The Manchester cross country season began on Saturday at the enormous Heaton Park.
Despite only being two weeks after my marathon I was feeling pretty good so decided to give it a go. I had ordered some spikes for the occasion and had successfully pushed them to the limit and beyond at a muddy park the day before so was keen to get stuck in to a race.
The men's race consisted of 3 laps of a 2 mile loop. The first six finishers from each club count towards the score so my goal was to be one of the scorers.
At the start almost everyone sprinted off down the hill except me who just jogged down sedately! There I am in the picture near the bottom left in a green vest behind an older guy in a green sweatshirt.
Once the pace had settled down I overtook three or four club mates and then very gradually worked my way through the field doing about 7:20 minute miles. I was expecting to do 7 minute miles but the mud does slow you down a bit and maybe that marathon was still in my legs.
Near the start of the second lap I was told that I was in about 190th place. Would I be able to work my way into the top half of the field at least? I overtook about another 10 people on that lap and then another 20 on the final lap.
Near the end of the course there is a steep short hill and then it levels out for the last 100 metres or so. The cheering crowd gave me a surge of energy and I shot past about 10 people to finish in position 155 out of 343. This was the top half of the men's race but in the bottom half of my age category. Hmmm no likey. However I came sixth in my club so achieved my primary goal.
All in all a fun afternoon and a great turnout from the Bramhall Runners with 15 in the men's race alone!
Eighteen weeks of training, countless early starts and a worn out pair of trainers culminated in my first marathon last Sunday.
I told people that I wanted to do it in 3 hours 20 but secretly I wanted to do it in 3:15. Based on a half marathon PB of 1:33 and a successful training period it should be possible.
Chester dawned sunny and still; perfect for spectators, possibly getting a bit hot for the runners.
After failing to get in the main car park before it closed I found another one nearby, got changed, dropped off my bag and got in the queue for the portaloos. Then after some jogging and light stretching I got into the start queue. I was starting to feel hungry at this point and wondered if I should have had more breakfast but then decided to dismiss such pointless thoughts.
The horn went and I started off behind the 3:30 pacers as my plan was to do the first 6 miles at 8 minute mile pace and then do the rest at 7:30 pace. After winding our way through Chester for a few miles we then headed out South into the countryside. Plodding along behind the pacers felt comfortable and even if I had wanted to get past them it would have been a struggle as there was a big crowd of people behind them.
At the 6 mile point I picked up a bottle of Lucozade and overtook the pacers. Time to start working!
The next 9 miles were fun. Keeping to a pace of about 7.30 minutes per mile I overtook hundreds of people. My race position went from about 900 to about 500. I felt a slight energy dip at mile 13 and felt great again at mile 15. In retrospect this was probably due to the gradient of the road.
By mile 16 things were starting to feel hard. My Mum and sister had come out to cheer me at this point and this gave me a lift. However by mile 18 my pace had almost dropped to 8 minute miles again.
Just after mile 20 I had to take a comfort break. This wasted about a minute and afterwards I realised I was on the death march. I had no energy! My pace was a pathetic 8:30 min/mile and the whole course felt like it was uphill.
At the 24 mile point there was a real hill and this sapped all my remaining energy. At the top of the hill the 3:30 pacers sailed past me. If only I had stayed with them all along! It was now just a question of whether I would get under 3:30 myself.
The support on the last 2 miles was great but I was lost in my own world. Finally the route turned onto the racecourse and the crowd here was fantastic but I had nothing to offer. Picking up the pace slightly towards the finish line my calves started cramping and I had to run like a robot, trying not to bend my knees.
Finally I crossed the line and collapsed on the grass. The clock had gone past 3:30 but my chip time was 3:29:48! Phew!
One of the best things about a marathon is the feeling of being able to stop running and rest! This I did, lying on the grass until a steward encouraged me to move on.
After a massage from my physio sister we had a pleasant lunch in Chester and then I managed to drive myself home.
I am not sure why I didn't get the time I was expecting. It could have been a lack of endurance in my legs, a lack of carbo-loading or the heat or most likely a combination of a number of factors.
In any case I have the marathon bug and I will be back!
Two weeks of taper complete and one week left.
Last week the schedule only called for four runs - what sort of nonsense is this?
However there were some hard sessions. Doing 3 x 1 mile at 5K pace requires some effort, especially if you end up doing them as fast as you can like I normally do. My first 1 mile effort was seconds away from 6 minutes flat - fast for me!
My 12 miles on Sunday almost ended in disaster. As normal I was pushing the pace at the end, getting my average pace down to eight minutes per mile. Running fast in the dark on bumpy pavements is not very sensible and about one quarter of a mile from the end of my run I went over on my right ankle. Fortunately my joints seem to be built of strong stuff and two days later my ankle is fine. Phew!
The obscure title of this post comes from a thought I had this morning when I did 2 miles at planned marathon pace as part of a 7 mile run. 7.30 min/mile pace has never felt so comfortable and I wondered if this is how gazelles feel when they are running? Probably not.
Wed: 5 miles recovery with 6 x 100m strides
Thu: 8 miles with 3 x 1 mile at 5K race pace
Sat: 7 miles recovery with 8 x 100m strides
Sun: 12 miles slow
Tue: 7 miles with 2 at planned marathon pace.
According to P&D (the writers of my training plan) long slow runs are supposed to be run about 15% slower than your planned marathon pace. So doing my 16 miler at the weekend only 5% slower than marathon pace, two weeks before the marathon might not have been the best idea. However when I started my run my legs wanted to run at 7:50 min/mile pace by default and I decided to keep that pace going for the whole run. I guess the tempo run the day before didn't tire me out enough!
Luckily I am only scheduled to do four runs this week so I have re-arranged the runs to get two rest days in a row and then I will be fine.
Last week's training:
Tue: 6 miles recovery
Wed: 8 miles with Bramhall Runners including 600m and 1000m intervals
Fri: 4 miles recovery with strides
Sat: 10 miles with 10K at tempo (6:50 min/mile)
Sun: 16 miles in 2:05
Last week was the final week of heavy training before the start of the 3 week taper. It culminated with a 20 mile slow run - the last really long run before the marathon.
The forecast was for a storm to blow in at about 8.30 am so I set off at 6 am to avoid most of it. As part of the run I was testing my nutrition strategy for the marathon so had 3 Lucozade gels and 3 bottles of Lucozade Sport Elite to work through!
Just before I started I took my first gel and drank some sports drink before setting off on a 5.5 mile loop, carrying the bottle. The aim was to finish the drink during the loop before arriving back home to pick up the next bottle.
This went perfectly. I finished the bottle just in time to put it in a bin, strip off a layer and arrive home to discard the layer and pick up the next bottle.
Now for an 11 mile loop where I was to work my way through the bottle and take 2 more gels. I took the next gel at about 11 miles and by the time I got to 15 miles I felt on top of the world! The gel had caffeine in it so that was probably responsible for my "high"!
At the end of the loop I took my last gel, picked up my last bottle and finished off with a 3.5 mile loop.
I am not sure if it was the nutrition or the training or both but this run was awesome. I completed it in 2:43, 6 minutes faster than my previous best at this distance. I felt pretty good at the end and could definitely have done another 6 miles. Chester here I come!
My other training:
Tue: 10 miles with 4 * 1200m intervals
Wed: 7 miles with the club including hills and 1 Km intervals
Fri: 11 miles slow
Sat: 4 miles slow
A new event in Stockport is the Foodbank 5.5K - a summer trail race in aid of the Foodbank charity.
The race is quite unusual in that the entry fee is £5 and a food tin of some sort!
The race has been held three times over the summer and has been a great success, raising over £1500!
I rustled up the money and a tin of baked beans in order to see what I could do at last week's edition. As the race is quite low key I had high hopes of a top 10 finish.
The first 2K of the race are next to a stream in Bramhall Happy Valley. After the initial sprint I settled behind a young boy and an older runner from my club who I was hoping to beat. I then overtook these two runners and settled behind an older guy who pulled me along at about 6:30 min / mile pace. After 2K you leave the valley, go up a short steep hill and then turn back along a road for a couple of kilometres before running back down into the valley and back to the start/finish line. During this whole period I kept the same place in the race - I had enough energy to keep up with the runners in front of me but no more.
I was happy with my finish time of 22:20 but this was only good for 13th place out of about 120 runners. If I had done the same time in the previous edition of the race I would have got fourth!
All in all a fun race. Hopefully it will be repeated next summer.
Last week's training:
Tue: 8 miles with 5 x 600m
Wed: 11 miles slow
Thu: Foodbank race
Sat: 11 miles with 7 @ half marathon pace. (The schedule called for a race so this was instead of racing.)
Sun: 17 miles slow
One more week before the taper!
The Sunday after Woodbank parkrun I felt weary so I did the 17 mile long run on Bank Holiday Monday instead. This went well, being completed in 2 hrs 20 mins.
On Tuesday I did 5 x 1000m intervals. I did them all in just under 4 mins which is a bit quicker than my 5K pace.
Wednesday was some more speed work with the Bramhall Runners, Friday was 12 miles slow and Saturday was 5 miles recovery.
Then it was time for the dreaded... 18 miles with 14 at marathon pace. (Aagh!)
This is possibly the toughest workout in the entire training schedule based on how shattered you feel afterwards.
Once again I did most of the fast miles on a park loop so I could just concentrate on running without worrying about hills and traffic.
I started with 2 miles warm-up and then it was time to start running at 7.30 min/mile pace. The first 7 miles were fine and then the pace gradually started to feel harder and harder. I starting having to speed up on the last 100 metres of some miles in order to complete the lap in time.
For the last 3 fast miles I was practically sprinting the last 100m to get under 7:30 minutes! However I managed to do all 14 miles faster than 7.30 pace (most were at 7:25 pace.) I was pretty chuffed about this but then...
The 2 miles warm-down were awful with me trudging along at about 10 min/mile pace. After a tempo run I find my energy levels start to rise again after about one mile's warm-down. No such luck this time. My legs had had enough of running and weren't going to be told otherwise.
When I finally got home I spent a large part of the next 3 hours sitting on the sofa shivering with a blanket around me!
However I eventually started to feel hungry (a sign that the body is starting to function again) and after a lot of food and a sleep I was more or less OK the next day.
I am not sure what possesses me to put my body through such gruelling sessions but it seems to cope! And no more long marathon pace runs for me until the day itself!
