Friday 9 May 2014

Back in love with running

 

Ok, so firstly, in no way am I blogging so soon after my last post simply to avoid doing what I ought to be doing today, ie job-hunting. That is not the case at all. Important to get that straight.

Kevin Henry Series


Right, so I am blogging because I am on a high after yesterday evening's race, a 5k that forms part of the Kevin Henry Series. This series is a local inter-club event comprising 5 races, held over the Summer each year, from May - September. Well, Summer - ish. Each one is hosted by a different local club, all of whom compete over the series : yesterday was the first one of the year, held by Cambridge Tri, at Impington.

The scoring rules are straight-forward, in a complicated kind of way. Top 6 male athletes and top 4 female athletes from each club all score points based on their finishing position within their gender.
Simples
So the first male athlete home scores 1 point, the second scores 2, etc, and the same process for the ladies. The lower the score therefore the better. If, like me, you don't finish in the top 6, then your time and finishing position become irrelevant in terms of the competition, but you score a point simply for competing. Each point earned in this way is then subtracted from the score compiled by your top 6, so the more attendees from your club, the lower your final score will be.

Traditionally, or at least since 2012 when I've been attending, we have had relatively small turnouts at these races, with the notable exception of our own, in Kedington. I shall blog about this race later in the Summer, but it was the first race I ever did for the club, and has a horrific hill that didn't combine well with the KFC I'd had about an hour before.

This year, Sian-Marie from our club has been pushing hard to get people involved - I may also have banged on about it a bit on our facebook page. Haverhill Running Club has a rightly-earned reputation for being a friendly sociable club, and everyone's priority is to keep it that way. However, along with a few others, I feel we should push to be a bit more competitive too - and the nice thing about this series of races is that everyone who runs can help contribute to lowering our score, irrespective of what level they are currently at.

So it was fantastic to see 63 club members at Impington last night. Included within this number were a fair few new members, who have been coming along to training sessions and time trials, but who were competing in their first ever club race. This was great to see, and I hope they will all be back for the next race in June.

Personally, I did okay. My Gold target was to hit a new pb for 5k, which has stood at 19m44 for nearly a year now. Silver target was to get under 20mins, which I have managed 5 times previously at parkruns and time trials, but never in a club race. For this occasion, knowing I am pretty much back to my best, and that this course had big pb potential, I didn't set a Bronze target.

Ashdon 10k


The only possible problem would be how much my previous race at the Ashdon 10k, on Bank Holiday Monday, may have taken out of me. This race also had an excellent turnout from the club, and probably at least half of us did both, so this wasn't going to be an easy excuse to use with club colleagues.
A great turnout at a great local race, with great cakes afterwards. I can thoroughly recommend Ashdon 10k for the demanding off road terrain through farmer's fields, the tough undulating course, and the chocolate cake and apricot flapjack.
Didn't catch the guy in front but in truly chivalrous fashion we both overtook the lady

Ashdon was off-road and hilly, and was never going to be a pb for me - I was very pleased to get home in just over 45mins, coming in 27th place overall and 4th home for the club. We had 3 runners in the top 10: Bryan got 9th place, Martin - who picked up a trophy for first 50+ runner (as did Cheryl for the ladies) came 5th, and there was an excellent 2nd place finish for Andy, with whom I organise the monthly time trials, and who is in excellent form at the moment. For me this was a race I wanted to do for 2 reasons - mainly because it is always well attended by the club, and as such is a nice social occasion, but also just so I could get used to running the distance again ahead of the next 2 I have booked.

Pacing the Race


Back to yesterday then. The race was very straightforward, being two laps of a farm on concrete track, followed by a straight run to the finish. The lap was essentially a big square, so a combination of good surface, no twisty turny bits, and perfect weather conditions (the rain held off for the duration of the run and the temperature was fine) meant that there was no reason not to get a decent time. My pacing strategy was straightforward too. A 20 minute 5k needs 4min kilometres. I have recently begun resetting my Garmin watch to metric when I run a 5k, whereas for all other distances I still prefer to work in miles. However, since the watch still records lap times each mile, I get a beep and a display showing my mile time as well, so I can work in both. The plan then was to try to keep to 4min kilometres for the first 4, and then push on for the last kilometre to get that pb -- a 3m43 last kilometre would suffice, and I have managed 3m15 in training (albeit as part of an interval session with breaks in between.)

So first kilometre, and I went off too fast, as always. Very hard not to get carried away at the start of any race, and with this series being extremely competitive, being all club runners, it meant that even standing a little way off the front I was still surrounded by fast runners, and found myself swept along at their pace. I went through in well under 4mins, and realised I needed to slow up a little to ensure I didn't burn out too quickly. So for the second kilometre I hit 4mins pretty much dead on, before slowing a little in kilometres 3 and 4 before pulling it back in the last one. My watch records the lap times as follows:

Mile 1:            6m14                                    pace per kilometre: 3m52
Mile 2:            6m37                                    pace per kilometre: 4m07
Mile 3:            6m29                                    pace per kilometre: 4m02
last 0.1miles :   28 seconds                            pace per kilometre: 2m57

So a finishing time of 19m48, comfortably under 20mins and only 4 seconds off my pb. Next time I will try to go a bit steadier for the first mile - this is a mistake I make regularly at parkrun too, and although it is nice to go through the first mile ahead of schedule with "time in the bank" this invariably leads to a poor mid-section of the race. The other thing I must work on is my pre-race warm-up : Charlotte and I ran perhaps half a kilometre beforehand, but I have been told you want a good ten minutes warm up prior to attempting a fast 5k, and that should include some "strides" to finish with, ie getting your body used to the speed you intend to start at -- this is something I tend to neglect, and it will be interesting to see if this helps. I worked out today that I have raced over 50 times now at this distance, with parkruns, time trials and KH races, but I still have a lot to learn.

Interestingly enough, Charlotte was also exactly 4 seconds outside her pb, and we both finished 8th for the club in our respective gender categories. Well, I thought that was interesting anyway. I think that our post-race reactions were also quite interesting - I was pretty pleased, although I feel I can definitely get quicker, whereas Charlotte was far from happy with her performance. Providing this is channelled correctly, disappointment with a performance can be a good thing -- I think I am probably getting close to what I am capable of, and that knocking a few seconds off here and there is the best I can hope for, whereas both Charlotte and I believe that she can improve by some way still : and she has the ability combined with the determination to do just that. We both have our targets to have reached by the end of the series, and I'm pretty sure we'll both get there.

Next up


And so on Sunday May 11th, the next challenge awaits - the inaugural Haverhill 10k.
Photo taken before some wag drew a "C" in front
This is part of a family fun day that also includes the Haverhalf, but I opted for the shorter distance to fit in better with my priority for the Summer, which is to get my 5k and 10k times down. Having done Ashdon 10k last Monday, and with the Bupa 10000 in London on May 25th, this will make 3 10k races in total for May, plus the 6k Newmarket Heath race I ran on the 1st, the KH as waffled on about above, and the next time trial at the end of the month which  I hope to be able to run in - if I can rope enough people in to volunteer.

Haverhill promises pb potential, being flat and not particularly congested (unlike the 10000 later in the month in London.) My 10k pb, set back in December 2012, stands at 42m40. If I can maintain 4m15 pace throughout, therefore, I will beat it comfortably, and the way my running is going at the moment this really should be do-able. I shall of course blog about this in due course. 


Saturday 3 May 2014

Bouncing back from the London Marathon



It has taken me a while to get round to blogging about my London Marathon run, mainly because it didn’t go according to plan and I didn’t want to publish a predominantly negative report. Three weeks on, and it’s much easier to take the positives out of what was a truly amazing experience.

Pre-race build up





So the night before, due to a mix up I won’t bore you with, I discovered I didn’t actually have a hotel room booked in London after all. This didn’t turn out to be a major problem, plan B simply involved getting up a bit earlier and driving to Redbridge Tube Station, from where I was able to hop onto the underground – and all went smoothly. I hooked up with Charlotte at London Bridge Station, and we travelled the last part together, which was a lovely way to begin the day.

There is no way I would have found myself so calm and relaxed at the Blue Start in Blackheath had it not been for Charlotte. Partly because she’s such good company, but mainly because she stopped me getting on the wrong train and ending up in Greenwich.



There is always an element of nervousness related to the unknown when you compete in a race for the first time. This Thursday I ran an off-road 6k race in Newmarket, but having done this event last year I knew exactly where to go, where to park, where the toilets were, what the course was like, etc – and I was able to concentrate fully on the race itself. For the marathon, I had been stressing somewhat about getting to the correct start point on time, the legendary queues for the toilets, etc – but in the end, everything went really well and I found myself with the same air of confidence that I’d had throughout training. Having bumped into some Colchester based friends on the tube, Nina and Paul, and Jean and Darren, we then managed to find another friend Chris at the start, and then a couple of fellow HRC runners – Mark and Dave – just before getting into our starting pens. Having given different finish time predictions when entering, Charlotte and I were in different pens, but we could both hear Mo being introduced to the crowd before the roar signifying the race had begun. Back in pen 6 we began a calm walk towards the start line, and only 6 minutes later I was off and running.

For the non-runners amongst you (just remind me why you would be reading this again?) there is a small chip which you attach to your shoe-laces that registers as you pass over a timing
mat placed at the start line. This is common to many races – certainly nearly all big events use this system – and another mat at the finish ensures you get an accurate race time, irrespective of how long it may take to reach the start line, clearly an issue in a race where 36000 runners have to file through the start. London is the first race I have ever done which also recorded times every 5km, with another mat at the halfway point too. This allows friends and family to follow your progress “live” via the internet, if they so wish, and also allows you to analyse your 5k “splits” afterwards, to see how well you paced yourself.

The first few miles


And so the first few miles went by, and it was immediately apparent to me this was going to be unlike any I had ever run before. I remember, in both the 20 mile races that I ran in training, those first 2 or 3 miles were psychologically hard because of the fear of how far there was left to go. This proved not to be a problem at London – I was far too busy   

a) enjoying the huge level of support, and trying to spot friends in the crowd  
b) looking forward to running past the various famous landmarks : Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge, etc
c)  trying to ensure I didn't trip over the people in front or get stood on by the people behind









Ultimately this congestion, which doesn’t ever really seem to dissipate, makes it hard to pace yourself evenly. Although in theory everyone else in your start pen should be running at a similar speed, in practice there appeared to be a massive variation in pace, most people appearing to be much slower than I wanted to be, and so for perhaps the whole of the first half of the race I found myself overtaking, weaving in and out of fellow competitors, and unable to settle into a decent rhythm. Consequently, whilst my pace was slower than I had intended, I think I expended a lot more energy in getting to halfway, and certainly felt a lot more tired, than my 1hr53 time suggests (more than a minute per mile slower than what I would consider to be a comfortable half marathon pace.)

Targets


I had decided on three targets at the suggestion of my friend Angela, who does the same – and smashed her Gold target and pb at Manchester the week before. You can read her blog here: http://longroadtoboston2016.blogspot.co.uk/

So Gold was 3hr40, Silver 3hr45, and Bronze a very straightforward (or so I thought) sub 4hr target. However, as my training progressed, I foolishly began to believe I could manage closer to 3hr30, which in fairness my two 20 mile race performances did suggest was feasible. 

On the day, my plan was to run at 8m30 pace for the first 10 miles, then see if I could push to 8min pace for the next 10, and then push harder still for the last 6.2 miles. The big unknown was how much time I would lose in the crowds at the start, and I made the decision not to try and make up any lost time, but simply to accept it as something I couldn’t do anything about.

Consequently, looking at the stats, the first half really wasn’t too bad. It was pretty clear to me as I approached Tower Bridge that the 3hr30 wasn’t going to happen, but I still hadn’t ruled out Gold, or at least Silver, although as already stated, I already felt far more tired than I should have by that stage. My mile splits up to mile 15 were all below 9min miles, so comfortably within 4 hour pace, as follows:

Mile 1:   8m40
Mile 2:   8m46
Mile 3:   8m23
Mile 4:   8m22
Mile 5:   8m35
Mile 6:   8m46
Mile 7:   8m47
Mile 8:   8m27
Mile 9:   8m42
Mile 10: 8m42
Mile 11: 8m24
Mile 12: 8m40
Mile 13: 8m41
Mile 14: 8m46
Mile 15: 8m47

I think the heat on the day played a big part in what happened next – which was that, far from pushing on in the second half, I began to struggle simply to keep the same pace up, and at about mile 16 I could feel myself getting close to cramping up, meaning I made the decision to abandon Gold and Silver, and merely try to complete in under 4 hours.

Cramping up


When you sweat you lose vital salts from your body, and unfortunately on a hot day the natural tendency to drink more speeds up this process. The way to combat this is to take on board gels/sports drinks to replace these lost electrolytes. I think I probably should have had my first gel earlier than mile 10 – but I also think I just have to accept I am not good at running in hot weather, having had very similar experiences at Edinburgh Marathon last year and at the Grunty Fen Half Marathon too. 

By mile 18 I was cramping badly, and had to begin alternating between walking and running since the pain was too much. There’s not much you can do once the muscle cramps set in, and the horrible realisation, as I passed mile 20 in exactly 3 hours, that I wouldn’t even beat my Bronze target, left me thoroughly fed up and miserable. All I needed was to do the last 6.2 miles in an hour, fully 15 minutes more than I would normally need for a comfortable 10km, and the frustration was that I didn’t feel exhausted, I wasn’t out of breath, and I just desperately wanted to be able to run properly again and at least get under 4 hours. But alternating between running and walking as I was, I couldn't even manage 10min miles. I did actually stop to ask the St John’ Ambulance guys for some help around mile 22, but in all honesty their response - “it’s only 4 miles to go mate,” - whilst not exactly helpful, was really all they could say.

Mile 16:  9m36
Mile 17:  9m07
Mile 18:  9m17
Mile 19:  10m56
Mile 20:  10m38
Mile 21:  10m02
Mile 22:  12m55
Mile 23:  13m44
Mile 24:  9m46
Mile 25:  14m19
Mile 26:  12m11


The signage along the way helped keep spirits high

Fantastic Support


Of course, realising things were going so badly meant that I can’t honestly say I enjoyed the race, certainly not the second half – and I also became slightly disorientated towards the end: I had some friends from the Commando Runners who had come to cheer us on, and it took me ages to register who it was screaming “IAN!!” in my face (sorry Laura) let alone to focus on who else was there in the group (about 8 friends were there supporting us all.)

Similarly there was a group of Haverhill Running Club supporters who called out my name towards the end, and I couldn’t work out who they were at all. But it was nice that so many friends came out to support us all, and the atmosphere throughout the race was totally unlike anything I have ever experienced before. On reflection, whilst the hot weather didn't help us runners, I am so glad the supporters had a nice day and could enjoy watching the event.

The Finish Line


Pretty sure this was a lie
Beforehand, I had visions of charging down the finishing straight at The Mall, dipping under my target and punching the air in delight. Having first stopped my watch of course. The reality was somewhat different. I can’t honestly say I enjoyed crossing the line, given that I was merely shuffling at this stage.
When they put my medal around my neck, it fell behind the running number I had pinned to my vest, and I didn’t feel inclined to get it out and have a look – nor did I go and have my official finisher photo taken. I merely collected my bag and headed for the meeting point to wait for Charlotte. She was wasn’t far behind, recording an impressive 4hr40 for her first ever marathon, despite her ongoing knee injury and having a bad stitch at around mile 22 that she managed to get through to finish strongly. She was rightly proud of her achievement, and seeing her and her family at the end helped snap me out of my grumpiness.  We then met up with a few more club runners who had all run well, and had kind words for me that further improved my mood.


26.2 miles is a long way, and it IS a great medal
Interestingly, the reaction from friends and work colleagues afterwards has been very different to that following other races I have done. London clearly resonates more with non-runners, with people seeming genuinely impressed that I have completed the London Marathon,
even though I have raced the same distance before and indeed further. Of course, non-runners will have no real interest in my time, and whether or not it’s decent, whereas I think a few people at running club are surprised I didn’t do better than 4hr19. However, I have had nothing but positive and encouraging comments from everyone at HRC – it really is a very friendly and supportive club, and I am always proud to wear the club vest. I also know I will get plenty of help and advice the next time I try. You can find out more about the club by visiting their new website, at www.haverhillrunningclub.com

 

What next?


Although I posted “never again” on my facebook status later that day, in reality I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about trying another marathon. Much like Mo, I am unprepared to leave it like that. (Sadly, that’s about the only similarity between Mr Farah and I.) I had originally intended to compete with fellow club members in the Istanbul “Eurasia” Marathon this autumn, but I have now decided to put this back to 2015, preferring my next attempt to be more local, more low-key, and cheaper. All I want to do, if I can find a suitable race later on this year, is get round in under 4 hours – which I really ought to be able to do. Once I have managed this, I believe psychologically the distance will no longer worry me, and I can then work on getting my time down to something more commensurate with what I can manage in training.

Undeniably though, my forte is always likely to be the shorter distances, and since Marathon Day I have run three sub 20m30 parkuns, including equalling my Colchester course pb this morning with a time of 20m07. Last Thursday, Charlotte and I ran the Newmarket Heath 6k, a race along the gallops used by the race-horses when they train. It is hilly, off-road, and was a deliberate decision to take myself out of my comfort zone, and having left my Garmin at home, I ran purely on feel, and was pleased to keep up a decent (and I believe consistent) pace throughout, with a time of 22m45, which means I am very close to where I was this time last year, before illness and injury began to affect my times. I am running pretty much pain free at the moment and feeling very positive about my racing again. Charlotte smashed her time from last year by 30 seconds, and there is a lot more to come. Attending races with her makes them even more rewarding and enjoyable. 

Next up we have the Ashdon 10k, again off-road with some nasty hills, followed by the inaugural Haverhill 10k, and then back to London for the Bupa 10k, back racing Mo again. I believe Ashdon will be too hilly for me to trouble my pb, but I am feeling positive I may be able do so in Haverhill – the time to beat is 42m40. The Bupa 10k is more for fun – and will involve staying in London for the weekend to celebrate my 40th birthday. Yet another benefit of being a runner – I am looking forward to turning 40 since I move up to a new age category, and will be competing as one of the youngest in the 40-44 group, whereas up until now I have been at the uppermost limit of the 18-39s.

Although I am keen to improve as a 10k runner, my favourite and best distance will remain 5k, and my favourite events of the year are fast approaching – the Kevin Henry 5k Series. 5 local clubs each host their own event, 1 a month throughout the summer. Top 6 males home from each club score the bulk of the points, and my aim is to get my time down significantly over the next few months so that I might score for the club, and hopefully get under 19mins by the end of the year in the process.

If I can manage that, and somewhere along the line quietly complete a sub 4 hour marathon, then it will go down as having been a successful year, with hopefully more to come in 2015.