GO GO GO! It's the Silverstone Half Marathon!

Hello,

Sorry for the lack of blogging over the last week, but until now there has not actually been much to write about.

Last week was a week of little and often, going to the gym Monday-Thursday and just doing a few kms on the treadmill in the build up to the Silverstone half marathon on Sunday.  Since writing “Went to gym, did XXX on treadmill” etc is boring to write about and I am guessing boring to read, I didn’t bother.

However, after a quiet Saturday I was up bright and early on Sunday to get a lift from north London to Silverstone to run a couple of laps of the famous circuit, and ticking off my fourth half marathon in consecutive weekends.

Although lots of runners were glad of the sunshine I was less so, as I have a shaved head and didn’t really want to get sunburnt as well as extra dehydrated.  On top of this there was little in the way of shade (it being a race circuit and all, there were not many trees for cars to ram into) while there was a limited breeze.  So although it was great weather for a picnic, this run was going to be no walk in the park. 

However, it all started off well, with the theme to the BBC GP coverage (“The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac) blaring out over the speakers.  I couldn’t find the 9 minute mile pacer anywhere, so just trundled along hoping to see them at some point, with the plan the same as the Dorney Lake half marathon a few weeks ago: stick to them like glue for as long as possible.  Without the calming influence I charged off far too fast though, recording personal bests in both my first and second kilometres. 

This, coupled with the blazing sun quickly took its toll and I was not helped by getting a massive stitch at around 1/3 distance, so I slowed down for a few minutes. After this I found it difficult to regain my rhythm but still hit the halfway point in just under an hour, putting me in line for a good go at my overall personal best of 1.58.38.

The second half of the race was a different beast though. I was getting really tired and dehydrated and my pace slowed quite a lot. In the end I had to force myself to continue running rather than just jog along as normal, with the final 4km proving to be the toughest I have done yet.

In the end I finished in just over 2 hours 7 minutes – not a bad time at all, but the amount of effort it took was fairly frightening and the thought of doing that whole thing twice back to back still fills me with terror.

So, to try and combat this I am going to give energy gels a go. I used to use them when I lived and ran in NZ, but I can’t seem to find the same brand over here, and the ones I have tried before made me feel pretty rotten, which is not great when you are trying to run for two hours plus! Still, I am going to buy a few and give them a go in the gym over the next week or so. That way, if I do feel unwell I can just jump off the treadmill and hot foot it to the bathroom, rather than being stuck miles from home and feeling like rubbish. Anyone got any recommendations?

Remember, I am putting myself through this hellish nightmare to raise money for the Willow Foundation. I am only a few hundred quid off my target now, so if you are thinking of sponsoring me then please don’t forget. Why not do it RIGHT NOW, here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke. Cheers!

Going further, getting slower

Another weekend gone by and another long run completed. After last week’s relatively poor efforts at training I thought I had better up the anti and attempt 25km (15.5 miles).

However, it was not a great run.  Indeed, just 3km in my legs already felt like lead and I considered just turning round and going home, having another attempt on Sunday morning.  Then I remembered that is was probably going to chuck it down on Sunday and if I wanted to get this week’s long run done in the dry then it was going to have to be that day, so I plodded on.

I managed to get through the first 10km at an ok pace and then it actually got a little bit easier, especially as I went past the halfway point, despite having to run up Pentonville hill yet again.  I continued to plod on but by the time I got to Stoke Newington, around 19km I knew that a full 25km was probably going to be beyond me, so I cut across Clissold park and went past the ½ marathon distance after 2 hours 11 minutes, 3 minutes slower than last week and 13 minutes slower than my personal best. I thought training was meant to make me quicker???!!!!!!

Still, in the end I managed 24km, although I did have to walk the final 1km but I expect there will be some walking in the final race as well.

Over the last few weeks I have been getting progressively more and more tired, but on the other hand I don’t really want to take a break from training with only 6 weeks, 6 days left until the race, and remember the final week of that is tapering down.

So this week it is all about little and often. Last week I did 18km in two biggish runs, but this week I am aiming to do around 25km spread over 4 visits to the gym, before having Saturday off. Then on Sunday it is the Silverstone half marathon!  The start line is the same as it is for the Grand Prix, so I am going to download The Chain by Fleetwood Mac and hit that as I go over the line!

You can keep track of my training by following @runningfatbloke on twitter. And remember, all this pain and suffering is in order to raise as much money as possible for the Willow Foundation, so please sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke. I only need another £309 to hit the £1,600 target!

More injuries, hills and a prize giving!

It has been a bit of a flat week so far, with injury and tiredness limiting my training activities.

Indeed, since last weekend’s longest ever run I have only managed to get in two training sessions and although I feel a bit guilty about missing out on at least one, if not two runs this week I think both my body and mind needed a bit of a break before what looks to be a busy couple of weeks for both training and just general stuff.

So, after having Monday off I went to the gym on Tuesday for a warm down from the weekend/warm up for the week ahead, and managed to get through 8km in around 43 minutes in a pretty uneventful session. I was actually feeling pretty good but had to see a man about a dog and ran out of time (pun intended).

Wednesday’s session was a fair bit more intense.  I was having a guitar lesson after work (see, more than one string to my bow) and in order to fit in some training I decided to run home from work. However, its only only around 3km from home to work, so I went a super long way round to extend it out to 10km.

Now, I work in the middle of central London, near the river, so not only did I have to go uphill for the majority of the run, but I also had to deal with loads of people making their way home, not really looking out for a fat bloke in a bright yellow shirt running along. This meant I had to do a fair bit of dodging and diving and this, coupled with the hills (especially running up Pentonville - see picture, copyright google I imagine) meant my 10km was pretty slow and hard work. 

Still I got though it and had a pretty good lesson afterwards. However, the injury on the side of my left foot is still there and I was in quite a lot of pain yesterday after a 10 hour stint at work, with no time for a lunch break. Given the pain and the tiredness I thought it best to have the evening off. On top of this I think I have got another cold, with my glands all swollen although I have not got the runny nose or sore throat yet. 

Anyway, this evening (Friday) is a rest day before tomorrow’s frankly massive run, giving me and excuse to eat loads of pasta bake tonight. The plan is do to just over 25km (15.5 miles) and hopefully this should only take me around 2 and a half hours, maybe a touch less. At this stage though it is predicted to rain, which could be interesting but at least it will mean there are less people around to get in my way!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great weekend and if you are also a runner you achieve what you are attempting.

Oh, and please SPONSOR ME! I am getting really close to my target now and when I reach it I will give out a random prize (price to be decided) to someone that helped me get there! You can make a donation at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke. I am raising money for the Willow Foundation, which provides special days to seriously ill young adults. I am most likely to just pick a name out of a hat. Warning: Could be some smelly running socks.

Furthest ever run

Sorry for the lack of a blog yesterday, I was just too snowed under to actually get anything non work related done.

So, since my last blog on Friday the injury front has changed a bit. I did manage to get down the gym after work and get though 7km with a bit of a sore knee, but it was generally ok, albeit at a slow pace.

Come Saturday afternoon and following a morning shopping at Borough market (managed to get some Monteith’s larger from NZ, lovely stuff) I hit the road determined to run for longer than I had at the half marathon the week before, although maybe not at quite the same pace.

I also had a new route picked out, running down the Regent’s Canal from Haggerston to Limehouse, then back through the city to Fleet St, up to Kings Cross, then to Angel, Highbury and Islington, Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, Dalston and back to Haggerston, 23km in all, 1.7km more than the half marathon the week before.

I thought running along the canal would be good as there are no traffic lights but the sheer amount of other runners, plus people drinking outside pubs, walking along with prams and on bikes (pedestrians have right of way) made it much more difficult than just running on the pavement. Likewise the tourists at St Paul’s cathedral were an annoyance. Everyone should get out of my way, I am training to run a marathon you know!

I also lost a bit of time quing to buy a drink on my way round as I didn’t really want to carry water. In the end it took me around 10 minutes longer to cover the half marathon distance and then a further 10 minutes to get through the additional 1.7km, so I was defiantly slowing towards the end, although I had not prepared for the run nearly as well as I had for the race the week prior.  In the end I got round in 2 hours, 16 minutes, which is not bad but I need to pick up the pace a little as well as learn how to run longer.

Unsurprisingly I decided to have Sunday off, especially after walking to the football when I noticed that the outside edge of my left foot seemed to hurt a lot.  Indeed, I continued to be in some pain all through yesterday, and thought it might be wise to give myself two days off to recover, although I will be back down the gym again tonight for a slowish run but I have no idea how far I will be able to go.

If you are impressed that I have even managed to get this far then you can sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke, where I am raising money for the Willow Foundation, which provides special days to seriously ill young adults.

Injury scare

Hello peeps,

Sorry I have not blogged since Monday, but I have had a bit of an injury scare and not done much training this week.

So, on Monday I hit the gym just to do 5km in no particular rush, just as a warm down from Saturday’s half marathon. I felt a big heavy legged but other than that ok, which bodes well for the race etc. So far, so good.

However, on Tuesday night I was playing football. We drew the first match 1-1, mainly thanks to an outstanding effort from goalie Geri rather than any good defending from me. However, in the second match I seem to have buggered my left knee.  This is the knee I tore the medial ligament in a few years ago, which caused me a lot of issues at the time as well as a shedload of physio. 

In my training so far I have been waiting for it to flair up again, but until this week all has been well.  However, after a bit of argy-bargy, it was a drop ball, with me defending and the attacker walloped it right into the underside of my foot, jarring my knee.  This meant that Wednesday’s planned 10km was off, as at times it was painful to walk on it and I didn’t want to aggravate what could be a serious issue.

I was still in pain on Thursday but I don’t want to lose the fitness I have worked so hard to build up so far, so despite an ache I decided to go for a slow, gentle 7km on the treadmill and if anything could go wrong I could stop immediately and then just go home. Thankfully, although it did feel a bit sore the run seemed to do more harm than good and today my knee feels much closer to normal, so I am going to have a crack at 8km tonight. If that goes well, then I might have a go at 20km plus tomorrow afternoon, although the weather and not just my knee has to hold out for that.

If you are impressed that I have even managed to get this far then you can sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke, where I am raising money for the Willow Foundation, which provides special days to seriously ill young adults.

Woah, I'm half way there!

First half marathon down!

Yes dear reader, I managed to get through the first half marathon of the training plan, getting through 21.30km (13.1 miles if you are old school) in 1 hour, 58 minutes and 38 seconds, smashing my previous personal best of 2 hours, 14 minutes, 59 seconds in the process. 

But bugger me was it cold.  The course was four and a bit laps of Dorney lake, just outside Windsor.  It is actually going to be used for the Olympic rowing and was just a big, open area. Which means there was absolutely no shelter from the wind at all  (see photo).   

Indeed, everyone else was there in their long sleeves and running tights, but I was just in my standard running shirt and shorts. At one point the wind was so strong I was actually running at an angle to make sure I stayed upright.

The race got underway at 10.15 as loads of people were stuck in the car park, by which time I was even colder.  I decided to stick with the 9 minute mile pacer, which should bring me home in 1 hour 58 minutes, but after the first lap she was defiantly going faster than that, with my GPS watch telling me that at ¼ distance we had only been going for 28 minutes, giving a finish time of 1 hours 52. To be honest I was just aiming to beat my previous best and decided to let the pacer go, slowing to catch a drink (not a proper one though. Not yet).

The second lap was no great problem either and aside from slowing a few times to have something to drink I was carried on motoring round. Now though I was starting to get really bored – it is a big open lake, there is not much to look at and by now the crowd had thinned out a lot so I was more or less running on my own. Apart from when I was lapped by the eventual leader. Yes, that’s right, lapped already, although no one else overtook me for a while.

By lap three I was starting to flag a bit, so had a couple of Jellybabies to cheer myself up a bit and I carried on plodding round. Looking back at my split times it was around here that I dropped from doing 1km in 5 minutes 25 seconds ish to 5.35 but I was still keeping up a decent pace.  Indeed, as I crossed the line to start the final lap I realised I had 33 minutes to do it in and still come in at less than two hours, which was a good jobs as the final 3km were pretty difficult – I was just running out of energy.  Still, it didn’t stop me absolutely hooning over the line, overtaking around 20 people in the process to set my time.

The tops of my knees/bottom of my thighs hurt a bit after the race but once I got my breath back I was feeling surprisingly ok, though the thought of doing 8 laps, which is what the marathon would be, plus hills is something I am still not that comfortable with.

Still, a decent time achieved and I went to a fancy dress party on Saturday night as the young Indiana Jones before getting to bed around 3am.  My legs and right shoulder were still sore and tight on Sunday morning but today I am feeling back to normal, and should be heading to the gym after work for a slow 5km as a warm down before football tomorrow and something a bit longer on Wednesday.

If you are impressed that I have even managed to get this far then you can sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke, where I am raising money for the Willow Foundation, which provides special days to seriously ill young adults.

Aggggggggggggggg half marathon TOMORROW!

Right, the first real challenge of the training I have done so far arrives tomorrow, with the first half marathon of this year. I am doing the Race Your Pace half, round the Olympic rowing centre, just outside Windsor.  It is a totally flat course of four laps round the lake.  In addition there are pacers, so I am going to find the guy who is running a nine minute mile and stick to him like glue.

“Ah”, I hear some of you say, ”is that not a slower pace than your training, which has been around 5.30 mins per km?”  Well, yes, you would be right.  5.30 is roughly 8.30 in miles, meaning I can either go with the 8m minute pacer or the 9 minute one. Since I reckon I would struggle to keep up with the 8 minute one for the whole distance, and I have not run this far since last Sept, I have decide to go with the 9 minute one. If I can stay put then I should still beat my previous personal best of 2 hours, 14 minutes, 59 seconds and also slide in just under two hours.

So, I am staying at my Mum’s tonight before going to the race tomorrow, which starts at ten and could well feature lots of lovely rain. Joy. After that I am going home for a shower and sleep before driving to Oxford for a 30^th birthday party, which could be interesting.

It has not been a great week training wise though.  I was feeling really tired on Monday and so though it might be best if I stayed away from the gym and instead had some rest. I balanced this off somewhat with a fairly quick 10km on Tuesday after work and then 6.5km on Wednesday, although this was much slower. 

I had also planned to go to the gym last night (Thursday) but am still feeling a little coldy and didn’t want to scupper this weekend’s run, so stayed at home and ate a huge amount of pasta instead. I have also had pasta for lunch today and guess what is for dinner tonight?!!

Please remember that I am putting myself through all this to raise money for the Willow Foundation, as well as getting less fat. You can sponsor me at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runningfatbloke and to all the people who have already done, so, thank you, it is very much appreciated and is spurring me on to train.