New PB and 33rd at Great North West Half Marathon

What a great week for running! Monday nights track session had a downer when Chris pulled up during drills with a calf problem. Don and I were quick to his aid and hopefully the injury will heal in good time for the VLM. Chris is my room buddy at London and it will be a shame if he cannot run both for him and Dr Kershaw's hospice which he is supporting.
I had a run to work on Monday but baled out of running home as my legs are taking a bashing, the training load and my Adidas Sequence trainers getting no respite.
Tuesday was a hectic day at work and I decided not to go to the track, on Wednesday I was travelling down to Reading and finally arrived at 7pm so food was much more interesting than donning the trainers.

Thursday morning I went for a run in the centre of Reading which was no fun at all and gave up dodging ignorant pedestrian and headed for breakfast.

Friday morning I headed out on the road and made the snap decision to use Rochdale Canal towpath which is finally starting to a) get dry and b) get light enough to dodge to duck poo!
I headed back on the canal at home time and the legs responded well to a bit of speed now and then.

Saturdays Oldham parkrun was great and 35 runners set off at 9:00am, 12 PB's were the result of runners desperate to get back into their warm homes! I headed off to Sweatshop, Hyde to get shiny new racing shoes which will get their first test at the Silverstone Half next week. I also picked up some new Brook's to partner the horrid Adidas Sequences!

The Great North West Half Marathon

I started the day nice and early and headed up the motorway to ensure getting a good parking spot (Which was near as dammit outside the reception door). I also struggle to run well on morning races so had the idea that if I was awake for long enough I could trick my body into thinking it was the afternoon!
After joking with the girl who handed me the timing chip "at least I will be first at something today!" I headed out to the promenade to catch some sea air.
I spotted a lady setting up the runners world pacer promotional boards and offered to help. She turned out to be the Marketing Director for Natmag-Rodale who produce runners world! and enjoyed a chat whilst fighting the wind which was threatening to blow cars over let alone flag poles.

I decided to get near to the front of the pack for the race, which on reflection mingling in the pack would have been a warmer option!!!

The race itself was a windy affair with no real benefit of a tail wind on the lower promenade and a hellish head wind on the undulating top promenade. I spend most of the race by the side of Dave Kershaw (on the right in the picture) I could not however match his finish and he dashed to the finish around 10 seconds ahead of me.
I say around 10 seconds as there appears to be a fault with my timing chip!

My legs are giving the usual aches after a race and look forward to trying out the Brooks on the track as I do a recovery run. The Adidas Tempo's on an interval session Tuesday.

Roll on the VLM and have a great week

Mark

Victory at Oldham parkrun

After last weeks stomach issues, of which I am sure was a bad attack of IBS rather than a bug, I had a great week of training, missing out interval training just as a precaution. So my first run of the week was the double run to work and back, as my training for the VLM progresses some weeks I will be doing this run Monday, Wednesday and Fridays!
Thursday nights run with the group I lead at RRR was great, the pace was bob-on 12 minute miles, the distance just right of 4.6 miles the only issue... my trusty Garmin forerunner 405. The battery died after 33 minutes even though when I left the house there was over 50% battery left. The conundrum is that I have to replenish my trainers before the VLM and the cost of replacing the Garmin is too much to think about. The watch has been erratic for the last few weeks and has now clocked over 250 hours of usage!
 On Friday I had the day off work and worked on my coaching assignments and had a hill blast, my legs just seem to get stronger and stronger. I finished the run on a high and got home to get the equipment ready for the two parkrun's I support (Heaton and Oldham).

Saturday morning was cold, rainy and just a bit miserable. Stephen and I got to Alexandra park for 8:30am and met Michelle and Bill at the Lions Den. Bill set off to put the signs out and I got to work organising the volunteers, Jason from Sweatshop was on hand to distribute £15 off vouchers so we had a brief chat and I set off to warm up. Michelle was race director this week so I had the opportunity to run in the event for a change, 28 runners lined up and the start was delayed so that my Garmin could finally lock on.

The start was frantic and on the first turn I slipped on a metal grid, one hand on the floor I managed to control the fall and not get trampled by the ensuing pack. On the first lap second placed Brian Jobe harried me and I kid hear his feet crunching on the stones that make up the road surface of the park. The watch bleeped at 1 mile and had hit 5:40, a touch fast but I felt OK so carried on regardless.
Second lap I had pulled a 20 metre gap from Brian and was puzzled to see a 6:40 minute mile (watch is getting crazy) as Oldham is a 3 lapper up and down hill getting similar pace per mile is hard but 1 minute is way out.
By the final lap the lead was growing so I enjoyed the breathing space and the scenery of the woodland walk, the finish is a gentle down hill and I once again focused on the running form for sprinting and made for the finish. Reviewing the GPS data afterwards I was pleased to see that my finish although felt really fast, actually was moderately fast. Pleased, why? because it meant that I had put some effort in during the race and was not at my fastest at the end!

Today being Sunday is my Long Slow Run day and I set off on a 12 miler at a reasonable pace and chilled out. As I descended into Middleton I caught site of John O'Reilly from Middleton Harriers and exchanged "Good Morning" with him. I was going well until 9 miles when my stomach went wobbly again and my heart sank, last weeks trouble that cost me quality training time was set to ruin another week! I took time to walk it off and rang my wife to let her now my expected arrival time and that I was felling a bit sick.
Miraculously I picked up the pace and finished feeling great, weird but reassuring all same!

Next week is the end of this mesocycle and by no co-incidence the Great North West Half Marathon. Last years 95 minutes is set to be smashed, by how much who knows, I am aiming for 85 which is a big ask. If a 3:10 VLM is the target then the GNW half will tell me where I am at! The week after is the Silverstone half and my plan is to run that at Marathon pace... whatever that will be :s

Next weeks blog entry will be all about the GNW I am sure.

Laters

Mark

Self coach advice hard to take?

After a week of good training, intervals, 2 x double runs to work and so on; the week has ended badly. A stomach complaint made me abandon my run home from work with just a couple of miles to go. A hasty phone call home to wife was made and I rested outside the 'Rose of Lancaster' pub. The run had started well 8:00 min/mile pace then 8:15 8:30 9:00 9:30 the last mile the urge to be sick unbearable. As I rested, Bryan Lawton our club chairman drove past, I was too ill at the time to respond with words!

Saturday morning I managed to roll out to Oldham parkrun and race direct a fun event!
It was a mental arithmetic exercise to sort the results as some tokens were handed out in a wrong order! After that it was back to bed for me.

When I woke on Sunday the stomach ache was still there and any hope of a 10 miler were gone.
As I write this blog, I contemplate ironing, stretching and a disappointing end to the week; I look forward to the Great North West Half marathon in two weeks... Gotta get a long run in before then!

Great result at Dewsbury 10K

The preparation for the Dewsbury 10K went well and Royton Road runners turned out in mass (40 runners).
I warmed up with a jog to the start and a few dynamics stretches but if the truth be told I could have done a better warm up. Yet again the weather was cold, nowhere near like the big freeze of last year, wind was the big news with estimates of a 30 seconds average cost to race potential (Post race discussions).
I originally lined up 3 rows from the front but by the time we had shuffled the 20 feet to the actual start I was about 8 rows back! So when the gun went I did the usual zig-zag sprint start and when the watch bleeped "Mile 1" the reading was 5:34 and I mentally kicked myself, the target was 6:05 so my old enemy the fast start struck again.
I looked at my watch at 9 minutes to make note of when my chest was about explode! The desire to give up right then with view that I ruined my race was most prevalent, but you can never give up, Ron Hill's words from last week ran through my head and pushed on to the 5K turning point.

The last road-bender Photo by Ray McBride

Tracking a runner that overtook me soon after the turn we approached the water station, Ron's voice rang in my mind again "Stopping for water costs time and drinking from cups means you gulp air which restricts lung capacity" true enough I grabbed a cup, barely got a drink and gulped a load of air! Looking up the road the runner I was tracking was now 20 feet ahead and I never caught up :(
Thankfully the second half of Dewsbury is downhill (Its an out and back) which helped balance out the strong head wind that everybody commented on post race. With 400 metres to go I got my coaches head on and confronted my "Central Governor". I picked my pace up and focused on beating the runner in front of me, adjusted my running style to match the technical sprinting model and blasted past the runner and made up 15 feet on another runner, almost catching her at the line!

My reward was a shiny new PB of 38:49 and I was the third Royton Road runner back which awarded us 10th team!

Two weeks to the great north-west half marathon and the road to the VLM marches on!

Run in England workshop with a cool race the following Day

The highlights of last week were Saturdays RiE workshop organised by Tina Beresford, the day was split into presentations in the morning and a talk by Dr Ron Hill MBE in the afternoon. On the Sunday was the Pennine Bridleway relay (PBR) race, Royton did very well especially for our first attempt.

Peg Wiseman took us into Phillips park, her demonstration of the 3-2-1 programme was very interesting and I definitely have ideas for "Run at Work" (which I have already discussed with HR!). The basic idea is that you can map out distances of 3 mile, 2 mile and 1 mile, or 3Km etc, even 300m, 200 and 100. You then set goals for runners to aim for, this can be further expanded to run at effort 3 (jog), effort 2 (moderate) and then level 1 (Eyeballs out). Another take is to do 1, 2 and 3 minute efforts, so this way you can make fun, useful running sessions even in a 30 minute lunch window!

The afternoon chat with Ron Hill was a treat and being sat on the front row meant I got the first question in after he talked about his life story. Ron has given an interview to marathontalk.com which the first part was aired last week, so hearing his life story in the flesh made it even more interesting.

Sunday saw the race of the winter which Des Thorpe managed the Royton Road Runners to 23rd and 40th (vets team) which for our first attempt was extremely good. My partner for leg 5 Mike Harrison did very well not to swing for me as I pushed him to the limit, up Rooley Moor road. This steep hill goes on for a mile or two, followed by a very steep downhill which is over very soon. In our recce run a few weeks ago Mike was happy with 1hr 25 and quoted "1hr 20 will be good" on the day. A few weeks before that on the first recce, Bryan Lawton was confident that we could go for 1hr 15 so I set my sights on the ambitious target. We were jubilant at the finish line as I announced to Mike that we had completed the leg in 1hr 14 and 17 seconds.



Mike is on the right and worked very hard throughout the race, picture taken by: Sportsunday.co.uk


Imagine my surprise to see a number of runners who had taken part in the race on Sunday down at the track on Monday evening. This being my 4th supervised coaching session I had planned a pyramid session and Brian Moore was relieved to hear that there was only 1 set to do! Even I am not that cruel and the nights are still very cold so we got them all warmed up and on their way. Richard was very impressive and blasted 13 seconds on the first 100 metres, and the same again on the last rep!

I had to switch my Wednesday run to work (and back) to Tuesday as I had to travel to Birmingham on Wednesday. I opted to do the run on Tuesday as any later in the week might leave my legs tired for this Sunday's Dewsbury 10K. I am very much hoping for a PB on that race and resting my legs after the PBR just a few days ago is the best option. I usually run quite a bit slower on the run home but this week I was just a bit slower on average, which bear in mind going to work it is downhill and obviously uphill coming home.

I cannot wait for the spring and the light mornings, the running to work may well be carbon free but you don't half breathe plenty of carbon from queueing cars and filthy lorries. So when the light returns I will be switching to running on the canal towpath... fresh air and bumps the route from 7 miles to 8... win, win , win