An old proverb reads that "No one is so powerful that they can stop the march of time as time and tide wait for no man..." This, unless you are Doctor Who, is very true and, like King Canute, you'll look a prize lemon if you tried to halt either time or tide... However, if you approach things in the right way, you can achieve more within a certain timespan - like running a race in a shorter period of time. Or using a vortex manipulator to travel within your own timeline. Although, of course, there is a possibility that doing so could rip a hole in the fabric of time and space. A hole the size of Belguim...
Which rather leads me to the week that was. The week that saw the end of 2012 and ushered in a New Year. Yes, I know that all that technically happened was another Gregorian Calendar year rolled by but, to me, the celebrating of a new year makes a lot more sense than the ideal of Christmas. Or the Governments idea of a fair and equal society for all.
Which rather leads me to the week that was. The week that saw the end of 2012 and ushered in a New Year. Yes, I know that all that technically happened was another Gregorian Calendar year rolled by but, to me, the celebrating of a new year makes a lot more sense than the ideal of Christmas. Or the Governments idea of a fair and equal society for all.
So, how did I celebrate the passing of another year? Hmm... Well, on New Years Eve I got in a good 40 length swim session at lunchtime, queued a stupid amount of time for a cuppa at Coffee#1 in Keynsham, watched four episodes of the DW: Series Five BoxSet, ate a lovingly prepared vegetable linguine, and had an early night... (Not exactly the rock & roll lifestyle that I dreamed of in my youth.) Well, I did have an excuse of sorts. I was on call-out (again) and was also racing my now traditional New Years Day race - The Hangover 10K.
The negative vibes returned for another go at me the following day. At lunchtime I struggled to find the enthusiasm to swim. I was going to pack in when I hit the 20 length mark, but something deep inside me made me carry on until I hit the 32 length barrier. How I got there I don't know, and frankly I don't care how I got there - I'm just happy that I got there. However, what I forgot completely was that I don't normally swim on a lunchtime if I've got a long run planned for the evening... (This poor bit of planning came back to bite me on my arse as the post-work run had some mentally dark moments.)
It was cold & damp that evening. My legs still ached from the previous days 11 miles, and my stomach kept doing an impression of a Hotpoint washing machine on a spin cycle. I didn't enjoy the run from the moment I stepped outside the front door. Wearing more reflective clothing and lights than your average pavement cyclist I managed a trudging four & a half miles before Burger King came to the rescue. Gratefully I utilised their lovely warm, and (for once) clean lavatories. Later, at the 7 mile mark, I met up with MrsC, who was cycling home from work, and, I must admit, I was grateful for her company. Just as Jaykee had done on the previous Sunday, we chatted about everything and anything as I ran and she cycled. Once again this really helped to take my mind off the task at hand and the miles (slowly) clicked by. I, for some strange reason, developed a food craving during this run and, after 13.5 miles, when I finally made it home I was able to gorge myself with a delicious goats cheese & runner bean chutney sandwich (Yeah, I know, sounds strange, but I've never had a craving before) before diving into a warm bath. A lovely warming bowl or two of home-made soup & a DW DVD double-header, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, worked wonders for cheering me up and invoked magical powers of recovery. Very much like temporal rift energy recharging the Tardis...
The very next morning, however, the demons were back on my shoulder to accompany me for a 5.5 mile recovery run. Now, the emphasis here is on the word 'recovery'. At 6am it felt more like 'purgatory'. Somebody may as well have tied my shoe laces together. I struggled round a familiar route at a speed that, for me, felt almost pedestrian, before finally making it back home for a belated bowl of porridge then heading off to work. After spending several hours climbing in and out of a ditch whilst working on a blocked culvert I thawed my feet out by putting in a small swim session during a late lunch break. Late afternoon saw me partake of a good, hard, sports massage, (think part massage, part mugging) which, thankfully, helped to breathe a little bit of new life into my tired limbs.
Post Script: To (finally) end this weeks Cecille B. DeMille epic of a blog, and to prove that I do think of my other half, let's go back to that nice bottle of Merlot that I won at the Hangover 10K. MrsC doesn't drink red wine, and I'm back on the old training wagon thus preventing me from drinking it myself. So I swapped it with another runner for a bottle of Chardonnay that MrsC could drink and then I gave it to her. Call it a consolation prize. God knows, I think she deserves one for putting up with me.
Swim lengths/metres: 150/3750m
Sit-ups: 256
Press-ups: 160
The Hangover 10K takes place in and around the village of Kewstoke, which for geography buffs stands on Sand Bay between Weston-Super-Mare and Sand Point... I've done this race a couple of times before (if you are a runner & are sober on New Years Day then I'd recommend it) so I knew what to expect - two loops around the village, one hill - attacked twice from opposite directions, a few country lanes, and two long stretches along the sea front.
I arrived early at the Race HQ, taking one of the few remaining spaces in the car park and, in order to get in my requisite mileage for the day, I set off for a two mile warm-up, making my first ascent of the hill, before sorting myself out for the start of the race. Ten minutes 'til the start and JaykeeBoy arrived, cutting it fine for time as ever...
All I can say about the race was that I found it tough. I thought that my body would warm up, but it didn't really do so as the cold wind blew in from the Bristol Channel and I struggled not to let the cold air too deep into my lungs through fear of having an asthma attack. At times, especially on the uphill sections which really seemed to take all the speed out of my legs, I felt as if I were really struggling to maintain any decent forward momentum. I could see Jaykee and another member of our club, RobF, in the distance and knew that I wouldn't be able to catch either of them as they seemed to be running well, and at a much better speed than I could muster. After the first lap I could feel the lactic build-up in my legs and, for a fleeting moment, seriously considered dropping off the pace and just jogging around in order to avoid recording a DNF... Just then I heard the effervescent MrsC cheering me on, which snapped me out of my meloncholic introspection. (Three big words in one sentence! It's just like being on Radio Four...) Running past her I think she could tell that I wasn't enjoying myself. It was probably the that I grunted the words, "I'm not f**king enjoying this" as I went past her that gave me away... Up the hill I went (again), past the 6K marker, downhill (again), and back into the country lanes for the last time. The last kilometre along the seafront saw a few people trading positions but, thankfully, I was able to maintain the speed just far enough for me to prevent others passing me. I knew that I'd pushed myself as hard as I could, for the moment I crossed the line, in 19th place, I began to retch. I wasn't physically sick, I just spent a good minute doubled up over a fence shouting for somebody called Hewie...
Once I was over that, and had drunk a cup of cold water, I felt a hell of a lot better. Which was handy as I still had a three mile warm-down to do... Accompanied by Jaykee & RobF, who had finished 8th & 15th respectively, we trotted off around the lanes again. We must have annoyed the living daylights out of the back of the pack runners who were still making their way around the course as we ran past them merrily discussing aspects of our own perspectives of the race, speeds, times etc. Up the hill we went for the final time, and back to the village hall for a well earned shower. My hard work was rewarded when at the prize-giving presentation I was awarded a really nice bottle of Merlot for finishing as 3rd MV40. (See the Post-Script at the end of the blog)
I arrived early at the Race HQ, taking one of the few remaining spaces in the car park and, in order to get in my requisite mileage for the day, I set off for a two mile warm-up, making my first ascent of the hill, before sorting myself out for the start of the race. Ten minutes 'til the start and JaykeeBoy arrived, cutting it fine for time as ever...
All I can say about the race was that I found it tough. I thought that my body would warm up, but it didn't really do so as the cold wind blew in from the Bristol Channel and I struggled not to let the cold air too deep into my lungs through fear of having an asthma attack. At times, especially on the uphill sections which really seemed to take all the speed out of my legs, I felt as if I were really struggling to maintain any decent forward momentum. I could see Jaykee and another member of our club, RobF, in the distance and knew that I wouldn't be able to catch either of them as they seemed to be running well, and at a much better speed than I could muster. After the first lap I could feel the lactic build-up in my legs and, for a fleeting moment, seriously considered dropping off the pace and just jogging around in order to avoid recording a DNF... Just then I heard the effervescent MrsC cheering me on, which snapped me out of my meloncholic introspection. (Three big words in one sentence! It's just like being on Radio Four...) Running past her I think she could tell that I wasn't enjoying myself. It was probably the that I grunted the words, "I'm not f**king enjoying this" as I went past her that gave me away... Up the hill I went (again), past the 6K marker, downhill (again), and back into the country lanes for the last time. The last kilometre along the seafront saw a few people trading positions but, thankfully, I was able to maintain the speed just far enough for me to prevent others passing me. I knew that I'd pushed myself as hard as I could, for the moment I crossed the line, in 19th place, I began to retch. I wasn't physically sick, I just spent a good minute doubled up over a fence shouting for somebody called Hewie...
Once I was over that, and had drunk a cup of cold water, I felt a hell of a lot better. Which was handy as I still had a three mile warm-down to do... Accompanied by Jaykee & RobF, who had finished 8th & 15th respectively, we trotted off around the lanes again. We must have annoyed the living daylights out of the back of the pack runners who were still making their way around the course as we ran past them merrily discussing aspects of our own perspectives of the race, speeds, times etc. Up the hill we went for the final time, and back to the village hall for a well earned shower. My hard work was rewarded when at the prize-giving presentation I was awarded a really nice bottle of Merlot for finishing as 3rd MV40. (See the Post-Script at the end of the blog)
It was cold & damp that evening. My legs still ached from the previous days 11 miles, and my stomach kept doing an impression of a Hotpoint washing machine on a spin cycle. I didn't enjoy the run from the moment I stepped outside the front door. Wearing more reflective clothing and lights than your average pavement cyclist I managed a trudging four & a half miles before Burger King came to the rescue. Gratefully I utilised their lovely warm, and (for once) clean lavatories. Later, at the 7 mile mark, I met up with MrsC, who was cycling home from work, and, I must admit, I was grateful for her company. Just as Jaykee had done on the previous Sunday, we chatted about everything and anything as I ran and she cycled. Once again this really helped to take my mind off the task at hand and the miles (slowly) clicked by. I, for some strange reason, developed a food craving during this run and, after 13.5 miles, when I finally made it home I was able to gorge myself with a delicious goats cheese & runner bean chutney sandwich (Yeah, I know, sounds strange, but I've never had a craving before) before diving into a warm bath. A lovely warming bowl or two of home-made soup & a DW DVD double-header, The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, worked wonders for cheering me up and invoked magical powers of recovery. Very much like temporal rift energy recharging the Tardis...
The very next morning, however, the demons were back on my shoulder to accompany me for a 5.5 mile recovery run. Now, the emphasis here is on the word 'recovery'. At 6am it felt more like 'purgatory'. Somebody may as well have tied my shoe laces together. I struggled round a familiar route at a speed that, for me, felt almost pedestrian, before finally making it back home for a belated bowl of porridge then heading off to work. After spending several hours climbing in and out of a ditch whilst working on a blocked culvert I thawed my feet out by putting in a small swim session during a late lunch break. Late afternoon saw me partake of a good, hard, sports massage, (think part massage, part mugging) which, thankfully, helped to breathe a little bit of new life into my tired limbs.
Fridays lunchtime run with work colleagues, around the hills surrounding Compton Dando, coupled with a relaxed post-work swim session, helped the restorative process of the mind (no nasty voices telling me to walk, that I'm too old to run fast, that I'm kidding myself that I can run sub-3hrs). Alas it did little for my sore calves and quads.The usual runners were all out to play, but there was also a surprise appearance from MattyL, a fellow club runner of mine, with a sub-2:45 marathon under his belt, who just happens to work in the office next to mine... Matt, who is also training for London, was doing a fairly similar run to me so we just sort of ended up going off the front and running together. The tempo was fairly high and we upped it to my marathon pace after 2.5 miles. What happened after that still bewilders me. It hurt. I felt like I was running harder than usual to keep up with Matt, who I also suspected was running easy to allow me to keep up with him. Up the steepest incline, Peppershells Lane, I even dropped into a quick walk for 30m, but I kept giving it as much as I could and was surprised to find that my legs were still able to turn over at a decent pace. Not as surprised as I was at the end of the run, however, when I discovered that not only had we done just over 10 miles (slightly further than I'd worked out) but 5 of the miles were at sub-marathon pace and the slowest mile was completed in 7:37 - going up the steep ascent when I'd walked a bit!!! I was absolutely gobsmacked, but very, very, happy with the session.
Saturday mornings early-morning 5.5 mile run, with the promise of a breakfast of tomatoes on toast upon completion followed by a return to bed (ahh, the classic carrot and stick approach) was purely another lesson in just getting out there and getting it done. As was Sunday too. Although nicely ticking off 15 miles, it also saw me working on the ascents, and cranking up the pace on the flat sections and descents. Once again I was accompanied by the indefatigable MrsC on her bike, who, although bemoaning the 7:40am start, admirably passed me drinks when I needed them, kept check on the pace, and, as always, kept me company during the run. Her reward? Scrambled eggs on toast once we'd returned home... An easy evening swim session and a few games of badminton rounded off my heaviest training week since July.Post Script: To (finally) end this weeks Cecille B. DeMille epic of a blog, and to prove that I do think of my other half, let's go back to that nice bottle of Merlot that I won at the Hangover 10K. MrsC doesn't drink red wine, and I'm back on the old training wagon thus preventing me from drinking it myself. So I swapped it with another runner for a bottle of Chardonnay that MrsC could drink and then I gave it to her. Call it a consolation prize. God knows, I think she deserves one for putting up with me.
Weekly totals:
Run miles: 64.03Swim lengths/metres: 150/3750m
Sit-ups: 256
Press-ups: 160
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