Getting closer

Gosh a lot has happened since the last post.  Firstly I went out for a nice little run on the Monday after that 10k race.  I meant to do about 3 miles but ended up doing 5 miles and that was a mistake.  I was too tired really so the last two miles was more of a run/walk with the emphasis on walk and basically it served me right. Stick with what you know.  Consequently I didn't run again till Thursday and did 6 miles with my friend and that was very pleasant  as we chatted all the way. However, later that afternoon I noticed my lower calf and Achilles was aching.  Strange.  That evening I decided to go to the club's beginner group as it is very nice to meet all our new starters and join in a gentle trot/walk with them. The next day the leg was still aching.  Oh oh.  I couldn't really pinpoint it but it was certainly making me concerned especially since I had a half marathon on Sunday to look forward to! You may recall I was supposed to do this half marathon 'The Stanford Hall Half Marathon' last March but it was cancelled because of the snow! Pretty different to this year, eh? Being as I was worried about my leg I decided to rest completely and so that was it for me running until Sunday.

On Sunday we all had to get up very early.  Getting my family up and out at the best of times is a little like getting an oil tanker off to sea.  Overcoming the inertia is almost impossible.  This is, of course, very stressful.  Plus the weather looked hideous - cold and windy.  We had a two hour journey ahead and the start was at 10.15am. Somehow I felt very out of sorts.  It seemed like a very long time since I had done a half marathon.  October in fact.  A race is very different to me doing a long run on my own even though I have been doing long distances. What I didn't realise was that this race was very hilly! I certainly realised quite soon into the race though. There's just something about the extra effort of going up inclines when you're tired.  If think bubbles could appear above your head they'd be saying "What the ...?",  "If you think I'm...",  "Why I oughta..." everytime you get to another.  It was a strange kind of a race, quite a small turnout, very few supporters, very widely dispersed marshals.  At the end you were taken back into the grounds where you snaked about, looped back on yourself and basically wanted to shriek "Where the heck's the Finish line!!!!".  But when I did eventually cross the line I found out that my time was 2:16:03 which meant I had bettered my best time by 4 minutes.  Wow that was a good feeling! Plus the leg which had started to pain me at the beginning of the race had once again calmed down.  The medal was pretty good too as was the commemorative buff.  I'm quite partial to a buff these days - keeps my hair under control plus is invaluable for wrapping round your wrist and using to wipe your face as necessary. 

Running in a buff as opposed to running in the buff which would be a totally different matter!

Medal medal medal!

As Muttley would say.  You can't beat a medal and the 2014 Gainsborough & Morton 10k Road Race medal is a fine specimen.  A veritable Barry White of the medal world, it's so chunky.  Of course I wasn't doing it just for the medal although I must confess that the standard of the rewards is a big factor in choosing my races.  Let's face it, there has to be some incentive.  I know we 'run for fun' but it's bloomin' hard work and you might as well have something to make up for it as you gasp and wheeze your way over the Finish line.

Actually I feel a little guilty that I didn't divulge my true intentions for this race when I was writing about it last time.  I had put a time of 57:00 mins as my intended time for this 10k.  The reason being that I had put it down for my timed run as part of the  Jantastic programme.  This is a voluntary motivational running programme where each month you set yourself some targets e.g. how many runs a week and then you log them when you do them.  In February you also had to put down how long your longest run in each week was to be.  In March you had to decide on a distance and predict what time you could do it if you were running flat out.  You would be penalised for the amount of time you were under or over this predicted time.  The aim was for you to have a better knowledge of your current fitness and for you to be able to judge your pace more accurately. Nobody would know if you were telling the truth or not but you probably wouldn't even think of joining it if you weren't serious about it.  So why didn't I tell you?  Self doubt of course.  My usual failing.  I thought if I put it down in the blog and failed to reach it I would feel really bad.  As it was it was not a pleasant feeling to go into a race with an expectation, it puts a lot of pressure on.

So did you do it?  I hear you cry.  Well my friends I came in at 56:49 mins a mere 11 seconds off my prediction. Which was a personal best for me and made me feel ON TOP OF THE WORLD.  If I'd had the strength I'd have done a Mobot when I came in. As it was I came in like Usain Bolt (if he had had gender reassignment, had 3 children, piled on a few pounds, aged 30 years, changed his ethnicity  and not trained for about 5 years). I chose 57 mins because I had roughly this time last year in a race where a very nice chappie had run me in at the end and practically caused my lungs to heave themselves out of my throat.  So I thought this might be the kind of effort needed and I decided that I must be fitter now through the marathon training so I should be capable of that. When the race started I set my watch off and then resolved not to look at it again till the end.  I wanted to try and judge my pace by how I was feeling and there can be nothing more demoralising than finding the going tough only to look at your watch and realise you're not going as fast as you thought. It's all in the mind as you can see.  This is how the race went.  I started off steady and then I gradually got faster.  I remember thinking it felt manageable but I couldn't help but wonder whether I would be able to sustain it and whether I dared to push harder or whether that would cause me to struggle at the end. It's a great route and very flat so basically you just have to keep going. At 9k I decided to give it my best and as I approached what I thought was the end I saw the clock which already had a 57 on it.  'Well that's it, I've missed it',  thought I. Then I realised it wasn't the finish and there was still about 100m to go.  At this point I remembered that I had been towards the back and that the clock shows the time the race started which meant I still had all the extra time it had taken me to cross the start line.  And hence my final all out sprint to the finish line, arms pumping, legs pounding, hair flying.  It did occur to me that if I tripped and fell at this point I would really have hurt myself!

Pats on the back all round.

Courtesy of John Rainsforth

Tortoise then hare

It goes from one extreme to the other.  Last week a 20 mile long slow run, this week a 10k race.  Not sure how this is going to work out because I feel that I've got quite used to the plod and I'm not sure how it will feel to ramp the speed up again.  Er yes I do know how it will feel - bloomin' terrible at the end, it always does! Hah! Anyway, shallow individual that I am, I am only interested in the goodies at the Finish line.  No towel this week I don't suppose.

So the week has been kind of strange.  On Monday I was surprisingly well considering the day before.  Off I trotted to my swimming lesson without a care in the world.  Oh oh! For once our old teacher had stepped in to cover and he decided that the best thing to do was to get us to swim flat out for set periods of time.  400m in our best time, then 2 x 200m holding the pace, then 4 x 100m holding the pace etc. etc. I didn't sign up for that!!! My poor old bod. 20 miles the day before and then expected to whip itself into a frenzy in the pool?  But what could I do?  You'd feel such a fool trying to make excuses "Please Sir may I be excused from the fast stuff - I've got sore legs..." As if.  So basically I just did it.

Cue Tuesday morning and I wake up with a tap for a nose.  Non stop.  Plus headache plus feeling ropey.  Great.  Just what I needed.  My youngest is feeling poorly too.  Quick mental check and I put it down to us both at the cinema on Sat night and catching it from some inconsiderate sneezer.  I drag myself to work but by mid-afternoon I know I'm going downhill fast.  So no Zumba that night.  And I love Zumba! No run either.  Wednesday I decide to laze about in the hope of fending it off.  Youngest is off school with it so we take medicine in tandem and bask around watching TV.  No run again obviously.

But hooray on Thursday.  Feeling a bit better and off for a run with my friend in the sunshine and we manage a magnificent just-short-of ten miles! Which is brilliant and was also really lovely to be out and about in the fresh air.  Plus we tried out the new Shot Bloks with caffeine which worked really well.  So all in all a real feel good day.

And so I'm looking ahead to tomorrow to the Gainsborough 10k.  It feels very strange to realise that if I tacked this run on to the 20 mile last Sunday then that is the marathon distance.  In fact I think I will try and really take note of everything during this race because then when I'm in Paris I will have something to visualise when the going gets tough.

No Union Jack leggings tomorrow though.  I think it's going to be warm so shorts all the way! See if I can get another stripe on my legs.  Already got the watchstrap mark and the vest marks.

Twenty miles and counting

Today was a GREAT day! All my fears were unfounded.  The sun shone, the wind dropped and I got a towel.  Yes, sounds a bit bizarre but they gave away towels at the end of the race.  I was a bit confused when this man thrust it at me, I thought he was thinking I looked like I needed a good wipe down.  Man I was salty! Like a big salted pistachio nut.  It's incredible how much salt a person can produce.  Anyhow, I digress, let me tell you about the race.

As you know, it was a 20 mile race.  Called the East Hull 20.  In East Hull.  There were four of us from the club running it and two of them are doing marathons too. The race started at 10am and off we all piled down the road.  I was trying to keep very slow as those first few miles are the decider for how my races go and I've plenty of examples of how not to do it. So the result was I was at the back just in front of the sweeper vehicle.  It's a bit disconcerting to have a rumbling transit van crawling along behind you.  It begs the question 'Will it stay behind me all the way?  If I have to nip off to the toilet will it wait for me and then start following me again?'  Then I caught up with another lady and ran with her. Despite being at the back I noticed that my pace was already too fast so that was a worry but any slower and I would have been run over by the sweeper vehicle.  Imagine the headlines?  Then I caught up with another lady and chatted with her, she is doing the London marathon. It certainly helps to have some company on these long runs, especially when you are towards the back so that everyone is strung out and sometimes you are running completely alone although you know that there are hundreds of runners in front of you somewhere. All the marshals were so nice and encouraging and then there were bike marshals whizzing up and down checking that everyone was OK and St John's Ambulance vans sneaking up on you and then trundling past.  Very busy. All the time I was simply trotting along just trying not to think too much about it all.  The weather was beautiful and not so hot as to be unbearable.

The scenery was gorgeous and most of the race I could enjoy it until the last few miles in which case all I could do was try to propel myself in a Norman Wisdom kind-of-a-way by punching one arm out with the elbow foremost and dragging the rest of my body to follow. I put that down to fatigue.  After a while I realised that this was no way to go on and  I was seriously in danger of doing my back in and, more importantly, being captured on camera.  So I straightened up and scoffed another Shot Blok and decided to get through mile by mile. I have to say the last 4 miles were probably pretty indicative of what the last six miles of the marathon will feel like.  All you can do is just keep going somehow.  I'm not sure how I did it and once I got to 18 miles it was all new territory for me because that has been my longest run so far.  As it turned out it spurred me on because by that point 2 miles seemed far too short to give up and yet of course it was torturous going. All the while I kept catching up with people and then passing them so that even though I started at the back I passed 16 people before I finished. All in all a very satisfying day.

I went for a short swim when I got home. Running practically nonstop for nearly three and three quarter hours has somewhat of a battering effect on the legs and my feet felt completely flattened.  Let's hope it helps and I won't be lurching around tomorrow like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So very long runs all done now.  Looking forward to the taper.

Wibble wobble

Yikes I'm having a massive wobble at the moment.  Panicking like mad at the thought of the 20 mile race I have ahead of me.  The problem is that I've not had a good couple of weeks.  I did an 18 mile run on Monday 24 Feb and it was - as they say in the Bronx - moyder! No kidding it was tough, tough, tough.  Two 9 mile loops and the last four miles or so were complete torture with me having to get myself through mile by mile with a combination of distraction and bullying.  Needless to say I was worn out completely and had to miss my swimming lesson that night.  Then the next morning I woke up with a sore throat and aching like mad.  In fact I ached ridiculously badly so much so that I was hunched up and limping.  So I had to miss Zumba that night too.  On the Wednesday I still felt battered and decided to spend most of the day basking about on the sofa.  Good call. I also started to take Echinacea tablets in order to try and stave off the cold. 

Thursday I ran with the  Club and felt very pleased with myself as I managed to run up the whole length of a pretty meaty hill and down again. TWICE! Yes you heard me. I've not managed to run up that hill without walking breaks before so you can see what an achievement that was.

I spent a fantastic weekend with my mum and three sisters and had a whale of a time.  A much needed break and sooooooo funny.  What a boost.  And one of the best things is that one of my sisters is following the Couch to 5k programme so we went for a little run on Sunday morn and my youngest sister joined us which was BRILLIANT! And now she is following the programme too.  I'm so impressed by them.

So why the wobble?  Well this week I woke up feeling like the cold is back.  Then I had a killer headache that lasted two days.  Basically I feel worn out and low.  But I think that is to be expected at this stage of the game.  Exactly one month to go today. However, I have found out that on the Paris Marathon route there are firemen (allegedly handsome firemen but we'll see) perched on a ladder across the road cheering on the runners.  So maybe it's not all bad.

Photo from Runners World