Bury 5 mile and a bit of Lionel

A quick round-up

Many of my blog posts are essentially round-ups of my racing and training. Since one of the main aims of writing it is in order for me to keep a "running diary" and to chart progress, I make no apologies for this. Sorry about that. However, I do always try to include things that are relevant to all runners, since I am not vain enough to think that anybody wants to read all this drivel simply to keep track of how I'm doing personally.

So, as I continue to chart progress with my recovery, I hope I can throw in one or two bits of useful information along the way.

June 9th - Newmarket 5km - (Kevin Henry series race 3) 

I always find this one of the hardest races of the 6 in the series, the surface isn't great (grass, dusty/sandy path for most of it) and although it's flat, it's very open, which means you can see the finish from a long way off. And it never seems to be getting any closer. I never race well here, and I'm not sure if that was playing on my mind, but I didn't feel particularly confident lining up for this one.

I think a big factor was the training I'd done the previous two days - having run a hard session on the treadmill on the Tuesday, I'd then gone along to Sudbury Joggers again on the Wednesday (ie the day before) and run 6.7 hilly miles. So I was racing on tired legs, which is clearly never a good idea. However, this is all part of my plan to try to prioritise mileage and general fitness over race results -- however well rested I am, I'm not going to be anywhere near PBs this soon into recovery, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to rest in preparation for races if it means missing useful training sessions. And I was particularly keen to make the Joggers session, as I seek to get to know a few people there. Those 6.7 miles were tough, running about 7m40 pace and trying desperately not to fall behind the group I was with. And that's exactly what I needed.



So the Newmarket race was a bit of a disaster - I was struggling after the first mile (I feel this is a recurring theme!) and mile 3 in particular was very disappointing. In some ways it actually helped to have a sub-standard race, because it reminded me that I really shouldn't be worrying too much about times at the moment, and that I should be grateful and encouraged by every pain-free mile. Which I am - although it's not always easy to feel that way in the immediate aftermath. Facebook has a lot to answer for sometimes, but after having a little moan about my 5km times, I was given some sound advice and encouragement by some good running friends that helped me get things into perspective.

June 16th - Long training run

Perhaps I was still feeling a bit negative when I went into the next week's training, and I struggled
both on an evening run on the Monday, and at an HRC club speedwork session on the Tuesday. However, Thursday was a lot more encouraging, as I decided to ignore speed and just see if I could increase mileage with a "long" run. I managed a solid 10 miles, at around 8m30 pace - which I found particularly pleasing since I chose to throw in a few hills along the way, and yet these didn't significantly slow me down. My route was a somewhat convoluted one, around the housing and industrial estates of Haverhill, and it was far from scenic - but it was exactly what I needed.

Nestled in the Suffolk countryside, the town of Haverhill is a really beautiful place to run through.....
(joking apart, we're very lucky to be only a few minutes away from really beautiful countryside, so I shouldn't moan)

I felt I could have gone on to do a fair bit more, but was sensible enough to stop after 10, since as all runners know, you need to be careful when increasing mileage - too much too soon is a surefire way to pick up an injury.

With a day off the next day to recover, I was feeling suitably encouraged enough to "go for it" at parkrun on the weekend - and I was really looking forward to this, my first attempt to race Great Cornard for about 10 weeks. In line with my current strategy of prioritising useful training over racing, I didn't feel under any particular pressure to hit a certain time, but it would be nice to see some progress.

June 18th - Great Cornard parkrun

And I was reasonably pleased with the result - 20m39 equalled my best time post operation, which I'd achieved on our club time trial route, a course that I would describe as slightly faster. So a little bit of progress - certainly when compared with my previous two 5kms at Newmarket and Colchester - and I always enjoy my local parkrun.

Preparing for Bury 5

And so on to this week's training.

It was a close finish in the Civil Service 3 legged race last year

Monday: a short sharp blast on the treadmill, to practice ahead of the forthcoming Civil Service Sports Day, but primarily this gym visit was about cross-training: working harder on the bike and the elliptical thingy than I normally do, and getting back into using the weight machines again.

Tuesday: I chose a training route that took me out to Kedington, where we'll be racing our club's home Kevin Henry race this summer - I wanted to run some hills again, but couldn't face the prospect of another tour of Haverhill's industrial estates. There's one particular mountain that I wanted to incorporate into the run - Cock Hill (I'm pretty sure I've made some immature jokes about this in the past so I'll leave it this time) -  and I was pleased with how easily I managed it this time. My aversion to hills is something I really want to address, since I can't keep avoiding them, otherwise I'll just get found out in any race that isn't entirely flat.

Wednesday: Back to Sudbury, complete with membership form - so I'm now a member of two clubs, albeit with Haverhill remaining my 1st claim club. This means I continue to race in HRC colours, but I can attend training sessions at either club, depending on what fits best with my training and - of course - other commitments. The two clubs train on different days, so I should be able to attend one of them every week, fitting it around my son, and work, etc. This week, I chose the group that was doing 6 miles (rather than 7) - and our route wasn't as hilly as in previous weeks, although still much tougher than anything I'd have done on my own. I was particularly pleased with the pace, which increased as we went, making it a progression run of sorts - excellent practice for racing, when ideally you want your 2nd half to be faster than your 1st, even though you're running on tired legs.

I'm a recent convert to STRAVA: it's a really easy way to keep track of your training - and to analyse individual runs. The following screenshot shows the pace we ran at - and has left me feeling extremely positive about the way things are progressing.

Thursday: REST DAY

It's so important to factor in some days off into your schedule, and all the more important to rest the day before a race. So I did.

June 24th: Bury Friday 5

And so to race day - and I really hoped to get an encouraging time to give me a boost and keep me positive. Five miles is one of my favourite distances to run - with my best times proportionately pretty good in comparison with my 5km PB, and much better than my 10km efforts. It's a short enough distance that you can really go for it without fear of running out of steam, but not so short that you can't make up time if you have a slower patch during the course of the race.

With this is mind, and well aware that I'd been pacing really badly recently, I determined to not get carried away for the first mile, and purposely stood a little way back from the start line to ensure I didn't get dragged along by the quickest runners. And although I did find myself inching a little closer to the front in the moments before the start, I did remain reasonably sensible as we all set off.

The course runs roughly the Bury parkrun route, in reverse, for about 1.5 miles, before you leave Nowton park and head out onto the quiet country roads for the majority of the race, with one random section through a farmyard. I have such a lousy memory that I never really remember the routes to races, even when (as in this case) I last did them only the previous year - however, I had looked at my split times from 2015 and had seen that miles 2 and 3 were a bit slower, due primarily to changes in elevation (ie a ridiculously long hill, that never gets particularly steep but seems to go on for ever!) So although I had a target in mind of 33m45 (6m45 pace) I wasn't too concerned when I began to creep over 7min mile pace, and concentrated instead on trying to maintain the same effort, on the assumption that what goes up must come down (© Isaac Newton) 

The importance of form

I've started reading this book, and I believe
the advice on running form played a significant
role in my improved race performance

In particular in this race, I was concentrating on my running form. Trying to lean forward a little more, and fall into each new stride. Attempting to keep my cadence high, but keep my feet landing underneath my body rather than ahead (which effectively acts as a brake.) And crucially, thinking a lot more about my arms - which, in common with a lot of amateur runners, I often forget about. And when I noticed my pace dropping over miles 2 and 3, I tried even harder to keep good form. If you can get it right, you'll be running a lot more economically, and in theory you should have more energy left towards the end of the race.

Sure enough, I was able to pick up the pace again in mile 4, and even more so for the last mile, which I was chuffed to bits to complete in 6 minutes dead (although it measured a little short according to my watch, so this may not be entirely accurate.) Nonetheless, it gave me a finish time of 33m54 - almost exactly what I'd been aiming for, and about a minute quicker than I'd managed the previous month at our club's 5mile handicap time trial, which took place on a totally flat course and on a better surface.

South America. South Africa. Las Vegas..... Colchester.....?!

So, progress, and a great way to start what proved to be a great weekend - I followed this up with an enjoyable pacing event at Great Cornard parkrun on Saturday, before travelling to Colchester to hook up with Bernadette to watch Lionel Richie in concert at the football stadium. He put on a great show, and the fact that such a big name had chosen to play in my home town made it all the more enjoyable, if slightly surreal. 

On then to Sunday, and back to face some demons at the Mersea Round the Island race. I could moan about how difficult this was, (and I will, in my next blog post) but it would be remiss of me not to mention that I have friends at the moment competing in a local event in and around the small village of Barrow, which puts on 10 marathon (ish) distance events (some of them are actually a little bit over the regulation 26.2 miles) over the course of 10 days. I know a number of people who have chosen to run one of these marathons, a few that have completed the "quad" (as in 4 in 4 days) and one Sudbury Jogger - Gin - who is tackling the full 10 in 10. When the heavens opened this morning and I very nearly wimped out of a measly half marathon, it was the thought of these guys battling their way round double the distance that ensured I didn't bottle it. 

So all in all, an encouraging period of running, and a decent increase in mileage - looking good as I commence marathon training next week. Next blog post will be dedicated to the Mersea Round the Island race, which was so tough it deserves its own post!

Back racing, and trying to be sensible

So a few weeks into my recovery, and so far so good, with a number of runs now under my belt, and no problems of any significance to report, other than a tendency to pace badly and run out of energy too soon. So, nothing much new there! I've had my last physio appointment, and been given the all-clear to commence marathon training, so still feeling very positive about my running.

However, I do seem to have ended up racing a bit too much - the following then is a round up of what I've been up to over the last 3 weeks.

May 19 - ELY 5km - (Kevin Henry series race 2)

Having watched the first in the series from the sidelines, it felt great to be able to run this one - it fell exactly 8 weeks after my operation, and so I always had it pencilled in as my first run - but thanks to my physio allowing me to start up a couple of weeks previously, I went into this with a handful of training runs behind me and knowing I'd be able to manage the distance easily - although with no idea what kind of pace I may be able to achieve.

First race back. The key was not to take it too seriously.....

I was sensible enough to start somewhere in the middle of the pack, so that I didn't get too carried away and try to keep up with the quicker runners. Despite this, with the course being almost completely flat, I did probably go off a little too fast, with a 6m45 min pace for the first mile that I was never realistically going to be able to maintain. Sure enough, mile 2 was considerably slower, but I was pleased to find a little in reserve for the last mile, and ended up with a time of 21m24.

I had hoped to average sub 7min miles, and so was pretty pleased with a 6m50 pace overall - a lot quicker than I managed in the first race back after my first hip was operated on, and proof that you can maintain a certain amount of fitness whilst unable to run if you work hard enough in the gym.

All those hours on the exercise bike were clearly worthwhile, and although I definitely felt exhausted at the end, there was relatively little discomfort from the hip, and what there was could probably be put down to tired muscles rather than anything more serious.

Speedwork Training

So following this encouraging start, I have completely ignored my own advice (not for the first time) and have allowed myself to become a little too pre-occupied with getting my pace down, rather than simply building up the mileage as I'm supposed to be. Consequently, I followed up this race with a couple of speedwork sessions- one at the gym on the treadmill, and then the next day a club track session. I'm finding even the slightest incline a bit tough at the moment (I have been told to try to avoid hills if possible, since this is going to put the hip flexors under the greatest strain) and so I found our track a bit tough, since it's not entirely flat! But the 1km reps I did on the treadmill were encouraging, and I went into the club's May time trial confident that I'd see an improvement.

May 26th - HRC 5km Time Trial  

I ended up averaging 6m42 pace, with a finish time of 20m39, so a pretty decent improvement in just over a week. Mile 2 was significantly slower (by 10secs, which is quite a big drop in pace over a short race) but I managed to dig in and not let the race fall apart completely, and mile 3 was pleasing enough, and I found a little bit at the end for a reasonable sprint finish. I don't think I'm going to do myself any harm racing, providing I don't push too hard too soon, and although this wasn't really the plan, it was probably inevitable given that 5k has always been my favourite distance. I'd love to get back under 20mins, and on this showing that was beginning to look like it may not take too long. (Spoiler alert - perhaps it might....)

May 28th - Great Cornard parkrun - pacing event

So I was finally back running at parkrun again, although as one of the pacers I wasn't racing as such - my job was to get round in 29mins, and hopefully drag one or two others around to their PBs in the process. Unusually for a pacing event, Gt Cornard managed to get every single minute covered, from 20 through to 36, meaning the majority of our runners would have someone to keep in their sights. In the end, over 40 attendees got new PBs, including two runners, Shirley and Michelle, from HRC - proof that these events really do work. I was pleased that 3 or 4 of the runners near me all beat their best times too, and I'm hoping to be able to grab the 28min pacer vest next time, so I can run with the same people as they progress. One of these days I'll try to get someone to pace me to a new PB - there are certainly a few runners at Gt Cornard who I'm sure would be able to do this for me - but for the time being, I'm some way off this, and helping others to do so is the next best thing.

I was so pleased to hear from my old University mate Paul, who, following my last blog about parkrun, plucked up
the courage to attend his local one in Greenwich, and has since done 3 in a row - another convert! 

May 30th - Hatfield Broad Oak 10km

A bit of a last minute decision to enter this, purely because I had a free Bank Holiday Monday and I knew lots of people doing this popular local race, near Stansted Airport. It's one of those great events where the whole village seems to embrace the run, coming out to support and making for a lovely atmosphere. That said, it's a pretty big field - over 1000 runners - but importantly, the roads are closed, so there's not much congestion,

I met up with a few friends from parkrun, who are all part of Sudbury Joggers running club - a really friendly group who have made me feel very welcome, to the point where I'm looking to join the club, whilst keeping my membership with HRC too. The rules relating to who you can then race for - 1st and 2nd claim membership - are a little more complicated than I'd realised, and this needs a bit more investigation before I decide what to do next. But it was good to see a few of them at the race, together with some club colleagues too.

As for the race itself, this proved to be a bit of a reality check. I hadn't appreciated just how hilly the race was going to be - this is all relative of course, and most would describe it merely as undulating at worst, but for me, at this stage of my recovery, it felt really tough. Not only did the elevation find me out, but so too did the distance - this was the furthest I'd run since the operation, and after a reasonable start I was unable to maintain pace throughout, falling apart pretty badly in the second half. That said, it was still a quicker time than I managed at Kingston 10km last December, and I was probably being a bit unrealistic with my starting pace - which I was basing more on my recent 5km pace.

June 1st - Sudbury Joggers Training Session

In desperate need of a rest day, I ruled out club training the following evening - especially when I noted it was a hill session, but this fitted in quite nicely with my plans to go along to the Jogger's training session on the Wednesday, and I was looking forward to meeting up with everyone and trying out my potential new club.

Sudbury. Pretty much. 

An impending office closure - with plans to move us all to London - means I will need to consider moving from Haverhill in about a year's time, to somewhere with a train station. Sudbury would actually be an ideal location, giving me a do-able commute to work but still within easy driving distance of my son in Haverhill, and a bit closer to my mum in Colchester too. Coupled with Gt Cornard parkrun being just round the corner, it's certainly an attractive option - and so Sudbury Joggers may well become the most logical club for me in the longer term.

At the moment, it's a half hour drive or so away - but it's nice to have a couple of options, and I suspect I'll alternate between the two clubs for a while, and see how it goes.

That said - Wednesday's session all but destroyed me! They mix up the training each week, and this week it was 25 out 25 back. In other words, run for 25mins, then turn and follow the same route back, aiming to get back bang on 50mins, the idea of this being to encourage even pacing. I've done sessions following the same principle at HRC, but only speedwork pyramid sessions, and not over this kind of distance.

Because I got there a bit early, I was able to tag on to the back of the beginner's session that leaves 30mins before the main club session, which gave me a nice warm up run and a chance to chat to one or two people. I didn't chat a great deal during the rest of the evening, which was partly my fault for trying to keep up with the lead group. But mainly it was because of the hills. Which were ridiculous. I had no idea Sudbury was so mountainous! In truth, I've become very lazy with my hill training over the last couple of years, because they always increased the discomfort, and so this was a real wake-up call. If I can commit to doing a few more of these sessions with the club, it's going to be a great way to improve my strength and stamina. At the moment, it was probably a bit too much too soon, and I suffered for it the next day - it was also, factoring in the warm up too, the furthest I've run since the operation too, totalling nearly 8 miles for the evening, so all in all a really good workout.

3rd June - Kirton 5

On to a weekend full of racing - and first up, a scenic 5 miler near Felixstowe, part of the Friday 5 series of races but not one I'd tried before. I was hooking up with my good friend Bernadette from Colchester, and we'd decided together to see if we could get her round in a new PB, which meant trying to average 9min miles or so, with a sub 46mins target to try and beat.

In common with loads of runners, Bernadette is much better than she realises - so I put her under strict instructions to ignore her watch and let me worry about the pacing! In fact, this race was also a little bit undulating - and after 3 pretty consistent miles, we were faced with a hill at the start of mile 4 that put a significant dent in our pace. That fourth mile has to go down as one of the most pleasing I've ever run with someone, as we gradually worked hard to regain that lost time. To then go on and run the last mile - at the end of a tough 5 miler -  at below her usual 5km pace, will hopefully have shown Bernadette just how good she can be. The result in the end was 45m17, so nearly a minute off her previous best for the distance - and loads more to come.

4th June - Colchester Castle parkrun

Yes, that's mine I think......

So this turned out to be another reality check. I felt good, was keen to race hard and had my race tactics all planned out (if that's not a bit over the top for a parkrun, which it undoubtedly is!) The course is hilly, but the first half is all flat or downhill, so you can usually get a really good 2 miles in before you need to dig in for the tougher part. Discovering during the pre-race briefing that the route had been changed (due to another event in the park) was a factor in a disappointing performance, seeming to make the course even hillier than normal (although this may not actually be the case) Whilst I don't think I can fully blame this for a drop off in time from my previous 5k race, hills are definitely affecting me far more than normal, and in the event I should probably be pleased enough with another sub 21m30 run. But, I'd hoped to be inching towards sub 20mins, so I was a little down afterwards.

Fortunately, there's always the cafe to look forward to when I run at Colchester, and things didn't seem so bad after my mocha and a healthy slice of lemon sponge. Healthy as in large. Not as in healthy. That's now 85 parkruns completed. Or in other words, a lot of cake.

5th June - HRC 5 mile Handicap

And so bringing things up to date (finally!) with this morning's race. I say race - this is a yearly event put on by club colleague Yusuf, with plenty of help from a willing band of volunteers, who threatened to outnumber the runners at one point, although in the end I think there was a fairly even split between "competitors" and helpers. The route took us twice round a disused airfield, but parts of the route were actually a lot more scenic than that sounds and, crucially for me, almost completely flat. As indeed, most airfields are!

Finishing reasonably strongly, and not
looking quite as knackered as I felt

You're given a predicted 5 mile time - for me, 33m59 - calculated using a result from a recent short distance race - for most of us, our times were taken from either the time trial at the end of May or the KH race the week before. Runners set off in order depending on that prediction. Whoever crosses the line first is the winner. If everyone were to exactly hit their predicted time, then we'd all cross the line together.

Of course, in practice this doesn't happen - although there wasn't a great deal of time difference between first and last over the line, which suggests that the predictions were pretty good. Our winner was Zoe, followed closely by Dave - two stalwarts of the club, so the result couldn't really have been any nicer. There's not many races where it's a level playing field for all competitors, (or should that be a level airfield? No, probably not....) and I think everyone gives their all as a result - certainly we were all grateful for the water station (and cakes) at the finish line.

I didn't match my predicted time, which didn't surprise me much since I don't seem to be able to do much more than 5km at the moment without struggling - but I did dip under 35mins, so another run averaging sub 7mins per mile, which was really what I was after. I've recently ordered a replacement USB stick for my GPS watch, so I can recommence downloading my runs and analysing the stats a bit more. I've also finally joined STRAVA, although at the moment I'm only able to manually key in my runs, so they're simply logging progress at the moment rather than showing me any detail.

But just by looking at the history on my watch, I can see my mile splits were as follows:

Mile 1:  6m24    Mile 2:  6m47   Mile 3:  6m59   Mile 4:  7m11    Mile 5:  7m08

Now, I'm no expert (clearly) but I think I can see where things went a bit wrong! In fact, I'm not at all surprised - my aim was to run the first 5km hard, try to keep each of the first three miles under 7mins, and then just see if I could hang on, given that this was going to be nice and flat. However, 6m24 was obviously a bit daft - and I think I got a bit carried away by the nature of the event, where it's so tempting to try to catch the runners that started ahead of you as quickly as possible. I did note my 5km time, which was much better than at parkrun the day before, and so it wasn't all bad news, but I got given a real lesson in pacing from Mary-Ann, whose predicted race time was the same as mine. As a result therefore, we set off together - and whilst I sped off at the start, and then started to slow, Mary-Ann simply maintained consistency throughout and came flying past me to finish well ahead. Will it stop me starting too fast in subsequent races? Probably not, but it really should!

Next up

So with the plan to not race so much well and truly out of the window, I'm now looking forward to Thursday evening, the next instalment in the KH series of 5km races. After that, I'm tempted to enter the Bury 5 mile, but what I do already have scheduled at the end of June is a trip up to Liverpool to take part in a Civil Service sports day, where I've (rather foolishly) entered a number of races - I think it was the lure of the free BBQ afterwards that persuaded me. I'll probably look to do a bit more speed training between now and then, and try to give a good account of myself, before we move into July, and I begin my training with my new coach.

At this point I'll need to stop entering all these races and let Siobhan guide me, as I seek to increase mileage and build towards my autumn marathon.

NB today many of my running friends completed the Stour Valley Marathon - off road, in very warm conditions - complete respect to them all !