Robin Hood Marathon - From the MarathonTalk.com Motivation Station!

What a weekend, as I sit here with my legs feeling like they had actually done the Marathon I reflect on a great two days.
Saturday morning started as always with parkrun and a super turnout of 70 finishers, a few were heaton parkrunners, a late notice closure of the park (well the bit we use) meant a hasty dash to Oldham.
After parkrun I headed off to "Go Outdoors" far an emergency purchase of sleeping bags and a mallet... long story.

Stephen practices "Clacking" and blowing the whistle

Stephen and I then drove down to Nottingham firstly to see Rick Bennett who was very busy doing his role his Site Supervisor at the festival, then it was off to the campsite. We were the first from the team to get to there and it was very windy, I quick call to see how far Tom Williams was away confirmed at least an hour so we agreed to wait it out. Greg Brock (The website guru behind www.MarathonTalk.com was next to arrive, soon after Paul Sinton-Hewitt (PSH) pulled into the carpark. Another call to Tom and we decided that it was better to set the camp up as the wind had died down and the sky has brightened up.

In all there were about 20 campers who tucked into a great BBQ, a couple of runners who were taking part in the race joined us, it was a bit cruel as we enjoyed Burgers, Kebabs, Helen's world famous Veggie Burgers and a fair amount of booze. They of course had exciting pasta and Lucozade in preparation for the Marathon!

At around 9:00pm the heavens opened and thus the MarathonTalk motivation team beat a hasty retreat under canvas, an early night ensued...

How does this work again?

5:15am an un-holy noise of trucks and inconsiderate workers who laughed, swore, dropped crates and basically acted  like louts setting up the Water-Aid station for mile 17. This just happened to be on the over side the hedge were were camping next to, annoyingly we think these were the same people acting like morons clearing our tables and pallets at Mile 20 (The MarathonTalk motivation station) before the race had ended!!!

At 8:20 we headed out for a run to the start of the marathon, after a couple miles my knee was in agony, I gritted my teeth and carried on. We had a group photo at the finish line and headed back, the knee surprisingly was not nearly as painful on the way back. A quick camp clear up and we went in convoy to the mile 20 station to prepare for the runners (The first two already at mile 9) Stephen and the other children got busy opening bottles and we soon joined in the... fun.

On the whole the day was great fun, encouraging the runners like we do at parkrun only for a much longer time! Stephen who had said the night before he had wished he had gone to Blackpool with his Mum and Brothers, admitted in the car on the way back that he actually was glad he came and would be back next year!

It was great to see Jamie Cook who takes part in Heaton parkrun running well, Ria Bright however was struggling, given that this was her 3rd Marathon in 3 weeks that would be enough to destroy most people especially if you are on your legs for 6 hours at a time! Well done to both of them!

Well I am off to soak my legs in the bath after a hard days graft, next time you are in a race and someone handles you a bottle of water... thank them please... a whole lot of hard work goes into making sure you get much needed nutrition.

Oh to the louts that woke us early setting up the water station... (being paid and on double time at least)...

"Make the fleas of a thousand dogs infest your armpits!"

Have a great running week

Regards

Mark

No mobile signal, Internet or roads to run on

My worst fears have been realised! Arriving at the caravan on Friday I stared in horror at my iPhone no signal. A quick survey found a similar response from the rest of the family, only Stephen had a week O2 signal and GPRS which is like being in the 90's!
The only place I can get a signal is at the top of the hill at the entrance to the park.
In the evening I ventured out with a sense of trepidation the site is on a steep hill that leads down to the sea, great for scenery but I don't fancy hill reps all week. I explored the entire park and decided to head out onto the road, having not seen a pavement on the A75 I hoped there would be some sort of respite for pedestrians. Alas there was not and I decided today was not a good day to die, so headed back.

On the way back to the van it is a steep descent and this gave my troubled knee a torrid time, it actually felt like it was moving around in a wild motion.
I took the easy choice of walking back the last 100m as a cool down and protect the knee!

It struck me that had I still been training for the Robin hood marathon it would have been nigh on impossible to get my long run in today... So it looks like it will be a treadmill week at the onsite "fitness suite" which thankfully is not like the mobile signal... from the 90's

- have a great running week

Mark K
From sunny Scotland :p

Location:Scotland

Back to running at Oldham parkrun

In a snap decision I decided to have a stab at running again! In the last couple of weeks I have had good news from the hospital that my heart is in no danger and last week run over a mile for the first time in months with out my knee giving me grief.
I was due to do backup timer and when parkrun regular Lynn Newman arrived dressed in jeans (a dead give away that no running on the cards) I had an instant replacement for my volunteer duty. So I trotted off to warm up, dressed in kind of running gear... tracksuit bottoms and my Adidas Tempo zero's which I stopped using for running as they murder my calves and knees!!!

It is plain to see harriers and club runners as they are the only ones warming up and I often muse that one day I will do a mass warm up with the parkrunners!

I figured that I would go to the back of the pack and take it easy, but hey once I got into my stride I was soon in the top ten and just relaxed and tried to enjoy the run. But guess what after my Garmin bleeped the first mile I saw a 6:50 and figured just a bit too quick, soon after a nagging pain in my left knee. Not apin as intense as before but enough to consider an exit right and walk back to run HQ.

But I fought on and after another mile it eased off and recorded an 8:00 min/mile, by now my chest was screaming due to a total lack of fitness and the hills of Alexandra Park just continue on and on and on.
The last lap of Oldham parkrun takes you through the woodland walk which is again a hill in disguise.
The Garmin bleeped on the final straight signifying the last .11 and it was a 7:33 so happily crossed the line in 22:48 a modest time after months of nothingness!

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/107893320
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/oldham/results/latestresults

I enjoy talking to runners when they finish a parkrun, it adds a better edge when you have been through the same experience.
I have now have Oldham parkrun using the latest technology including webFMS (Online event processing), VMS the cut down version of the old FMS but has some great new features. Not forgetting the Junsd 9006 USB stopwatch which Roger Hardiman has written conversion software so they can be used as a backup timer at parkrun.

I will soon be releasing the latest version of "Hitch hikers guide to parkrun" for run directors! Now I have done a video version and just need to include VMS and perhaps a video of using the junsd .

So now I will begin to train and get fit, the knee problem promising to be a horrid memory. My next running trip will be the Robin Hood Marathon, not to run it as my entry will show a DNS :( but instead Joining Tom and Mart from http://www.marathontalk.com at Mile 20 on the motivation station :)

So I hope you all have a good week and keep on running!

Mark K

A busy running week... without actually running

As the NHS finally whirr's into action this week with the cardiology tests I reflect on a good week in the more fun parts of my running life!
Usually on a Monday evening I would be track side stopwatch, clipboard and whistle but the recent health worries have put pay to that. Thankfully Don is standing in for me and making sure the runners get their weekly interval training fix!

Wednesday was the Royton Trail which is Royton Road Runners annual club race, along time ago I offered to help with the timing so was hoping to get there! Brian Moore our stats man organises the results and on this occasion we were going to use the parkrun timer in an effort to make the front of the funnel a simpler job for the stopwatch folks.
It went very well and the import process to the spreadsheet fairly straight forward, we will continue to see if the parkrun model has any merit going forward... Who knows barcoded race numbers???

Friday saw the first gathering of all the organisers for parkruns in the North West. Paul Sinton-Hewitt and Tom Williams (www.marathontalk.com) gave us an update on all things parkrun now and in the near future.
PSH started with an impassioned history of parkrun right up to date. Manchester has grown its numbers since Bramhall started  followed by Heaton, Woodbank, South Manchester, Oldham, Bolton and Pennington Flash.

Liverpool has started its own story at the Princes park and will surely mirror Manchester's growth in the coming years
After the meeting some of us went out for a meal and we headed off in convoy, when the lead car pulled in at a MacDonalds were were somewhat confused as we should have been at the Curry Mile in Rusholme. It turned out the lead car was the Liverpool team who never intended going for a curry and were grabbing a quick burger on the way home!
My everlasting vision will be of PSH, Tom and 6 other parkrun leaders enjoying a post-meal Vimto lolly... surreal!

On Saturday it was Sandra's first time as race director and as we met in the park, the heavens opened!
Last week had been good weather but Bev's first RD experience had its own issue... vans driving around the park.
Sandra delivered a great run brief, managed volunteers and could not have done a better job. The ladies did so well I can relax knowing that Oldham parkrun will continue to grow and grow. parkrun is all about community and as I was chatting to Sandra at 8:30am it reminded me of discussions the night before. There are now over 80 parkruns which means hundreds of parkrun leaders and volunteers having the same emotions as they head in to a park on a Saturday morning! Thousands of runners some for there first time, happy and excited about meeting fellow parkrunners the chatter can be deafening!

Well I hope that the doctors can get to the bottom of whatever is making me unwell and I can get back to running soon.

Regards

Mark

The worst week of my life

Not only does my left knee keep me from running, it seems my heart is having a bad spell!
Monday night before my usual coaching duty I warmed up with Dave E and could not believe it 0.65 miles in and bang, excruciating pain in my left knee. So back to square one and Robin Hood looks out of my league.

For the last couple of months I have noticed the tendency to utter the words 'oops got up to fast' and feel a touch dizzy.

Well early on Thursday morning I passed out after presumably going to the loo! I was taken by ambulance to Oldham Royal Hospital and one of the tests indicated a condition known as "postural hypotension" this is where your systolic blood pressure drops when sitting up from lying down or standing up. Mine drops around 20 which is enough to make you light headed at the best of times. I was later discharged as an outpatient from Medical Assessment Unit (MAU) and began immediately to rest and recuperate (my fall was bad enough!).

On Saturday morning I rolled out of bed feeling much better and proceeded to setup Oldham parkrun as usual, this week being dubious as there was a 'Dragon Boat race' in the park lake.

During a pre-event risk assessment, Sandra (one of our regular runners and volunteer) suggested that if too many vehicles were seen on the course, then cancel the run either before or during the race.
On the route a coffee van was using part of the path, the owner "Liam" turned out to be a heaton parkrunner!
He moved his signs to make the gap a bit wider, so on we continued.

I briefed the runners accordingly and set them on their way, sure enough after one lap Sandra reported far too much traffic, so I got on the radio and advised marshals to warn runners to stop and return to race HQ!
By 9:30 we had packed away and I headed with my Eldest son as he was in one of the Dragon Boat teams!
I felt great and for no apparent reason started to get light headed, breathing was difficult and sat on a low wall feeling very unwell.

A first-aider was close by and soon recommend getting to Hospital, which thanks to one if the leaders of our boat race team , drove me promptly to A&E where I just made it as my condition worsened!
I must had a panic attack and was struggling to breathe, the ECG showing a very fast heart rate. The doctors administered all sorts of drugs including aspirin to thin my blood. A am very grateful to Brian for staying with me and helping to calm me down. Our conversation about car park wardens in rip-off Britain will remain with me for ever!

I was sent back up to the MAU ward and spent all day staring at either the clock or the ceiling. Thanks to my Wife and Sister for spending time with me it really helped keep my spirits up.
Finally I had my second blood tests at 10:45pm and just over an hour later the results can back confirming that my heart had not been damaged in the morning's episode :)
So at 12:30am I arrived home discharged again as an out-patient and now await further tests.

Because of my knee I could not take part in the Freckleton Half, so my revenge on it's punishment on me last year will have to wait!
Happily though Colin G who was on top form at Edinburgh with a 3:07 came 34th (1:26:40) out of 650 runners at today's Freckleton. If I can get him back to the track I am sure I can get him sub 85 and 3:00 for his half and full marathons!

I am now on full rest which means no work, no coaching on Monday's (I hope Don can step of retirement for a while), parkrun race directing, volunteer co-ordinator for now. Fortunately the poppy-run is not until October 30th and I have a fair bit of the work done anyway.

I hope your week as been much better than mine!


Mark K

1st mile knee pain-free in 2 months

Yey, at last after 2 months of rest I managed 4 laps of the track knee pain free! my fitness is wiped out of course but a good sign in any case.
The bike work however is helping to get my cardio work back on track and I hope that I can get fit in time to complete the robin hood marathon. Finishing the marathon rather than any PB goal of course and this marathon was only ever for... FUN.

Oldham parkrun was a great success this week not just for the super turnout but from the buzz before and after the event.
The weather was great, sunny, light breeze and around 9 deg Celsius. As we processed the results the temperature dropped rapidly and by the time I pulled up at home it was hail-stoning! Talk about fickle weather systems...

So this week I will try and stick a couple of miles down on the track and kick start a short marathon training plan.
I hope you have had a good running week and I should think my next race will be the Sale 10 mile in a couple of months time, or perhaps a parkrun as they are every week ;)

Mark K

The road ahead

Tomorrow I am supposed to start my 12 week programme for the Robin Hood Marathon (RHM) in September... so today I went on a bike ride to kick start at least a bit of fitness! Over 15 miles and my knee never once complained.
So tomorrow I will head out on the track and complete a mile, I hope. All being well I can start to get back to marathon fitness in good time, the RHM is not a major target so if I can not get ready in time then its no big loss.

Oldham parkrun was a great success this week with 64 finishers, quite a few of which turned out in fancy dress as it was the "runfree" event promoted by Lucozade. It was a very welcome site to see runners re-hydrating after a very warm 5K event. I hope to get a photograph from Saturday and publish on this blog, my fancy dress outfit was... warm to say the least!

So sorry it is a short post but hey if I run 1 whole mile tomorrow night it could mean a return to lots of running!

Have a great running week

Mark