my posting of Tuesday 8th I was thinking I should mix things up a bit, as I was getting into a weekly routine. Since then the only (intentional) changes I've made to that routine were swapping sessions round occasionally! Hence this week I did my hill session on Tuesday, and my steady 7 miles tonight. The thinking was that I'd take it easy tonight to recover fully for Leeds parkrun on Saturday. When will I learn? I felt good, and before I knew it was pounding out a 7:30-ish pace. After about 2½ miles, or a third of the way round, I thought well, I may as well carry on like this for the rest of the first loop, then slow it down for the second half. Of course the second half went pretty much like the first, and I finished the session at an average 7:27, and nearly a minute faster than ever before!

Never mind, It's not like I was pushing myself, and I was enjoying it, so I'm not going to worry.

I passed a runner on the first loop, and gave her a nod and a cheery 'Hiya!'. Blank. On the second loop I passed a young couple running and repeated the exercise. Nothing from the girl, but a smile and 'alright' from the chap. Not a huge sample, but it supports my theory on running etiquette.

I'll be sat in a car for a few hours tomorrow, driving up to my mum's, so I'll no doubt stiffen up somewhat, but provided I warm up and stretch properly on Saturday I feel I can clock my fastest time for Leeds, though it won't come near an overall 5km PB. I don't expect sub 20 minutes on the Leeds course, but I'd like to improve on the 20:12 I managed on a cold 22nd January. It would be nice to keep my 100% 1st in age category record, too!

Playing with the Traffic

It seemed like the world, in the shape of numerous four-wheeled metal boxes, was against us tonight. The trouble with running in the early evening is the amount of traffic, all of which seems to be in a mad rush to get home. I'm sure many runners will recognise this. We did the usual Wednesday night route, clockwise, and were held up several times, and Joe came close to getting run over at one point. It didn't feel as though we were particularly quick even when we were allowed to run. All the same, when we compared stopwatch times we were faster than either of us expected.

Love Those Hills!

I headed out in a drizzle this evening for a hill session - the same route I had intended on Thursday, but this time I took extra time to familiarise myself with the route before I set out!

My legs felt stronger than on Thursday and I managed a pretty good session, working hard on the hills and getting the heavy breathing going.

I surprised myself my adding an incremental sprint at the end, where I start to sprint then increase speed in steps at predefined points, in this case each of the the benches along the path through the rec. It's quite a short session, but a bit of a lung buster! As always with reps, though, it's as hard as you make it.

I haven't seen any other runners on the streets this week - I wonder where they all are.

Catching Up With Good News

I didn't get round to posting yesterday, so am catching up now, and yesterday I caught up with my running, as I had a lazy Sunday. The nine miles set for Sunday became ten on Monday, a familiar route down the Cole Valley, round Major's Green and back. It was a lovely morning, bright and cool with a slight breeze, though on the return I could sense the sun's heat on my back and was feeling pretty warm by the time I got home. I was aiming for around eight-minute miles, but finished in 1:17:29, which equates to 7:45 and my fastest time for that route.

My jacket wasn't found and handed in on Saturday, as I'd hoped, but a parkrun pal was running in the park on Sunday and found it! Thanks to Matt. I won't be at Cannon Hill parkrun this weekend so it'll be returned via my buddy Joe.

My second piece of good news, which also applies to 104 other parkrunners, Joe included, is that a small correction has been made to last weekend's results which means that everyone from 13th position back has been moved up a place. For me this means four seconds off my time and a new full PB, instead of the equal PB I thought I had! Seven other runners have PBs they didn't have yesterday, including two ex club-mates - well done to Cath, Carol and the others.

I'm not sure whether this qualifies as a third piece of good news, but I got my entry in for the Stafford Half Marathon this morning. The website states that 'Entry has now been extended until full capacity has been reached'. I'm not sure whether this just means that they haven't had the expected up-take, but I thought we'd better get in quick. I then checked the diary to find that it's just 33 days away... Eek!

I'm listening to ADF's new album, 'A History of Now'. No relevance, but I thought I'd give it a mention as it's excellent!

Race Report – Cannon Hill parkrun Event 25 - Equal PB!

I was looking forward to today's race with the hope of a good performance, possibly even a PB. I'd spent some time analysing previous runs at Cannon Hill parkrun and decided that I needed to concentrate on keeping my pace up between 1 and 1½ km and again between 4 and 4½ km.

Those basically equate to the stretch from the Red Carriage Bridge down the river to the 'Triangle' turn, and, on the last lap, alongside the lakes, past the MAC and round towards 'Fergals Corner' near the Edgbaston Road entrance.

Chatting to Josh, a young Birchfield Harrier I met at the Centurion GP last week, and then Grahame 'Running Machine' Cooper, I managed to let my Garmin lose it's satellites, and wasn't able to start my watch when Mary blew her whistle for the off.

Almost immediately I thought my legs felt stiff, despite a good warm-up jog and stretches. This, together with not being able to monitor my time, and more importantly pace, caused me to start revising my expectations downwards.

Nevertheless I resolved to do my best, and to keep my speed up in those two sections I'd identified.

Unusually, Fergal's Corner was unmanned today, but thoughts of his encouragement two weeks ago helped me again to kick on, although I didn't have the home straight dice I had then, and though I put in a decent sprint I was conscious that it wasn't to the standard of my PB run. Indeed I could see the guy I'd been trying to keep with around the 4 km sprinting away from me and having a great tussle with another runner.

After the race I took a gentle jog home, and was almost back when I realised that I'd left my jacket at parkrun. I'm hoping Mary or Gill will have found it and will keep it for me.

Relaxing later and looking back, it still felt like a fairly decent run, and I was thinking perhaps 20 seconds down on my PB. I was amazed and delighted, therefore, when my result came through - exactly matching my PB! Of course my next thought was about whether I could have put that little bit more into my finish, and whether, had I managed to operate the technology properly, knowing how close I was would have made the difference. Never happy!

I'm going up to York next weekend, and hoping to take in my third Leeds parkrun. Definitely no PB there, but I'd certainly hope to post my best for the course.

Ups and Downs

I pushed myself out of the door tonight and set off for the promised hill session. For some inexplicable reason my legs felt really sore despite only having a light session last night. Perhaps it was psychosomatic. I went through that familiar internal dialogue, on one hand wanting to do the session as planned, while on the other working out short cuts and considering options like running at a steady pace rather than sprinting up and jogging down the hills.

In the end, not only did I do the hills (albeit not quite as fast as intended) but thanks to a couple of mental aberrations I ended up doing an extra half mile or so. Turning left instead of right meant adding a few hundred yards in the middle of the run - adding distance but also giving me more recovery time. Finishing the hills I did it again, turning left instead of right and adding another few hundred yards to the jog back. It's just as well I didn't go too far out of my way, because as I approached home, my lower intestine approached critical mass... When I got in I had to do one last hill sprint - up the stairs to the bathroom!

Easy, Now!

Joe has a problem with his back this week, so we took it gently tonight, even choosing to go anticlockwise because it allows an escape route in case his back played up. In the event he was OK, and it was nice to take our time and chat. I do have a tendency to over-pace my 'slow' runs so it's good to have a 'proper' slow run now and then, and tonight it fell conveniently between a fairly fast run yesterday and probably either a hill session or a longer run tomorrow.

No interaction with any bollards tonight, nor with other runners - I did see a couple, but they were again either too far away or past before I'd noticed them!

On reflection, I think I'll go for the hill session tomorrow and leave the LSR for Sunday. I'll run home after parkrun on Saturday, too. That should bring me up to around 32 miles for the week.

A Smile and a Wave - and a Laugh at Myself

I'm settling into a weekly routine, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I've run the same route the last three Tuesdays, which is good for comparing data, but I think perhaps I ought to be mixing it up a bit. When I get home from work there's no time to figure out a new session, so I should think it out in advance.

It's not that I'm getting bored of the route yet - I quite enjoyed my run tonight, which no doubt contributed to my best time recorded for the route, even though I wasn't going for it, and despite a little 'incident'.

It was quite dark, as I'd got home a bit later than usual. There's one stretch of road which I need to cross between cars parked along both sides, and what with the dark and the glare from car headlights I picked a gap where there was a small concrete bollard...

I could swear that bollard was never there before, but of course it must have been! I was very lucky in that I went flying over it but landed on a (parked) car bonnet without injury - even to my pride, as for once there was no audience!

I had to laugh.

I was thinking about a thread on the Good Run Guide forum about running etiquette - specifically about acknowledging fellow runners. I generally manage a little wave or at least a nod, occasionally a word or two. I was therefore on the look out for other runners to test out the theories espoused on the forum, but only saw two. One was on the other side of a busy road, running in the same direction, so wasn't really 'acknowledge-able'. The other was a young lady running toward me on the other side of a less busy road. Now, I have stated that I get more response from older, male runners, so was not too surprised that she blanked me. It may of course simply have been that she didn't see me, or didn't see my smile and wave. It often seems that women run (and walk, for that matter) with their heads down avoiding eye contact, or is that just when they see me coming?! It may be that she took fright!

I learned yesterday that Sunday's race incorporated the Midland Masters 5 Mile Handicap. I had a look at the results, and I have to confess that I was bewildered by the handicapping system. It's got me thinking, though, about perhaps joining Midland Masters AC as my first claim club. I'm not sure whether there's any waiting period or eligibility suspension, and if so, whether this applies to individual or only team competition. I'm not even sure whether I'd get the usual discount on road races, without which I'd only benefit from entry to an occasional extra event, unless I suddenly decide to start doing Track and Field.

Not much in the way of races coming up. I'll probably do a couple of parkruns, maybe including Leeds again if I visit my mum next weekend.

Race Report - Centurion Grand Prix 5-Miler Series - Race 4

Plenty of friends at today's race, including a couple of ex Sparkhill Harriers club mates, one of whom, Dave, asked where I'd been and was surprised to hear that I was no longer a member (for the reasons I've discussed in earlier posts). Another friend, Helen, from Birchfield Harriers and Cannon Hill parkrun, had also heard the news, presumably from our mutual friend (who is also leaving Sparkhill, though for different reasons). Meanwhile, another friend, Jim, has been along to Sparkhill with a view to possibly joining them!

I had a race long tussle with Chris, a pal who runs with the host club, Centurion RC. I tailed him for the first mile or so, without him knowing, then pulled alongside, had a brief chat, and pushed on ahead. I knew I might not be able to keep him behind, and half expected him to come back at some point, but was prepared to try to share the workload and then see who had the legs at the end. As most of the marshals were Centurions and were cheering their club mates on, they unwittingly enabled me to gauge the gap I'd opened up, which seemed to be growing, but I kept the work rate up, partly to maintain my lead and partly because I was a little outside PB pace.

It was quite tough going because of the strong winds - several people I spoke to afterwards cited the wind as their reason for being a minute or so off pace.

With around a mile to go I started to hear the marshals shouting Chris' name again, so knew he must be closing. I did my best to power on and fend him off, afraid to look over my shoulder! In the end he was eleven seconds behind and, while I was 57 seconds off my PB, I bizarrely managed to clock exactly the same time as in race 3, last month.

Well, if I'm to get a new 5-mile PB this year I have a couple more races left in this series (I'll miss the April one, as if I'm not working I'll be up north for my mum's birthday) and there are also the Coventry Sphinx and Godiva races in June and August, respectively.

Race Report – Coventry parkrun Event 52

Happy Birthday to Coventry parkrun!

Well, I went out in Coventry last night, watched the rugby, had several beers and a curry, and crashed on my mate Richard's sofa bed. Excellent race preparation! Richard had told me we were within easy walking distance and he'd come with me to watch. He has started running, but has only just started doing so in natural light, so I was unable to talk him into running this morning. As it turned out, I virtually had to drag him out of bed to show me the way to War Memorial Park, and we got there with only a couple of minutes to spare!

As a result, I didn't see my regular running buddy Joe until he'd finished, a little over a minute after me. I did, however see 'Mr Parkrun' Paul Sinton-Hewitt. There was a terrific turnout - a new record of 202, many of whom came in fancy dress or wearing party hats, and many had brought cakes and party food, so the atmosphere was even better than usual at parkrun.

I registered an intentional 'Personal Worst' this morning - nearly a minute slower than when I jogged round Cannon Hill in the snow and ice! I had to concentrate to keep my pace down though, and it feels really weird just letting people run off ahead!

I did keep overtaking this one guy, then reminding myself that I wasn't racing, slowing down and letting him pass me again. He must have wondered what on earth I was playing at! I did let him go when he put in a sprint finish - I just jogged in.

Hopefully that will leave me in good stead for tomorrow. Hope this wind dies down though.

I'm Just a Boy Who Can't Say No

I was down for an easy seven miles this evening, with the double-header coming up this weekend, but I didn't fancy that. I did ten instead - and while I intended to to keep to a gentle plod it was difficult to gauge because of the strong head wind on the outward leg. Analysing the stats on my return (the Garmin seems to be fine, though I notice the short test I did last night was recorded as starting at 18:00:08 on 31st December 2017!) the first mile-and-a-half was between 7:40 and 7:50 pace, but after that it was up and down anywhere between 8:06 and 8:59. Average overall was 8:17 and only about four minutes slower than on Sunday.

Must, must, keep off the gas on Saturday so I can go for a PB on Sunday... I have to remember that I'm just there to enjoy Coventry parkrun's birthday. Can I resist?

Tech Trouble

Anti-clockwise again this week. Nothing much to report, particularly since my Garmin watch somehow lost all its data - and not just tonight's run but all the history. Fortunately I remember our time so can at least log that in Good Run Guide, and it was one of our fastest for the route in recent months.

I've just done a little test and it seems to be working again, so hopefully it was a temporary glitch. I'll see what happens tomorrow night.

It's Getting Easier

Seven and a bit tonight, nice and steady, and completely uneventful! I managed to do two loops without ducking out after the first, but the conditions were more conducive to running than of late. Looks like it might freeze overnight, though.

My number and information pack for the Action Heart 5-miler arrived today. Typically, 4 days after posting our Humber Bridge Half Marathon entries, the online entry system opened today! The world's longest single span suspension bridge, until 1998. I well remember my dear old dad taking me to Hessle to see the two bridge towers newly rising from the estuary. That probably wasn't our main objective, but it stands out in my memory more than whatever else we did that day, about 36 years ago! It's still the longest span you can run, walk or cycle over - anywhere in the world. 1,410 metres, if you're wondering, and its one big long hill which we'll have to go over twice! I just hope it's not windy.