Too busy racing!

by Ben

Argh! I’m so far behind. I promised a second blog summarising my overall thoughts on the Bristol Half Marathon and my training plan, and how everything had gone. And then I’ve gone and done three more races; the Red Bull Steeplechase, the Exmoor Stagger and the Herepath Half, since then.

Out running – back in November! (Races in red)

I’ve picked up an array of bling, clothing and a glass:

I got both a medal…

… and a brilliant hoodie from the Red Bull Steeplechase.

A technical tee from the Stagger.

And this lovely half pint glass from the Herepath Half.

What I haven’t had, is much time to write. So my apologies for anyone who has been waiting in anticipation. I’m planning on taking a couple of weeks off running (though I’ll probably still do a little bit of light running) so I’m hoping to be able to use some of that time to catch up on the blog.

Great Bristol Half Marathon: race report

by Ben

Bear with me, this could be a long one…

In March 2014, I completed my first half marathon, at Silverstone. I trained, regularly, but quite gently, and finished the race in 1:52:58.

At the Great West Run later that year, I pushed myself harder in training and in the race, and despite having some wobbles (shivers, and throwing up after finishing) I made a massive dent in my PB, completing it in 1:41:52.

I then got injured through the winter, and wasn’t able to complete a spring half marathon. My training cycle for my autumn half marathon included a fair bit of rehabilitation work. In the race, I aimed for around 1:38, but ended up completing the Burnham Half in 1:36:37.

We then came to 2016. Except that another injury meant that I yet again missed the whole winter, and couldn’t complete a spring half marathon. My goals of a sub-90 half marathon were dissipating:

In my heart I’m still aiming for sub-90, but in reality, I think that has become something of a pipe-dream now. – Me, July 2016

Halfway through my training I set out my targets: Gold, 89:59 (sub-90). Silver, 91:32 (sub-7:00 min/mile). Bronze, 93:59.

I certainly had some concerns about my chosen race:

… what am I thinking, entering a race with over 10,000 entrants?! – Me, August 2016

My doubts remained as the race approached, and in all honesty, they were still there while I stood in the holding pen ready to start the race. But I’m getting ahead of myself slightly.

Pre-race

A 9:30 start for the race meant an early morning; a 6:00 alarm so that we could be out of the house by 7:00. Amazingly, even with a toddler, we left on time – although I did forget to have some toast after my cereal. So we’ll maybe call it evens. We arrived about an hour later, and parked at Cabot Circus, about a mile across town from the race village. This had three main advantages: it was far enough away that parking wasn’t an issue, I got a bit of a walking warm-up to loosen my leg muscles, and the toilets at Cabot Circus were not busy!

We arrived at the race village in time for me to head to the toilets once again, this time joining a queue, albeit a relatively reasonable one. I didn’t really fancy milling around the busy race village, and instead popped down a side-street towards the river. Just as we were about to settle down on a bench for a little bit, the rain came. (Hold on, the BBC said it was going to be dry!) And then got heavier. And heavier. And then really heavy. We quickly rushed to huddle under a balcony on a block of flats, and I contemplated how long I could leave it before heading out for a warm-up run.

Huddling out of the rain

8:40… still raining. 8:45… still raining. 8:48… sigh. I accepted the inevitable, and – still wearing my race top, t-shirt AND a hoodie – I set off along the river for a little warm-up plod. And got soaked. Still, my legs would thank me for it, and chances were that I was going to get wet during the race anyway.

Out along the Portway… and back (miles 1 – 8)

In the start pen, I slotted myself a couple of rows back from the 1:30 pacer, amazed at quite how near the front this put me. I decided that I would run with the pacer for the first few miles, and see how it felt – I could always drop off and adjust my goal down as the race went on. If I started further back, there was no chance I could speed enough sufficiently to adjust my goal up.

The crowded start meant that unlike most races, where I start too quickly, I actually had quite a slow initial get away compared to what I wanted. Still, I found sufficient pace soon enough, and started to work on keeping up with the 1:30 pacer, who’d got away fine, and was ten metres up the road. By the end of the first mile, I’d sorted my pace out, and went through in 6:48 – pretty much bang on my target pace for sub-90.

During the first couple of miles, I did struggle with the number of people around – running with the pacer did have the disadvantage of making up run in a close group, and I was constantly having to adjust my stride to avoid clashing with another runner. Eventually, I got fed up of this, and decided to move ahead of the pacer, into a pretty large gap that had opened up. I was wary that I might then push on too hard ahead of my target pace, but it was a risk I decided I had to take. After a second mile at 6:46, I sped up slightly in the third, to 6:40; whether this was related to pushing ahead of the pacer or not, I’m unsure. Just after the third mile was the first drinks station, but I opted against a drink – I felt hydrated enough, and I don’t believe in drinking too much during a race if you don’t feel that you need it.

The fourth mile took us to the turnaround point on the Portway, and we started to see runners coming back the other way. I had been worried before the race about this long out-and-back, but actually it was fine. Initially, it was so early in the race that I hadn’t got bored of running yet, and after that there were plenty of people coming the other way to keep you distracted. My fourth mile maintained my ahead-of-target pace, 6:41, and had been a gentle climb, making it an even harder effort. At this point of the race, I felt that I was pushing so hard to maintain the pace already, and that I couldn’t possibly keep it up for another… oh my God… another 9 miles.

Looking pretty rough already!

It was around this point that I opted to do something both sensible and really stupid. I decided to break the race up into more manageable chunks: sensible. I decided that my target pace was more or less my 10k PB pace, so I my first chunk would be the first 10k of the race. And I’d try and get a new 10k distance PB: stupid.

Don’t get me wrong – I knew that to run sub-90, I would have to run a positive split. There was no way that I wouldn’t fade towards the end at that pace, so an even or negative split just wasn’t realistic. Given that, I guess it wasn’t so stupid after all, but it sure felt stupid, trying to run my fastest ever 10k with another 7 miles to go after. Either way, I managed it – Garmin recorded my 10k time as 41:24, almost a minute quicker than my PB. At least I knew I’d achieved something in this race!

I continued at my ahead-of-target pace for miles seven and eight, and remained ahead of the pacer, though a few times I could hear the group right behind me – so while I was running quicker than necessary, the pacer was driving a similar pace, which was slightly reassuring, and slightly worrying. Mile 3-8 were at 6:40, 6:41, 6:35, 6:43, 6:39 and 6:41. Unfortunately, my mile bleeps weren’t quite lining up with the mile markers, so although according to my watch I was probably about 67 seconds ahead of where I needed to be, the mile markers suggested that I was perhaps only 10 seconds ahead.

The ‘nothing’ middle bit (miles 8 – 11)

The first eight miles had been pretty straightforward: onto the Portway, up the Portway, turnaround, back down the Portway. (And, right at the end, a bit of twisting and turning across the river, or canal, or whatever it is.) I knew that most of the rest of the race was a lot more fiddly, twisting and turning through the city centre – with a couple of climbs thrown in for good measure. But first came the dreary middle miles. Mile 9 was entirely alongside the river, and at this point I caught up with a group of Great Western Runners, who I usefully paced along with for a while. I pushed on ahead of them when we hit Redcliff Hill, though my pace was nothing compared to the 1:30 pacer, who suddenly came flying past us all. I’m not really sure why he decided it was necessary to go so hard up the hill, but from this stage, I spent the entire race a fair distance behind the pacer.

Another hill followed just under a mile later, climbing up towards Castle Park, while the biggest was to follow shortly after, up past the back of The Galleries, though that was at least succeeded by a noticeable downhill, and as we passed over the river/canal for the third time, I spotted Lolly and Lani there to cheer me on. The combination of the cheering and the downhill gave me a boost, but I knew that my pace was starting to suffer, and every mile involved some calculations as to whether sub-90 was still realistic. At 10 miles (only a parkrun to go!) I had about 22 minutes left – a 22 minute 5k should be do-able, right? Mile 11 saw my pace drop a bit further to 6:56 – anything under 7:00 should be fine from here, but I was worried about the trend.

Looking much better than I felt through Queen’s Square.

The horrible last bit (miles 12-13.1)

From the point at which you pass the 11 mile marker, to the finish, by the shortest route, must be about 500 metres. Unfortunately, we had to do an entire loop of Queen Square, and an out and back loop around The Centre. Yes, I know, 13.1 miles is 13.1 miles – but having so much twisting and turning at the end is mentally draining. The support from the crowds here was great – and it needed to be. I felt like my whole race was coming apart, and everything was a struggle. But actually, when I looked around, I was keeping pace with most of the runners around me, and even catching up with some others. And although my pace had continued to drop, it wasn’t too dramatic. It just felt it.

Somewhere around mile 12, I’m not sure where, as mostly everything blends into one around this point, I saw Lolly and Lani again. From what Lolly says, I wasn’t particularly cheerful, and I can believe it. My ability to do any sort of maths failed in the last mile, and so I wasn’t quite sure how slow I could afford to go to make sub-90, but I knew I was on course for it, short of a pretty monumental breakdown. Unfortunately, that was pretty much how I felt. I felt sick – like I was actually going to throw up. I was light-headed, and struggling to mentally focus on anything. Other than to keep going. Turning onto Broad Quay and then Colston Avenue, and seeing runners going the other way was tortuous, especially when I kept expecting to reach the turnaround point, but it took a forever to arrive.

In the finishing straight!

Eventually though, I reached it, and there was just under half a mile to go. By this stage, I really was starting to go backwards relative to most of those around me. I was just hanging on as best as I could – forcing myself to keep pushing for the final few minutes. At the ‘400m to go’ sign, I briefly contemplated pushing harder, before realising that 400 metres is a quarter of a mile. At 200 metres, I allowed myself to push a bit, but in reality, I didn’t have that much to push with. But it didn’t really matter. As long as I didn’t actually collapse, I was practically guaranteed sub-90. The pacer crossed the line ahead of me, in pretty much 1:29 exactly. When I crossed the line, I could see that the clock was still reading under 1:30, so it was pretty academic what my watch said. I’d done it.

Post-race

I’d done it. And now I had other things to focus on: not throwing up for a start. Step, breath, don’t throw up. Step, breath, don’t throw up. In such a fashion did I shuffle away from the finish line and collect my goody bag. Step, rummage in bag, retrieve water bottle, drink, don’t throw up. Step, drink, don’t throw up.

Eventually, I progressed to simply walking and drinking, the nausea passing, and I made my way back to The Centre to meet Lolly and Lani, so we could head off for a celebratory Nando’s back at Cabot Circus. After I’d bought some dry socks to wear, at least…

Fooooooooooood!

I’ll probably post some more thoughts on the race, and my training later in the week (I know, I know, it’s already Thursday). But I do need to say a huge thank you to my wife, Lolly. My training plan was 12 weeks, and at the time of my race, she was 12 weeks and 2 days pregnant. So the combination of pregnancy and having to cope with me being out of the house for hours on end training didn’t make things easy for her, and yet she remained fully supportive of my efforts to go sub-90 at Bristol. She believed in me far more than I dared to, and she kept me going at those points that everything seemed to be getting on top of me, and life threatened to get in the way. So, thanks Lolly 😀

Obligatory ‘bling’ photo

Lack-of-Training Update

by Lolly

I haven’t been posting enough recently. I’ve been trying to persuade myself that it’s ok, because Ben has had a lot more running to write about than normal. But then looking at the last 10 blog posts only 1 has been from me. Oops.

In part, this has been because there’s been little to write about. My running lately has consisted of parkrun. Even then, other commitments have meant I haven’t managed every week. My times have been less than stellar: 36:29, 37:15, 37:07, 35:46 and (today) 38:52. It hasn’t bothered me too much though.

My packed-out training schedule

So to re-cap: I’ve got no races planned for the rest of the year, my training is virtually non-existent, and I’ve been taking the few runs I have been doing as easy as possible.

Kind of screams “surviving first trimester of pregnancy” right?

Actually, I’m pretty proud of myself for the little running I’ve managed. Last time round I ran precisely zero miles during the whole 9 months, so every time I set off it sort of feels like a new PB. And now that I’m through with the “feeling crappy” months I can get moving a little bit more for a while. You know, until the “exhausted” months arrive.

Bristol Half Marathon Training: Weeks 10 and 11

by Ben

I’ve been more than a little bit lax in keeping my training blog up to date over the past
couple of weeks, but that sort of sums up what a time it has been. In many ways, I’ve been
more fed up of running than ever before. While in other ways, I’m more excited about it than
ever before. At least in terms of my 5km pace, this training cycle has seen huge
improvements. I started the summer with a PB of 20:15, set at Longrun Meadow parkrun last
August. At Yeovilton, I drove this down as the summer wore on: 19:50 in July, 19:32 in August
and 19:13 this month. The Yeovilton course is definitely quicker than Longrun, but I set a
new PB there too, 19:48 in wet conditions.

I’ve not had the opportunity to run a representative 10km race to judge my improvement there,
but my result at the Ash Excellent Eight early this month gave me some encouragement,
particularly how I coped with the hill at the end. Some of my training runs have similarly
shown me my improvement – hilly routes that would have been a struggle before have been
dispatched relatively easily, and I’ve hit my target paces in all of my speed sessions.

Here’s a brief summary of the past couple of weeks; nothing so detailed as normal:

Book plan:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 8 miles general aerobic + speed
Wednesday: 7 miles general aerobic
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: 3 miles recovery
Saturday: 10 miles, inc 10k tune-up race
Sunday: 10 miles endurance

Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 7 miles general aerobic
Wednesday: 4 miles recovery
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: 9 miles VO2 max
Saturday: 3 miles recovery
Sunday: 10 miles endurance

Tuesday:
After Sunday’s race (and extra mileage) and Monday’s rest day, I was off out along the
extended river and canal route that I’ve become fond of. Nothing special, but to run a gentle
8:39 min/mile for 8.3 miles on this is another indication of my progress.

Wednesday:
Leading a group for my running club again, so we had a slightly elongated route to take in
the most of the Taunton 10k route as a sighter for those doing it (the same day as the Great
Bristol Half). Good group, decent pace. (7.7 miles, 8:33 min/mile)

Friday:
I was meant to head out for a recovery run, but completely forgot about it until I was
halfway through making dinner, so it was skipped.

Saturday:
This was meant to be another 10km tune-up race. But as before, there wasn’t one that was
convenient, so I chose to do parkrun instead. The conditions weren’t great, with a lot of
puddles on the course, but as I mentioned above, I managed a new best of 19:48. Annoyingly,
that’s still one second behind my brother’s time on the course, so I’m going to have to have
another fast session here when the conditions are a bit better! I headed out in the early
evening for a recovery run to keep my weekly mileage up.

Sunday:
Went out for a run with my running club’s ‘Sunday All-Stars’. It was a lovely route that
headed down to Pitminster, where we climbed an almighty hill through some pretty tough
terrain. I really enjoyed it, particularly as something different to all the flat road
running I’ve been doing lately. Probably better practice for the Red Bull Steeplechase which
is coming up two weeks after Bristol, but still good!

Tuesday:
Felt like crap, so skipped my planned run and lay in bed instead.

Wednesday:
Rather than the book’s planned 4 miles recovery, I headed back to Yeovilton for the last race
of the series. I collected my mug for completing the series, and then headed off with the aim
of another PB. I had a slim, crazy, hope of running sub-19, but after keeping that pace for
the first half of the race, I feel off towards the end to finish in 19:13, which I was still
really happy with. Obviously. I also dragged my brother along for his first proper race, as
he happened to be staying with us because of his work.

Friday:
After work on Friday, I really couldn’t face more miles on the road (you might have mentioned
a theme – I’m getting sick of road running), so I got changed, got in the car and headed out
to scout out some of the Herepath route that I’d be racing at the end of October. Annoyingly,
this run had 985 ft of climb – had I realised I’d have found another 15 to top out 1,000, but
nevermind! Unsurprisingly, my pace took a hit given the terrain and elevation, but I loved
this run. Perhaps next year I should be aiming to get off-road more, rather than go faster on
road. Hmmm – Matt does keep trying to get me to do Seaview 17…

Saturday:
Went up to Minehead parkrun with Lolly and ran with the buggy. Nice easy course, and I
managed to take it relatively easy, until the last few hundred metres at least! Not the most
inspiring course ever, but had a nice day afterwards on the steam train.

Sunday:
Headed out for an ‘even more extended than usual’ river and canal run. Except that I got a
bit lost and confused, and ended up continuing along the river. It was meant to be a 10 mile
roundtrip, but after travelling ‘out’ for 6 miles, I rang Lolly up and she came and picked me
up a couple of miles further up the river. Interesting route along the river, though it did
start to get a bit overgrown. Perhaps not the most relevant for Bristol, though it was flat,
at least.

Summary:
The toll of the training has really shown this past couple of weeks. I’ve missed more runs than in the rest of the plan together, and got proper fed up of road running. I’m really looking forward to having the race done and being able to get out on the trails a bit more. This plan has involved more flat road running than it needed to, but I felt I had to do that so that I could work out what the session was asking for. If I follow this plan again for a spring half marathon (which is likely), I feel that I’ll be able to mix things up a bit more, as I now have a better understanding of each session, and what I can do with it.

Ash Excellent Eight: race report

by Ben

Fittingly, the Ash Excellent Eight was my eighth Somerset Series race of the summer, and with my entry already confirmed for both the Herepath Half and Brent Knoll, I’m on course to hit the ten needed to qualify. I’d not run the Excellent Eight before, and didn’t know much about it, other than a) it was in Ash, b) it was about eight miles, and c) it was presumably excellent. I did a little bit of research: I looked at the Strava stats from someone who had done it last year, and discovered it had a downhill start, an uphill finish, and a lump in the middle. I also had a chat to Matt on Twitter, who said that he had heard from another club-mate that it was pretty flat.

The race came at the end of a busy few days. Well, a busy week really. Had it not been a Somerset Series race, I probably would have just changed my plans and done a training run instead: my plan wanted me to do 14 miles, not an 8-mile race. But after a chat to Lolly, who I’d barely seen during the busy few days before the race, we decided that her and our two-year-old daughter, Lani, would come along as well, and they could possibly do the 2k Fun Run. Or at least have a run around the school fields.

As a Somerset Series race, most of the familiar faces were there as usual, and I had a chat to a few of them before the race, though of those, only Nigel had done the route before. With his usual detailed memory, he gave me a description of the route, though to be honest I’m not sure how well I took it in!

After managing to fit in a one mile warm-up around convincing Lani that she did want to wear her race number for the Fun Run, we were at the start and ready to go. On already weary legs, I opted to let the crowd of runners, and the hill carry me along at the start, as we plummeted down the road. The hill carried on for about a mile, and Strava has proudly declared it my second fastest mile (6:04), after the really absurd descent at the Chew Valley 10k (5:58). I really need to get out and run a fast mile on the flat to beat both of those, so I can be prouder of my best mile!

The descent ended with a left turn onto a farm track. Still a road really – the Google Street View car has even been down it, but there was more mud around. Then shortly after, we turned off that road through a farm, and along what definitely wasn’t anything more than a puddle-riddled farm track. The course very gently undulated along this second mile, though it was all but unnoticeable. Opening out onto the fields, the course split shortly after, with the five mile race taking a shortcut back to Ash. The eight-milers continued through some flood defences and over the River Yeo. Sitting on the edge of the Somerset Levels, the course was pretty much pancake flat through the next couple of miles, as we circled around a golf course.

After the initial shuffling around of positions, we’d settled down past the farm, though I’d been aware that I was losing time on runners around me for most of the race to this point. From about the first drinks station, which was by the river, I started to gain positions and time. I didn’t take any water at that station, which brought me right up behind the runners that were ahead of me, and I slowly picked off each of the three as we wound our way around the golf course. The terrain was probably the worst at this point, with a wet and muddy track to contend with, and one of my gained positions almost certainly seemed to be based on me having more grip than the chap ahead of me.

After a short road climb, we had a longer gentle descent along the road away from Long Sutton. I felt like I was running well on this stretch, but on reflection, I guess it was just the very favourable terrain, as I didn’t seem to make any significant gains on those around me. This lovely section was followed by the hardest part of the course: Knole Hill. It is not, to be fair, too much of a hill to be feared. The Hill Bagging website details that it is only 48m / 157ft high, and we probably only actually climbed about a third of that. But, it is a steep ascent up grass, and everyone around me (including me) had to take it at a walk.

Of course, what goes up must come down, and with the diagonal descent of the hill down the next field, I opened a large gap on those runners behind me. Another muddy, rutted farm track followed, along which I slowly closed the gap on the runner ahead of me. We drew level at the last drinks station, had a brief chat, and then started climbing the final hill.

You remember that mile-long hill that I flew down at the start? Yeah… we had to go back up it at the end. I’d been a little bit worried about this hill, imagining the horror of a mile-long struggle up a hill with regular walking breaks. But… actually… it was fine. I easily ran the whole lot, taking about eight minutes for the mile. Just a short dash to the finish followed – by this stage I was well ahead of the runner I’d been with at the bottom of the hill, but out of range of the runner ahead of me. So I probably didn’t push quite as much as I could have done. Which is annoying, because my finishing time was 1:00:05. If I’d just pushed 6 seconds faster…

At the finish, I was amazed to discover that as well as a medal (somewhat generic, but I can’t complain) there was a t-shirt. Not bad for a race that only cost £12 on the day!

All this for just £12!

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this race. On the one hand, I felt like I ran really well. The ‘light trail’ aspect of the race probably gave me a bit of an advantage: pure road runners probably found it too ‘trail-y’, while proper trail runners found it too ‘road-y’. However, for a trail race, it was a bit flat and perhaps a little boring. But I guess there’s always the Exmoor Stagger if I want hilly and interesting!

Next up: Yeovilton 5k (14 September), Great Bristol Half (25 September)

Bristol Half Marathon Training: Week 9

by Ben

After some relatively disrupted training last week, I was hoping that I could have a pretty solid week, although that was always going to be pretty unlikely with a busy weekend planned.

Book plan:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 8 miles general aerobic
Wednesday: 11 miles endurance
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: 10 miles VO2 max
Saturday: 4 miles recovery
Sunday: 14 miles endurance

My plan:
Pretty much the same as the book – though I had an eight-mile race planned on Sunday, so the only slight alteration was:
Sunday: 14 miles (8 mile race + 6 miles)

Monday:
Rest day.

Tuesday:
A gentle eight-miler to start the week, and I trotted along the river and canal to complete this one. My quads were still struggling slightly from my Sunday run, but overall, this was a pretty nondescript run, averaging about 8:50 per mile.

Wednesday:
Eleven miles is the peak of my midweek mileage. In fact, this week is a peak for everything: midweek mileage, Sunday mileage, overall mileage. I opted again to run this with the club, and I was aided in that slightly by the fact that one of the group leaders was missing, so I led the group. This meant that I planned the route, which made it much easier to plan how much mileage I had to add one either side! So, a 3 mile run to club, a 7 mile run with the club, and a mile run home. Lovely. The paces were all reasonably good – I opted to sit at the back of the group during the club run section, to run with a new runner to the club who was struggling slightly with the pace. Even so, we were well within the pace guideline for the group. Overall, 11 miles at a pace of around 8:30. Possibly slightly slower than an ideal ‘endurance’ paced run, but on a heavy week, I’m happy with it.

Thursday:
Rest day.

Friday:
Ah, Friday. The day that the wheels started to come off slightly. Work, eh? I spent Thursday night in Cornwall, ahead of a busy day on Friday, which meant that I didn’t get home until about 18:30. Amazingly, I managed to persuade myself to get changed straight away, and head up to the running track for my VO2 max session: two sets of 2 x 1,200 m, 1 x 800 m. I put a few numbers into some running calculators, and worked out that I wanted a similar pace to my 1,000 m repeats a few weeks before. So I was aiming for 4:36 per 1,200 and 3:04 per 800. Roughly 6:10 per mile pace. And basically, I breezed it. (4:33, 4:33, 3:01, 4:23, 4:26, 2:58.)

Pretty consistent pacing

I have one more VO2 max session in this training plan, and I may well stick to a similar pace band for that, but it’s worth me bearing in mind that after this, for my track repeats, I probably need to work on quicker reps. (I calculated them based on a 19:30 5k.) While I completed the interval session absolutely fine, I was short on overall mileage, as the plan had called for my daily mileage to be 10 miles, and I only managed 8.5. Nothing tragic, but…

Saturday:
… on Saturday I was doing some Wedding photography for a friend. And given how tired I was generally, and the fact that I didn’t want to be too worn down by the end of the day, I decided to skip the planned recovery run. Given that in the end I was out of the house from 9:30 to 23:00, I didn’t really regret this decision…

Sunday:
… but it did mean that there was a bit more pressure on me to make sure that I didn’t end up too short on mileage on Sunday. I don’t mind being a bit behind, but if I didn’t manage anything more than the race and a warm-up, I would be about 10 miles behind on the planned weekly mileage, which seemed a bit too much to me. I contemplated a few ways of doing it: three miles before the race and another three after? A normal one mile warm-up, a couple of miles cool down, and then a three mile jog later in the afternoon? Maybe even all six extra miles before the race, making the race good ‘tired legs’ training. In the end, I barely had time for my one mile warm-up before the race, and couldn’t be bothered with a cool down. The race itself went really well. I’d set myself the target of an hour, which I missed… by 5 seconds. That said, looking at the people around me, and recognising them from other races, I finished a bit further up the field than I would have expected. As probably predicted, I didn’t do any miles immediately after the race, opting instead for a bacon bap and some chocolate cake.

Post-race father and daughter posing.

So, a few hours later, I was back out again. Wearing my new top (that was a surprise by the way – £12 on the day entry, and I got a medal and a t-shirt) I headed off for five miles around town to top me up to 14 miles. The first mile of the run was really, really tough on my legs. After that it got easier, but I developed a stitch about halfway through which never really disappeared. It was very much run at a recovery pace, and it probably did the job: the last mile was the quickest and most comfortable of the lot.

Summary:
I had a solid start to the week, but it got pretty tough at the weekend. Not only did I struggle to fit my runs in, but with everything that I was doing, I was pretty tired. Being honest, I’m getting a little bit fed up of my training plan now – I’m still enjoying running, but it’s getting a bit constrictive. Still, pretty much just taper fever to cope with, then the race. And after that… a lot more fun races too!

parkrun tourism: Exeter Riverside

by Lolly

We’ve visited several parkruns since Kingsway, but somehow have yet to write about any of them. So I’m making a start on the backlog with one of our more recent trips.

For quite some time, Exeter Riverside parkrun has been the closest event to us that we hadn’t visited – with only Burnham and Highbridge, Yeovil Montacute and Killerton being closer (other than Longrun Meadow, of course!). We kept being put off by the boring sounding course – out and back along the river path. But a desire to meet up with friends in the area meant we finally took the plunge.

Step 1: Locate a car park. Pretty easy actually, as there are several in the area and it’s early enough that there are plenty of spaces.
Step 2: Locate toilets. After completing the intermediate step of flagging down a hi-viz, these were easily located at the climbing centre.
Step 3: Locate the start. This was accomplished through the traditional method of following people in running kit.

Everything located, the new runners’ briefing got underway – late. A delay in accessing the store cupboard that morning had put everything behind, and the run itself was being delayed by 10 minutes to allow a runner-turned-volunteer to get back from setting up flags. The megaphone wasn’t working, and so the briefing at the start was repeated several times. I thought this was very considerate, as the number of parkruns that don’t have a megaphone is a frustration.

The start of the route heads out along the river path. This was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me, as I have fond memories of the few riverside walks I took whilst at university in Exeter. I’d been expecting to pretty much stay on that path for the duration, but we took a turn and crossed over the river. The paths changed to tree surroundings, with a more off-road feel.

We then entered the university playing fields. I spotted Ben across the other side and exchanged a wave, before starting the trek around the edge of the field (marked out by aforementioned flags). It was windy and bumpy, but pretty nice to be able to see runners at different stages. Exiting the field I couldn’t quite see where to go, and had to ask the marshal. Turns out there was an arrow hidden out of sight. Marshals – check your arrows can be seen!

Not sure who looks least interested

The route re-joined the main path just in time to cross back over the same bridge. Despite everyone describing it as out-and-back, it was more like a lollipop. Towards the end of the river path I was joined by Ben and Lani for the final stretch, before putting in just enough effort to not be overtaken on the line.

As Ben headed out for some extra miles, I faced the task of locating the barcode scanners. The instructions at the briefing had been to “follow the other runners”, which is probably easier if you finish faster and haven’t spent time playing on stompy bridges with a toddler.

We headed in the direction of the climbing centre, and sure enough once inside I found a sign saying scanning was upstairs. So it’s worth noting that while the course is (off-road) buggy friendly, you will have to abandon said buggy to scan in at the end. Or access toilets. Personally I found it a bit strange having the barcode scanning so far from the finish (they must lose a lot of tokens), but with the cafe and other facilities in the centre I can see why it’s done that way.

Overall, we all very much enjoyed our Exeter Riverside parkrun experience. The course was much more interesting than expected, and it was a nice bonus to do some tourism closer to home.

Bristol Half Marathon Training: Week 8

by Ben

This week was another lighter week. Although not specifically described in the book as a recovery week, it involved lower mileages and gentler runs. Possibly the only reason that it wasn’t described as recovery was the presence of a 10k tune-up race. When I first started this plan, that tune-up race was ideal, as it coincided with one of my favourite 10k races, the Battle of Sedgemoor. (Mostly my favourite because I’ve got a PB at it both years that I’ve raced it!) Unfortunately, I later realised that we were going to be out of the county at a family barbecue, so I would need to change my plans.

At first, I settled on a 10k race that was on the way home from Shrewsbury, but wouldn’t involve leaving too early. But then I read a few reviews of the company putting it on, and decided against it. Long courses, late changes to their courses, off-road sections on advertised ‘road-races’: all these put me off. I contemplated trying to run a hard 5k before parkrun, and then parkrun itself, to replicate a 10k effort. But the distances, roads and course didn’t really suit themselves to this, and so I opted to just run a hard parkrun. I didn’t really mind about losing a bit of mileage: I needed the recovery this week.

My plan:
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: 8 miles general aerobic + speed
Wednesday: 7 miles general aerobic
Thursday: Rest day
Friday: 3 miles recovery
Saturday: 6 miles, inc tune-up parkrun
Sunday: 10 miles endurance

Monday:
Rest day.

Tuesday:
The plan called for an eight mile general aerobic run, with two sets of 4 x 150 metre sprints. I decided against doing my sprints on the canal, or at the track, and instead headed over to Longrun Meadow for them. I did some mental arithmetic to work out how much I needed to add-on to make eight miles, and planned a route accordingly.

Things could have gone better. I got to Longrun Meadow and did my first set of intervals, all okay. A four minute recovery jog in the middle, fine. Second set of four intervals… or, was it three? Yeah – schoolboy error, I lost count. I had, in fact, completed the four reps as I was supposed to, but being unsure I added on another. Still, better to do too many than too few I guess! I then got to the edge of the park, knowing that it was a mile to get home, and glanced at my watch: 6 miles completed. Bugger – somehow I added 3.5, 2.5 and 1 together to make 8. Sigh, looks like it’s the long route home then…

BSc (Hons) Mathematics and Physics from Warwick, I’ll have you know…

Wednesday:
The week didn’t really improve. On Wednesday I had to travel down to Cornwall for work, and as Lolly had a work meal in the evening, I would a) not be able to run in the evening, and b) have to leave home early for work. Meaning c) if I wanted to get my scheduled 7 mile run in, I’d have to do it super-early. I didn’t.

Thursday:
Rest day. Had a sports massage before work, focusing on my calves and quads, which was much needed, and should hopefully set me up for the next few weeks. That said, I need to make sure I keep up with my own stretches and foam roller routine. Or more realistically, introduce such a routine.

Friday:
Planned as a three mile recovery run, I added a mile onto this to recoup a little bit of the lost mileage from Wednesday. Four miles is also the distance of my short river and canal loop, so I was happy to trot around this on Friday evening while I waited for the traffic to clear on the M5.

Saturday:
After a late evening drive up to Shrewsbury, we didn’t get to bed until after midnight, and then I ended up sleeping on a pretty uncomfortable single bed, as Lani decided that she preferred the king-sized bed with Mummy. With this in mind, I wasn’t expecting the best time ever at Shrewsbury parkrun – particularly once I saw the hill that we’d have to climb twice. Sure, it was nothing stupid, but gone were my thoughts of a possible 5k PB, and instead I decided to just focus on sneaking sub-20, which would be a parkrun PB at least.

The hotel was located about two miles away from the park, so I opted to jog in as a warm-up. On arrival, after noticing the hill, we also worked out that it was a ‘downhill’ course: although we had to climb the hill twice, we actually went down it three times. I found the whole run a real struggle, right from the downhill start. My pacing, in the end, was pretty consistent, within a few seconds for each kilometre. My watch told me that I was running around 3:55 per km, which would equate to about 19:35. So it was something of a surprise when I crossed the line, stopped my watch, and saw 19:21! My first thought, particularly as it also said ‘3.07’ for the distance, was that the course was short. But it had lots of tight corners and an out and back, which tends to mess with GPS a bit. Who knows – either way I’m pretty happy with my time. After some water, I jogged around with Lolly for her last lap, acting as a 1 mile cool down run for me.

We grabbed some breakfast at Wetherspoons, headed back to the hotel room for a rest, and then I headed out for another run to bring myself up close to the 10 miles that the book had planned. Although I didn’t mind dropping some mileage in a lighter week, I wasn’t keen on missing 7 miles midweek AND 4 miles at the weekend. I trotted around another 5k in the lanes to the south of Shrewsbury at a pretty gentle pace, and declared myself happy with the situation.

Turns out I wasn’t meant to go down this path…

Sunday:
For some reason, I decided that a normal 10 mile run would be too boring, and so I planned a slightly insensible route back from a car park in the Quantock Hills that I’ve used a couple of times. I jokingly commented to Lolly that it was “9.9 miles, so by the time I get lost, I guess I’ll do 11.” Indeed.

Despite a drastic shortage of sleep over the previous couple of nights, Lolly drove me up to the car park, a round-trip of just over an hour for her, for which I’m very very grateful. I headed out of the car park… and immediately went wrong. Thankfully, a path cut across from the track I was on to the one I was meant to be on, meaning that I didn’t have to retrace my steps all the way back to the car park once I noticed about three-quarters of a mile in. Shortly thereafter, I went wrong again. This wasn’t going particularly well. Unfortunately, this time I had to climb back up quite a steep path that I’d been following. Again, it wasn’t much distance, but the climb was quite significant! By this stage, I was still less than two miles into my route, and in the bit that I had thought I’d known reasonably well. This was seeming like a very bad idea: after this, most of the route was relatively unknown to me. Thankfully, I had my phone with me, Google maps, and amazingly good phone signal. Otherwise, I might still be running around the Quantock Hills today!

It’s hard to say no to a run through places like this!

Typically, the rest of the run actually went pretty well. As I’d been unsure about most of it, I’d studied it much more closely on the maps, and even used Street View to reccy some of the junctions I’d be using. My research paid off, and the only point at which I had to turn back again was when one of the paths I wanted to use was far too overgrown with nettles. The road didn’t add on much distance anyway.

The run ended up being almost exactly 11 miles, as predicted, and included 571 feet of elevation gain, and 1,583 feet of elevation loss – which was nice, but tough on the quads! I described this on Facebook as one of my toughest ever runs: physically it was fine, but mentally self-navigating through an area I only had a vague knowledge of was pretty tough. Although I knew that if I went wrong I could just phone Lolly to get me, that wasn’t the point. This definitely took me out of my comfort zone, and I’d love to do more ‘exploratory running’ like this. But maybe once I’ve finished with this plan. And maybe when I recruit someone else to come with me!

Summary:
This ended up being a bit of a hodgepodge week. I missed my second run of the training plan, with both of them coming during lighter weeks – which probably isn’t a complete coincidence, though seemingly both have been due to me being pretty busy in work/life. The book had planned 38 miles for this week, which I adjusted to 34 in my plan (dropping the 10k to a 5k). In actual fact, I ended up doing 32.7 miles after missing one of the runs, which I’m still more than happy with. If I’d been following my own plan, rather than this book, I probably wouldn’t be running much more than that even in my heavy weeks!

This coming week is theoretically the heaviest of my plan, totalling 47 miles, including a long run of 14 miles on the Sunday. But – I have an 8 mile race planned for Sunday, so that’s going to throw something of a spanner in the works, and I still haven’t really worked out what I’m going to do about it.

Haselbury Trail 10k: race report

by Ben

The Haselbury Trail: my seventh Somerset Series race of the season. After a late start, during which I missed the first five races of the series, I’ve now done seven of the eight since. This leaves me needing to do three of the remaining seven races to qualify, though two of those I’m unavoidably missing.

This was my second successive year of running Haselbury, and other than the very basics, I hadn’t remembered much from the previous year. Two sources helped to refresh my memory: reading through my blog post from last year, and my club-mate Nigel – who, it appears, has an amazingly detailed memory for race routes!

Off we go!

So, the basics: cheap on-the-day entry, two-lap multi-terrain course, mildly undulating except for a sharp climb up from a bridge at the end of each of the laps, cattle-grids, stiles, ford and a gentle road climb to the finish. After which you don’t get a medal, but do get an engraved glass. Last year it was a tumbler, this year a pint glass.

I found the race exceptionally tough. My analysis was that the course was slightly easier going than last year, when we’d had some rain through the day, and during the race itself, making the underfoot conditions less than ideal (though still not terrible).

Last year, I made the mistake of chasing after Clive in the first (admittedly downhill) mile, which I completed in 6:32. This year, Clive wasn’t there, so I wouldn’t repeat that mistake… Except that I did. In fact, I went even quicker, posting a first mile of 6:23. Either I was going to see some significant improvement, or I was going to crash and burn for the rest of the course.

Option B it was. Pretty much as soon as we hit the fields, my legs were telling me that they weren’t up for it. I took their message and dropped down into ‘consolidation’ mode. I mostly let those ahead of me slowly extend their advantage, while trying to stay ahead of those behind me, as best as I could. In most of these smaller races, after some initial shuffling around, the pack mostly settles into position for the middle stint of the race, with more shuffling again towards the end, and this race very much followed that pattern for me. I gained and lost a few places on the hill at the end of the first lap – not really sure whether I gained or lost overall though!

Much as last year, the second lap was quite lonely – I spent most of it without any runners 10 metres either side of me, and just concentrated on doing my own thing. Which was mostly trying to goad my legs into continuing, despite their insistence that maybe it would be a good idea to stop for a walk… Until I reached the hill again. At that point, I happily let my legs take over, and dropped to a walk once more.

Unnecessarily fast sprint finish.

At the top of the hill, the course levels out for a time, before heading back uphill along the road that we flew down at the start. Along this section, I quickly caught and passed a runner from Chard, and yelled some encouragement to him as I did so. It looked like he had a stitch or similar. Fortunately/unfortunately, he started back up again just after I passed him, and we pushed each other up the hill, with him passing me just as we neared the top. There was only a right turn and a short run along the cricket ground to go, and I started to push a bit harder. He responded by pushing into a sprint. I started sprinting too. He went a bit quicker again. I thought ‘sod this’ and went all out. To those around us, it probably looked like a slightly short, exhausted, and crazed-looking runner (me) trying to replicate a 100 metre race at the end of a 10k trail race, finishing ahead of a pretty nonplussed runner who wasn’t at all interested in a 100 metre dash. Because, you know, that’s pretty much what happened.

The race memento: ideal with pizza and cider!

For the record, I beat him. I then nearly threw up. It took me a few minutes to recover, and he then wandered over, and shook my hand with the quietly damning comment: “You really wanted to beat me there!” Yeah, okay, perhaps I’m a bit over-competitive sometimes.

The ‘race memento’ was a tulip pint glass – which I vastly prefer to last year’s tumblers, which are too small to be of much use (I don’t drink any shorts). Time-wise, my official time was 47:07, just one second quicker than last year, though my watch time was about ten seconds quicker again. I’m a bit disappointed that I wasn’t fairly significantly quicker than last year, but races in the middle of my current training plan are always going to be tough.

Next up: Ash Excellent 8 (4 September), Yeovilton 5k (14 September), Bristol Half Marathon (25 September, ARGHH!)

New shoes? Are racing flats worth it?

by Ben

I’ve been struggling for a little while now – I’ve got a problem.

I haven’t bought any running shoes since… since… well… I can’t even remember, it was that long ago! (I’ve just looked, it was April… four whole, long months without buying any running shoes.)

So… I’ve been trying to identify a need for some new shoes.

I have road shoes…

ASICS Gel Nimbus 17
First run: 11 November 2015
Total runs: 47
Total miles: 229

These were my first shoes in quite a while that weren’t made by Brooks – I was pretty suspicious of them to start with, but I’ve got used to them now!

Brooks Glycerin 13
First run: 30 April 2016
Total runs: 34
Total miles: 155

My third pair of Glycerin’s, after a couple of pairs of Glycerin 11s. Unsurprisingly given that, I love them, and plan on replacing them like-for-like.

… and I have hybrid trail shoes …

Brooks Cascadia 9
First run: 4 June 2014
Total runs: 64
Total miles: 249

It was genuinely a coincidence that these ended up being Brooks – they were, in fact, the only trail shoes in the (pretty crap) running shop that I went to. (They also need cleaning.)

… and I also have more aggressive trail shoes.

Salomon Speedcross 3
First run: 12 April 2016
Total runs: 6
Total miles: 22

These were bought after the Cascadia 9s… under-performed on a couple of runs. Nothing too dramatic, I just realised that I needed something a bit more robust for some of the terrain I was going on.

So anyway… I generally find that for me, around 350 to 400 miles is the limit for a shoe, which still leaves at least 100 miles in each of my current pairs, so I’m obviously not going to be replacing any of them anytime too soon. Which got me thinking about racing flats.

No, no, I don’t mean contesting apartments, I mean the lightweight running shoes. Like… to pick a racing shoes completely at random… the Brooks Hyperion. They weigh just 181.4 grams – that’s compared to the 320.3 grams of the Glycerin, and 353 grams for the ASICS. Per shoe.

And that matters (apparently). Top running coach boffin Jack Daniels worked out that 100 grams per shoe makes running about 1% harder, or adds over 1 minute during a marathon. (The Run S.M.A.R.T. Project).

Now, I don’t run marathons, and I’m not even sure that I would fancy a lightweight shoe during a half marathon. But what about a 10k? How much difference could it make?

I tend to race in my Glycerins, so we’ll start with a weight of 320 grams. The Hyperion is 181 grams, so a difference of 139 grams. So, with some ballpark maths: if 100 grams gains just over a minute, let’s say 1.2 minutes, then 139 grams will gain about 1.6 minutes. A 10k is roughly a quarter of a marathon, so around 0.4 minutes, or about 24 seconds. Or 12 seconds in a 5k.

Now, some more maths. The Hyperion is around £80. Meaning that I’d be paying just over £3 per second of advantage during a 10k.

You know what, this clearly isn’t going to convince Lolly at all…