Monthly Archives: March 2018

Snowdonia Trail Marathon: Week 2

by Ben

After a pretty positive week one, despite not hitting 30 miles, I was looking forward to getting some more miles under my belt in week two. The P&D plan introduced some strides into a general aerobic run on the Tuesday, before a midweek 10 miler on Thursday. With my lower mileages at the moment, the latter was never going to happen, but I was keen to try and incorporate the strides into my running.

Tuesday: 7-ish planned. 0 completed.

As Lolly was travelling away with work, and would be away Tuesday and Wednesday evening, I had to either run early Tuesday morning, or fit my run into my workday. I chose the latter: I planned something like a seven mile route based around Brean Down, which I could do after my first job in Weston-super-Mare. Unfortunately, I ended up coming straight home after that job, as we got a call from nursery to say that our little boy had to see a doctor. As it turned out, he was fine, and went back to nursery that afternoon. But my planned run had been ruined.

At this point, I got into my own head. It was still only 13:00. I could easily fit in a run; more or less any run I wanted. I didn’t have to pick the children up from nursery until 17:30. But for some reason, I just couldn’t quite get myself out the door. After my planned route, I decided that anything from home would be too boring. Fine – that shouldn’t be a problem, a 15-20 minute drive can get me to some gorgeous places. But no. Alas, I couldn’t get over myself, and I didn’t run at all.

Wednesday: Tuesday’s run (8 miles)

It’s not trail running, but it’s still scenic enough.

Not running on Tuesday put a lot of pressure on me for Wednesday. If I didn’t manage to get out for a run, then it was unlikely I was going to be able to match the previous week’s mileage, and my main aim, for the first four weeks of the plan, was consistency. Thankfully, I managed to finish work around three, and had none of the previous day’s head issues. I got home, changed and went straight back out for a run along some of the roads at the base of the Quantocks. The route was loosely based on a reverse part of The Humdinger course. Although it was road mileage, it was pretty lumpy and, with the snow around, simply pretty. I averaged just slower than 8:30 per mile, which I was pretty happy with, considering the terrain, and that I wasn’t pushing myself.

Thursday: Getting out on the river (5 miles)

There’s a huge cliche about the first light evening runs, but they are genuinely so uplifting. I managed to use the last bit of light to start my run along the river, before ducking off around some residential estates to get back home. Like the previous day, I was pleased with the pace given that I never really pushed myself. It was a pretty modest 8:12 per mile average, but after so much time on the trails, I’ve got used to paces in the 9s, 10s and even slower. As I mention above, my focus at the moment is on consistent running; getting the miles done week after week, and building to a decent platform. Once at that platform, I’ll switch my focus more to pace. Trying to build mileage and pace at the same time is just a recipe for injury.

Saturday: Longrun Meadow parkrun (5 miles inc run there and home)

Splash splash.

It’s been ages since I’ve run at Longrun Meadow. Over three months in fact. The underfoot conditions were pretty bad, though far from the worse that I’ve run in there. As I was racing the next day, I was intending a relatively gentle run, though ended up going a bit quicker than expected as I ran with a mate. It was good to be back and to socialise with a few people I hadn’t seen for a while. It’s also a pretty (mentally) easy way to get five miles in.

I’ve got out of the habit of parkrun – partly because I was injured for so long, partly because when I was training before it didn’t fit in very well, and partly because I have given Lolly priority for parkruns lately. It’s a habit I’d like to get back into, even if I can’t make it every week these days. I ran 38 parkruns in 2014, 20 in 2015, 36 in 2016 and 18 in 2017. Based on these numbers, I’m due for 34 this year, though that seems unlikely so far!

Sunday: Race day (11.5 miles total)

Climbing through Butleigh Wood.

For a full race report, see my previous post. While the race was important to me, namely for Somerset Series points, I also needed to make sure to top my mileage for the day up to 10 or 11 miles. A one mile warm-up was followed by the Butleigh 10k. The race went pretty well; I was more or less where I expected to be, though I’d have liked to be 30 seconds to a minute quicker. (Always).

Race done, I caught my breath and chatted for a while, before switching from my race vest into a t-shirt, and my trail shoes into road shoes, and then headed off for another four miles. I opted for a simple two miles out, two miles back route, rather than trying anything fancy and getting lost! I found the miles came surprisingly easy, and although I was a bit bored of the flat roads by the end, it was a pretty nice end to a higher mileage day.

Weekly summary: 4 runs, 29.9 miles

So, yeah… If I’d known I was that close to 30 miles, I’d have cleared tacked another 0.1 miles onto my run. But never mind. Overall I’m happy with what I got done this week. I struggled early on, but in the end, I built the mileage nicely from last week, and the race went about as well as I could realistically expect given the current focus of my training. It’d be nice to get out on the trails a bit more, but sometimes life just gets in the way. More races are due to follow next week, with the Isle of Man Easter Festival of Running; a 10k on Good Friday and then a 3.5 mile hill race on the Saturday.

Butleigh MT 10k: race report

by Ben

It was the second year in a row running the Butleigh MT 10k for me. Last year’s race summary ended up in my catch-up post in July.

My focus over the past few weeks has very much been looking towards Snowdonia in July. The nature of my training plan means that at the moment I have been adding on distance, rather than looking at any serious speed stuff. While this is absolutely the right approach (I’ll discuss this more in my weekly summary) it does have a slight detrimental affect on my racing at the moment. (If you’ve read enough of these, you’ll know that I like to get my excuses in early.)

As is the case with a lot of the Somerset Series races, Butleigh has a relatively small field, and I wasn’t worried about it selling out, so left it until the day to enter. Even on the day, it was a very reasonable £12. A few of the Somerset Series regulars were missing, possibly because of the Yeovil Half Marathon, which clashed with the race. It was though nice to see Matt Powell, my old sparring partner, back racing again. Well, it was at first.

A gorgeous backdrop that I was entirely unaware of.

We headed over to the start, which was the same as last year, a zig-zag through a field and then out over a bridge. I was chatting to Matt for a little bit as we went around the field – mostly commenting that as his pockets were jangling with some change that he’d forgotten to leave behind, I’d avoid running with him. As it turned out, I didn’t have much of a choice.

Climbing up the first, small hill, Matt passed me and soon opened up something in the region of a 20-metre gap pretty quickly. I dug in to hold it at that as we came onto the first road stretch, just over half a mile, before we turned into the field that had been so horrendous last year. The conditions were definitely better this year, though it was still tough going. Once across the field, we turned into a copse that ran alongside the road. The terrain through this section was fun and technical, though I hadn’t remembered quite what a climb it still was!

When we dropped down the next field, I had hoped to make some headway on those ahead of me on the descent, but no such luck. Or rather, no sudden discovery of previously untapped pace. Back on the road for a short stretch, and then we turned right to head through Butleigh Wood. Or, more properly, the third hill, which feels like it goes on, and on, and on. I made headway up the hill – passing one of the two red-topped runners ahead of me. The pair had been my targets for a while, and I was relatively confident of passing them both before the end.

Climbing through Butleigh Wood.

Coming down the other side, my downhill speed finally seemed to reap some benefit, and I closed right up to the next redshirt.  I remained right on his heels as we dodged the badger holes on the narrow path. I was just behind him through the last bit of field, before we headed back onto the road. Unfortunately, he then started to push away from me again. Or I dropped away from him, I’m not entirely sure which.

So close, and yet so far… After closing in, the redshirt opened the gap back up again at the end.

The bad news (or my bad finish) continued. The second redshirt put on a pretty impressive finish, and passed me just before we entered the playing fields at the finish. Another runner, from Wells City Harriers, also caught up to me during the lap of the football pitch. This time though, I was able to put on a sprint of my own. I had hoped that an initial push would see him off, but he kept coming, so I had to kick again all the way to the line.

Fast finishes aren’t pretty.

I finished in 48:36; thirty-five seconds slower than last year. Most of that was lost in mile two, though I benefited from not getting caught at the road crossing this year. As ever, comparisons aren’t worth too much – the conditions were better than last year, but my training has been anything but. Onward and upward.

Next race(s): Isle of Man Easter Festival of Running 10k (Good Friday) and Peel Hill Race (Holy Saturday)

Snowdonia Trail Marathon: Week 1

by Ben

Oh heck.

On 15 July 2018, I’m planning on running my first marathon. And because I’m some sort of an idiot, I decided that a good introduction to 26.2 would be off-road. And involve a mountain.

As usual, I plan to keep track of my training on this blog. I’ve found it useful before to jot down what I’m doing. It keeps me accountable, and helps focus my mind on what my training is achieving. So, some background information to start. My preparation for this training cycle hasn’t been ideal; I’m still trying to get consistent mileage after my ankle injury way back in September. I initially planned to follow the P&D ‘Advanced Marathoning’ low-mileage plan, but it seems too much mileage for me. So at the moment, the plan is to spend four weeks figuring out where I’m at. Which leads me onto my first run…

Monday: 5k time-trial (4.5 miles total)

The P&D plan involved running a lactate threshold on the Tuesday, with the hard section at half marathon pace. But I realised that I had no idea what my current half marathon pace even is. My only fast efforts recently have been the Hills to Coast Relay and the Babcary 7.5, neither of which were really suitable for gauging my true pace. So I decided to make use of our club’s time on the running track to do just that. After a mile warm-up, I launched myself into twelve and a half gruelling laps of the track.

It was possibly the toughest workout I’ve ever done. Don’t get me wrong – I love track sessions. And I’m more than happy to run them on my own. But twelve and a half laps of push, push, push. It’s hard. I used 20 minutes as my benchmark. For the first kilometre, I came in just under; 3:54. But my pace dropped off after that, and it was a constant battle not to drop too far off the pace. The second kilometre (two and half more laps) was 4:09, and already I was behind the target. I had to remind myself that I knew that I wasn’t capable of 20 minutes right now, it was just to give me a guide pace. In the third kilometre I lost a bit more time, but managed to steady things in the fourth, clocking 4:18 for both. I maintained a similar pace for the next 500 metres, but a kick over the last half lap pulled me up to a 4:03 final kilometre, and 20:38 for the 5k.

More importantly, it gives me a figure to plug into the pace calculator to work out some race and training paces.

Tuesday: Massage

It’d been a while since my last massage with Ian, and I was a bit worried about some Achilles soreness that I’d suffered from over the past couple of weeks. A good, if painful, rub down of my calf muscles, and all sorts of tinkering with my ankles, and Ian declared that my Achilles were good to go. No swelling, no significant tightness. Good news!

Wednesday: Varied 7 miles

I was staying away from home with work on Wednesday night, and had originally planned to just plod around the roads near the hotel. Unfortunately, I discovered that my hotel was essentially a service station motel, and near the friendliest of roads for running. Thankfully, I discovered that it also happened to be on the edge of the New Forest, and hatched plan B. A short drive on from the hotel, and I parked in a random National Trust car park. (Less a car park and more just a flat, clear bit of land with a National Trust sign, really.)

I had no real plan for my run, other than, well… run around. I headed up the footpath out of the car park… and was immediately met by a “No Public Access” sign. Not ideal. Still, I had the OS Map app, and so swung off to my right, across some pretty boggy grass until I hit a footpath. I followed this until it reached the A36, doubled all the way back, and then headed down the small road I was parked on. Away from my car (intentionally). This eventually led me to Stagbury Hill, a nice little climb, before I looped back to the car, adding on a bit more distance along the road to round it up to a tidy 7 miles.

Saturday: Long run (11 miles)

Long runs are always difficult to fit into family life, and as I extend the distance for marathon training, that will only get worse. I’m looking for ways to integrate these runs into the weekend as much as possible. This week, I suggested that as Lolly didn’t want to run Longrun Meadow parkrun in the wet, she could visit Minehead parkrun, and I could do a long run from there, meeting them at Torre Cider Farm. This turned out to be a fortuitous decision. Given the “Mini Beast from the East” which struck over the weekend, we both got out runs in before things got too bad. The wind was biting, and while it had caused Lolly issues during the parkrun, I was sheltered from the worst of it to start with, as I headed inland. (My original idea had involved running along the coastal path to Watchet – that would have been hideous.)

As soon as I crossed the A39 out of Minehead, I started climbing pretty sharply; initially up the road, but then switching onto footpaths. In the first two and a bit miles of my run, I climbed roughly 800 feet from the seafront to the top of Grabbist Hill. And promptly dropped most of the way back down to sea-level again to reach Dunster. After which… I went off-route.

In my defence, I did intend to vary from my planned route. I just meant to take a different variation. Still, it didn’t make much difference, and I soon found myself back up at 550 ft going past Gallox hill fort. I stopped for a bit of a breather, and for a gel – the first time I’ve tried one. I’ve intended to try gels for ages now, but as I suffer from some.. ah.. stomach issues.. on runs anyway, I’ve always put it off for another day. I figured that I couldn’t keep putting it off during marathon training though. I tried a Torq gel – I’ve bought a sample pack with a range of flavours. This one was Strawberry Yoghurt, and other than being very sweet and sickly, it did indeed definitely taste of strawberry yoghurt. It was very palatable, went down without an issue even though I didn’t have water, and I had no issues for the rest of my run. Well, no gel-related issues.

Still awful at selfies.

The run resumed with a very short descent, followed by more climbing, up to Bat’s Castle, another hill fort. Another break (to take some photos, not because I was out of breath… honest) and then about a mile and a half of relatively flat stuff before a nice descent to Withycombe. I rejoined my originally planned route. For about a quarter of a mile. Heading back out of the village, I was met with a footpath closed sign and a padlock. Oh bugger. Quickly consulting the OS Map app again, I realised that there was no convenient alternative; I would have to run the roads around the fields, which squared off my diagonal. But I had no choice, so off I went, up another hill!

In fact, that diversion meant that with the exception of one shortcut across a field, the last three miles of my run was all on the road. Not ideal – particularly in my Speedcross shoes, but needs must. My planned ten mile run ended up being 11.3 miles. I briefly considered adding a bit more on to round it up to 12 miles, but frankly decided I really didn’t give a hoot.

This run was purely a distance run, but I was happy to average 9:29 per mile over that terrain and elevation profile, especially given that I was navigating paths and roads completely unknown to me. Although 2,000 feet over 11 miles sounds a lot, it was (a) proportionally less than Snowdonia will be, and (b) surprisingly runnable.

Sunday: 3 miles road

Three miles of nothingness. I wanted to top my mileage up over 25 miles, but given the snowy, icy conditions and family considerations, I had little desire to do much. A short pootle around town did the job. It was nothing special, I didn’t even change out of my glasses into my contact lenses!

Weekly summary: 4 runs, 26.1 miles

Honestly I’d have liked to have got over 30 miles done this week, but I didn’t get home from work until after 7 on Thursday, and so any run that night was pretty much out of the window. Each of the runs I got in was a tick in the box. Monday’s time-trial was quicker than my first Yeovilton race last summer, and each of the following runs was completed injury-free, which at this stage is my main focus. The P&D plan, which I’m still loosely basing my training off, introduces some strides next week, while I also have to contend with Lolly being away for two evenings, and a race at the weekend. (A race, however will I cope?!)

parkrun tourism: Minehead parkrun

by Lolly

I don’t have the best record at actually writing blog posts lately. My last 2 parkrun tourism posts are part-finished drafts (one of which I’m still hoping to finish, the other I’m hoping to re-visit soon), and the many ups and downs my running has taken over the last few months have been left undescribed. Minehead parkrun, though, I’m determined to write up now. If for no other reason than we didn’t write it up last time.

When planning our weekend of running, the idea of combining me doing a parkrun and Ben getting an interesting long run from the same location seemed a winner. Minehead was therefore an obvious choice. As the weekend approach, the weather saw our local Longrun Meadow advertised as a splash run for diehards only, and I began to worry about stormy winds.

Minehead parkrun is based on the prom at, you guessed it, Minehead. This was actually my second visit, as we went in the summer of 2016 not long after it had started. The event was plagued with teething issues, which we decided made a write up unfair, so I was keen to see how things were doing now.

The run is entirely based on the tarmac prom, and the route differs slightly to my first visit. Starting at the clock tower you head West (which due to the coast shape is also North in places) for about a third of a mile. The turn around point is a small path loop, so feels very natural. You then run back past the start and on for another quarter mile, before turning round a cone on a wide path. Back to the start, the route then repeats in full and then finishes with just the first out and back. So 2 full laps and 1 half laps up and down the prom.

Sounds simple doesn’t it? Particularly on nice easy tarmac. Well, half of it was pretty easy. It was just the small matter of an Easterly wind. You know, on the coast. Running East into an East wind is not the easiest thing. What makes it even better is when there is sand on the path ready to be blown in your face. From speaking to one of the local runners, part of the reason for the course alteration was to reduce the distance running by the sand, so I am at least thankful for that!

Taken by Ben, from the comfort of the car.

This was a bit of a strange run for me personally. My last run had been 3 weeks previously at Burnham, when I’d gone all out to aim for (and manage to beat!) a target time. With no training in between and tough conditions it was never going to be perfect. But I’m really pleased to have averaged 10 minute miles. And the advantage of returning somewhere that I last visited 2 months pregnant is that I got my first course PB since New Year’s Day 2016.

I’ll be honest, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this run. The course is much improved for the small tweak, and though for me it will never match the scenery of Seaton it is definitely a more accessible prom event. The pre-run briefing was spot on, particularly in the conditions. And the volunteers were absolute legends, particularly the marshal at the turn around point who was somehow still smiling and cheering in the wind. Minehead parkrun has definitely made the leap to my recommend list.