The Fall of Rome.

As followers of this Blog are well aware, after failing to crack the holy grail of a sub-3 hour marathon in Rome last year, missing the target with 03:00:30  it was back to the drawing board this year with a new schedule & a couple of new training partners, both of whom had Championship starting places in London. Right, the good news is that I finished! Hurrah!! There now follows a short partially demented analysis of the race...


This year I was on the red 'good for age' start. After observing a 30 second silence in memory of those who suffered at last weeks Boston Marathon, the race started. My game plan was to try to run at an even 6:45/mi pace, which would have given me a 2:56:58 finishing time. However, being surrounded by faster club runners, I found myself getting dragged along far too fast and from thereon in I struggled to get a firm control over my pacing. In other words, I struggled to slow up until pain and cramp made me do so...

Passing so many sights is one thing - Greenwich, Cutty Sark, Tower Bridge etc. but what the pictures on the television can't convey is the cacophony of sound that, with the exception of the area around Billingsgate Fish Market, follows you for every step of the way; people cheering, banging thunder sticks, music blasting out, loud hailers, bands playing en route, it's just immense. I had my name printed on the front of my club vest and was, consequently, being name checked by all and sundry.

I felt good, almost too good and I passed the halfway in 1:24, however, by the time I passed the 17 mile mark and because of the early turn of speed I could feel my legs starting to stiffen and my feet were starting to hurt, presumably swelling in my shoes. I then began to have my very own 'Battle of Canary Wharf' as I battle both mental and physical pain. My mind was somewhat befuddled as I desperately tried to work out split times & paces in my mind, but I struggled on, doing the best that I could, and was only able to start to make a good guess at my finishing time, based on current pace and distance left, once I passed the 20 mile marker at 12:04pm - 6.2 miles at roughly 7:30(ish)./mi pace would take me about 50 minutes. Time to dig in and keep moving forward no matter how much it hurt. I jogged on along Embankment, focusing on reaching Big Ben where I knew that I would turn right & head down Birdcage Walk. Try as I might though, I just couldn't get my legs to turn over any quicker. In front of Buckingham Palace, where this time I had the presence of mind, unlike in 2007, to actually look at the place just before I turned right and headed down The Mall, finally crossing the finish line in 791st place with a time of 2:54:22, putting me in the top 2.5% of finishers!!!

My daughter sent me a text to say that she'd seen me finish on the telly & that I looked like I was going to cry. Just to let her know - I did shed a little tear, and with good reason too. It took a great deal of work to get where I now am and I am still amazed that I managed it...

After collecting my finishers medal, goody bag, and my personal belongings, I dug my mobile phone out of my bag and ignoring all the text messages for a moment, as promised, one of the first people I rang was Jaykee Boy to give him the good news. Within minutes I had met with both him and MattEll, and their respective partners, offspring etc, on the grass, in the shade, under some trees for a catch-up and to share news etc. before MrsC joined us to complete our little gathering. After that, it was back to our hotel for a well earned rest and recuperation session...

Of course, the only way for me to celebrate is the same way that I did in Rome. Pizza & beer. First, a pizza & quick beer with MrsC then a celebratory beer or three with fellow club runners Fee & Mikee in Green Park.

No matter what I achieve in the remainder of my running career, this one will be forever in my memory...
The fall of Rome and the glory of London...
The end of the road and, alas, the end of my training blogs...
La fine.

 

 

 

Bring me that horizon...

Monday was a day of mixed emotions. I didn't run, as it was a scheduled rest day, and at lunchtime I clambered into the pool and, using floats between my legs to rest my lower limbs, put in 32 lengths. After work I had a good massage and leg stretching session. When I got home I sat in front of the laptop and watched the online coverage of the 117th Boston Marathon. I watched Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa cross the finishing line in 2:10:22, closely followed by Micah Kogo & Gebre Gebremariam, The ladies race was won by Kenyan Rita Jeptoo in 2:26:25 followed by Meseret Hailu & Sharon Cherop. I watched other runners coming across the line for another hour then, as MrsC was due home from her pre-natal exercise classes, I went out to the kitchen to cook tea. Less than half an hour later I received a text message from a friend to ask if I'd seen what was happening at the marathon. Slightly puzzled, I walked back into the living room and discovered the shocking events unravelling thousands of miles away... I was stunned by what I saw. It's difficult to describe the mix of raw emotions that I felt as I watched what should have been a celebration of hum endeavour and achievement turn into a scene of devastation...

The following day, Tuesday, the organisers of the Virgin London Marathon met with Police to review security measures in the aftermath of the bombings and Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe sought to reassure people the London race would be safe, saying that "We are reviewing our plans which is sensible... We will increase searching, we will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're safe. We've no reason to think they're any less safe than they were before the terrible events in Boston." Upon registration for Sundays London Marathon runners will be given a black ribbon to wear as a mark of respect for the people of Boston. The race itself will start after a planned 30 second silence and they are also being encouraged to put their hand on their heart as they cross the finishing line. Whatever happens, it's certainly going to be an emotional day for more than a few reasons...

The Bristol - Bath Railway Path (again)

Tuesday, with emotions still a bit raw from the news coming from Boston, and for some strange reason this tune stuck in my head on an internal loop, I put in a 10K run at lunchtime, once again incorporating the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, at an average pace of 6:48/mi (what?) and, after work, a pull-buoy assisted 26 lengths in the pool, as that was all I had time for. When I say that was all I had time for, the reason for this is that it doesn't feel as if I'm spending enough time with MrsC at the moment, so I wanted to get home and make sure that some of the chores were done, and her tea was cooked, so that she wouldn't have to do anything when she got home from work...

A road often travelled & a bridge often traversed...

One of the first training runs I did when I embarked upon my training schedule was with my running buddy, JaykeeBoy, and it seemed somewhat befitting the occasion that we met up on Wednesday lunchtime to put in one final pre-London run together. We chatted about the intricacies of race-day preparation & travel arrangements as the VLM is a large animal of a race & Jaykee knows all about my starting place as he was there himself last year. This year he will be on the elite start and should finish 15 minutes ahead of me. We ran our well trodden route out and around Compton Dando at an average pace of 7:00/mi, completing the 8 mile distance in 56 minutes, which was pretty good going considering the hilly nature of the route and the nasty headwind that seemed to blow against us throughout the run. At the conclusion of the run I expressed my thanks to Jaykee. He was gutted for me when I failed to crack 3 hours in Rome last year and he's been there offering both help & support to me since I embarked upon my London training, going out of his way to run with me and to cajole me along whenever I have found the going tough. To be fair, I could have done the training alone, but he's made it feel so much easier and he will be the first person, after the wife, who I phone after I've finished the race.

And so to Thursday. My last run before the big day. No work, thankfully, as the plan was to have a restful day before following in the footsteps of Dick Whittington and travelling to the big smoke. After waving the wife off to work I simply put in a steady 5 mile... No banging out a pace, just a steady jog and even slower on any uphill sections. Nothing more simple as that. When I finished I walked back into the house and reflected upon the journey that is so nearly at it's completion. It was quite an emotional moment to look back and realise just how far I have come and how far/hard I have pushed my 40+ body to get where I am now. Never have I been fitter and never have I been so mentally prepared for any task set before me.

So there you have it; my London Marathon training is complete, as are my training blogs. There's just on more left for to write, just to let you know how I got on...
At the outset of that journey I had so many plans and aspirations, and within 18 weeks, oh so many things have changed for me and the world in which we live... I've experienced the highs of brilliant runs, the lows of injuries, been battered and blown by some of the worst winter weather since the last ice age, and had more attacks from the gingerbread man than is good for anyones digestive system. No journey through life can follow the path that you set out on, all we can hope is that along the way we can bring love, joy, happiness, and friendship to those we encounter... The last four lines of Rudyard Kiplings 'If..' seem apt here:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

18 week marathon training schedule totals
Run miles: 1031.53
Swim lengths/metres: 1801/45025m
Sit-ups: 11520
Press-ups: 5760
Gingerbread moments: Off the bloody scale...

 



 

The Final Countdown.

I know that I'm nearly there. Fourteen weeks of training in freezing cold wind, rain, & snow - enough to ensure that a Martian Ice Warrior is frozen in time; forsaking much of what small amount of social life I have; starting work early in the mornings, in fact reorganising my entire working life to fit in longer lunchtime runs and/or swimming sessions; crawling off to bed at 9:30pm because I can no longer stay awake; being unable to remember appointment times and dates, but knowing every scheduled training mileage & split times for a week
in advance... But most of all - I am shattered. My body is fatigued, but to a point whereby I am struggling to stay asleep in order to let my body recover. It is no secret among athletes that in order to improve performance you've got to work hard. However, hard training breaks you down and makes you weaker. It is rest that makes you stronger... Thankfully, to compensate for the fatigue, I am blessed with the most welcome part of any marathon schedule - the taper.  Tapering is the most overlooked phase of marathon preparation. It basically means cutting back your training, so that your body can rebuild to peak strength, thus allowing your muscles to repair the micro-damage of intervals, your energy systems to store up glycogen, your body to overcome the chronic dehydration of hard training, and that last bit of tendonitis in your knee or ankle or hip to finally go away.

An effective marathon taper takes about 3 weeks, but a runners self-confidence is a fragile thing and our egos require the positive reinforcement of a hard workout every few days. Seriously, if we take a few days, let alone 3 weeks easy, we get withdrawal symptons... It's like runners PMT with tonnes of excess energy!! 

Tuesday saw an early start and busy day at work. I'm conscious that I'm having some time off of

work due to the marathon, to incorporate both pre and post race rest, so I'm trying to offset the workload that I will be returning to by getting as much done as possible before I go... I managed to fit in a small(ish) swim session during my lunchbreak before racing back off to the other side of Bath to attend to some urgent jobs.
Post work saw a return to the Whitehall track. The evenings session, for me, was to put in 2 miles (8 laps) as a warm up, 3x1600m at my 5K pace with 400m recovery laps, followed by a mile warm down. Unexpectedly, during the course of the evening, I even ran my fastest ever track mile - 5:28 !!! As expected, and as usual, it was a painful experience leaving me on my hands and knees at trackside gasping for air, but if you had told me six months ago that I could run that fast then I wouldn't have believed you...

A swap in schedule occurred on Wednesday lunchtime when I decided to run Thursdays 8 miles a day early and attacked the hills around Compton Dando with some work colleagues. As they are slower than myself I was able to call it an 'easy jog', enjoy the scenery, and smell the flowers along the way. For once there was no cold wind or rain. Instead it was pleasant in a Springtime kind of way that I had forgotten existed.
In the evening I was fortunate enough to get along to Easy Runner for an Adidas tech talk where I got to try out a pair of Boost running shoes. Suffice to say, they are good, very good, and I really would like a pair, although until they come down in price then I'm afraid that all I can do is wish.

 

The main reason that I had changed my routine was in order for me to honour a promise that I had made to two runners. Both had expressed an interest in joining the beginners group at Bitton Road Runners and I had said that I would meet up and run with one of them. Arrangements were made and I duly trotted off at a pedestrian 10/mi pace for a four mile route that was just above comfortable for my running partner. We chatted (well, alright, I chatted & she snatched words between breaths) and, hopefully, she enjoyed it even though it rained. It was nice to able to give something back to the running community. I must admit, I do like to tell beginners that I used to be an overweight, exercise hating, beer swilling, chain smoking, couch potato, and that I too started out in the beginners group. My point being that if I can improve and run better then anyone can...

The Pensford 10K in relief map form.

Friday has become, by tradition, 'Peppershells' day, when I give myself the opportunity to pit myself against the nasty gradient that can be found halfway around the Pensford 10K route. I will freely admit that this route truly does bring out the masochist in me. Traditionally this run is done as a group with others from the office, but on this occasion the others opted for a shorter 4 mile route. Far too short for my marathon ready legs. Rain threatened so I wore a gilet, which, as the run progressed, was a mistake as the sun came out and I started to overheat. I took off at a fair old pace and cracked off 7.64 miles in 52 minutes, inclusive of nasty hills. I got the chance to fully open up my legs on the final 2.5 mile downhill section. At one point I looked at my GPS and saw that I was running at sub-6 minute mile pace!!

All this moving runs around from one day to the next also allowed me to free up my weekend somewhat in order to give me something that I cannot remember doing for a long while - having a lie-in on a Sunday morning!
This was achieved by swapping Sundays longer 13 mile run with Saturdays 5 miler. Thus, early on Saturday morning I was up and out of the house in order to run from Kingswood, through Hanham, out to Keynsham, where I put in a loop of the Federated Estate, before heading to Bitton, along the Railway Path to Warmley, then back up to Kingswood and home. Thirteen miles in slightly less than 93 minutes.
After all the training worries I have experienced over the past few weeks, these two consecutive fast-paced runs I have now made quietly confident that I may just have cracked the ability to run a marathon at 6:50/mi pace.

So, onto Sunday and the bliss of a lie-in; although I class anything past 7am as a lie-in these days... A leisurely few hours was spent in bed before we relocated to Frenchay Common to watch, support, take photos of some of the participants of the Frenchay 10K run past. M&S & B&Q were visited later in the day before I ran 4.75 miles from home to Keynsham Leisure Centre, where I put in a very easy 32 lengths. Once again, to rest the legs I used floats.

So that's it. All I have to do for the next week is stay injury and stress free, eat lots of carbohydrates, and only do 'light exercise' In less than a week from now it will all be over. All being well I will have run up the Mall and crossed the finishing line in less than 3 hours and, after that, I shall be in a pub, somewhere near Euston Station, getting mildly drunk on Fullers London Pride, and demanding pizza. Incorporated within the rest of the long weekend will be sightseeing galore and getting reacquainted with my rapidly enlarging wife, who I have shamefully neglected whilst I have put myself through this training programme... And in a couple of months time the process of training for a marathon with start all over again as I look forward to Abingdon...

Weekly totals:

Run miles: 45.15

Swim lengths/metres: 167/4175m
Sit-ups: 640
Press-ups: 320

Two Weeks Notice

April Fool? Not according to those I run with...

Two weeks. In just two weeks time it will be April 21st and I will be in London attempting to join the top 2.9% of runners who finish in under three hours... With the exception of the numerous toilet stops, I've hit most of my training targets, put in the long runs, included a few longer distance races, gone way outside my comfort zone by running hard, high-tempo, track sessions, strengthened my cardio-vascular system with numerous swimming sessions,  and, as long as the taper goes well then there is no reason why I shouldn't achieve my sub-three marathon dream.

The week began on Monday the first of April. A Bank Holiday, a day of rest, and also April Fools Day. As the next Bank Holiday is not until May 6th, we had to put this one to good use. No matter as, in the baldy household, however, there is rarely such a thing as a day of rest. This was the day designated to put more of my assorted collection of Bristol Rovers football programmes and memorabilia  into boxes and store them in the attic, complete with notes to my kids saying things such as "sell this on E-Bay". This is being done systematically in order to make the space necessary for our impending arrival - there's only another five months to go...

Tuesday consisted of my usual coached training session in the Keynsham pool. My usual Coach was away so his replacement put us through some very different efforts, which left me quite out of breath. A change is as good as a rest, so they say, and when I finally climbed out of the pool I was glad of the rest as I was quite fatigued by it all. Funny how I have the stamina to run mile upon mile, yet struggle to do an hour in the pool...
The evening Whitehall track session also had a touch of the 'short, sharp, shock' about it. Five 300m efforts, with a walked recovery of 100m, leading straight into twelve 200m efforts..!! Now, as a long distance runner, this hurt me - especially with an icy cold headwind to be found on the top bend... Concentrating more on form (head up, body straight, arms and legs going through full motion range) than on speed, I actually surprised myself with what I did manage, managing the last 200m effort in a, for me stunning, 33 seconds!

Mangotsfield before the arrival of the cycle path

Wednesdays lunchtime run was, once again, a group affair. I met up with MattEll and JaykeeBoy, who also set the route, and thus the three soon to be London Marathon runners trotted out of Keynsham into an all too familiar cold headwind. We headed up the ring road path uphill towards Warmley chatting as we ran at a fairly easy pace. Once we reached the old station platform at Mangotsfield we turned right, heading back towards Bitton and, ultimately, back to Keynsham. A very pleasant 12.2 miles that passed all that much quicker by the incessant banter that flowed throughout the run. As I've said before, get a group of runners together and they'll chat all the way throughout the run...

Strangely, on Thursday lunchtime, when I went for a rather pleasant, short, and, as always, freezing cold, five mile jog with MattEll, my legs made a complaint. There was evident discomfort in my calves and my hamstrings. It was as if the muscles had tightened overnight, causing them to shorten, and therefore not allow me to fully extend my lower limbs. Why? I have no idea. All I know is that they were tight and painful. It was only a short run but I was glad when it was over. So were my limbs. Thankfully I already had an appointment for a sports massage, later that very afternoon, so I was able to ask for extra attention to be paid to specific places.
In order to give my legs as much rest as I possibly could, and despite it actually being quite nice outside due to a drop in wind speed, I elected to miss the 5 mile run scheduled for Friday lunchtime. Instead I put in a swim, with pull-buoys to allow to rest my legs further, and spent a pleasant half an hour giving my upper body a relentless workout instead.

Weather forecasters had predicted a warmer, less windy, Saturday; and they were right. Unfortunately, at 7:30am, when I went out for an 11 & a bit mile run, it was still bloody freezing. I really cursed the schedule, the earliness of the day, the loss of yet another Saturday morning lie-in, the temperature and, the tiredness of my body, as I left the house and made my way towards Hanham. I also had cause to demonstrate my extensive non-politically correct grasp of verbal utterances whilst out for my run. There was the driver in Keynsham High street who pulled up onto the footpath in front of me in order to get to the cash point, then opened his car door just as I was going past... There was the cyclist who nearly mowed me down at Bitton Station... There was the anus of a dog walker who tried to admonish me for calling him rude names when I became entangled in his stupid effing extendable dog lead... Then, best of all, was the taxi driver, in Kingswood High Street, who pulled out of a side junction in front of me, then stopped and tried to execute a three-point turn, whilst completely blocking the road, and only stopped reversing at me when I hit the boot of his car & question both his eyesight and his parentage... Apart from that, I was quite happy with the run, especially the seven-minute average mile pace. (I wonder if I can get a part in the next series of Grumpy Old Men..?)
Talking of being old, here's a tip for you - never go looking at prams & pushchairs with both your partner and one of your teenage kids, as I did on Saturday afternoon. It confuses the crap out of shop assistants who don't know who's buying a pram. "Is it for yourself?" they ask, whilst looking from wife to daughter and back again. Then they turn to me and ask, "or are you shopping for your grandchild..?"

Because lie-ins are for 'normal people'

Sunday equals run day, and the taper was in full view this week as the mileage took another drop. Just 17 easy miles were on the cards and I was to meet up in Brislington, once again, with JakeeBoy, who had put the route together. It was freezing cold when we started out, as it always seems to be of late - I can only hope that the mornings will become a bit warmer over the next 14 days. From Brislington it was a short 2 mile run to Keynsham, where we met up with MattEll. Strange to think that in just two weeks from this run the three of us would be lining up on the London Marathon start line on Blackheath Common. We jogged through Keynsham, through Willsbridge, and, after getting onto the Bristol-Bath Railway Path at Bitton, we headed towards Bristol. What I love about running with others is the wide range of conversations that are to be had. During this particular run we covered subjects such as 'nimbys' not wanting a pub to be built, the weather, marathon start lines and pacing groups, types of prams & car-seat, extendable dog leads, osymetric/elliptical chainsets, Lance Armstrong & Marco Pantani, rave parties, and the narrowness of Adidas running shoes... Once we reached the end of the Railway Path we looped around Temple Quay, Castle Green, Welsh Back, & St Mary Redcliffe Church, before heading along the Greenway Path alongside the river back to our starting point, whereby both Jaykee and myself curtailed our 17.25 mile run in a time of 2:05:57, whilst MattEll carried on back to Keynsham from whence he had come.

So, that's it; another week over, another training week complete, and every step taken is another step closer to London. Bring it on.

Weekly totals:

Run miles: 54.13

Swim lengths/metres: 82/2050m
Sit-ups: 640
Press-ups: 320
Gorgeous Gravida: 1

One Last Peak & a Torq Wrench...

As far as weeks go, this was an emotional one running wise. It saw the last of the long training runs, it saw kit malfunctions, stomach malfunctions, lots of the Compton hills, lots of quad pain, and lots of the emotional roller coaster that comes from prospective parenthood... All of this had to be fitted around my full time job, looking after a constantly sleepy/feeling sick missus, the return of Doctor Who to BBC1, and other social events... I'll be glad when this marathon lark is over so that I can have a proper rest... Oh, hang on, I can't... I almost forgot that I have two 10K races, a half marathon, & a sprint triathlon booked in for May... Sometimes I just don't help myself.

As usual, Monday was a rest day. Not as usual, I did just that. I rested. Completely. No running and no swimming. Not even a quick paddle with floats. Niente. And I was still knackered. So knackered in fact that in the evening, when I put my headphones on to listen to a Doctor Who audio adventure, I didn't make it to the end and fell asleep...

Shame on me for thinking of saying yes to Chamonix. 

Also on the Monday, I received an e-mail from energy gel manufacturer Torq Fitness who said "Thank you for applying to be part of the TORQ Trail Team 2013. Trying to pick from hundreds of talented runners wasn't an easy job - so our sincere congratulations to you for making the selection! We are delighted to confirm that you have been selected to attend the London assessment day this coming Saturday 30 March." WOW! How good is that? The chance to join a professional racing team for a year, to train with them, have access to their professional set-up, free kit and race entries - who would be fool enough to say "no" to the chance of winning that??? Well, me... Since applying to become part of their team, my circumstances have changed somewhat, so, if I was successful in getting through the assessment day, I wouldn't really have been too happy to leave my pregnant wife behind whilst I was running around Chamonix etc. and, therefore, I am going to had to decline their invitation. Bugger. (Don't worry, I'll ensure that she never forgets what I sacrificed for the sake of her & our unborn child. I'll remind her constantly...)

At my weekly Tuesday lunchtime coached swim session I told myself that I wasn't going to work too hard and tire myself out. Whilst I want to work as hard as I can to make myself as fit as possible, I don't want to have no energy left when it comes to running, which is, after all, my main pre-occupation. At the end of the day, I started swimming to make me a better runner, not the other way around... I know that I've been struggling with my training of late, but, to tell the truth, I am the wrong side of forty, and I'm now on week 15 of an 18 week training schedule. If the training schedule hadn't made a mess of me then I'd have thought that I'd not been trying hard enough. I always knew that training harder, putting in the speed work, and getting out of my comfort zone, wasn't going to be easy. But, thankfully, after this week, the mileage and levels of intensity start to drop and the taper down towards London begins...
The Whitehall Athletics Track was cold in the evening. Perishing cold. With a freezing headwind blowing across the top bend. Lovely. After a few 'warm up' laps of the track, we moved in to the core of the nights schedule - 6x1200m at 10K pace with 400m jogged recovery. Ooh, don't I just love the lactic burn in my legs..? Err, no. I held it together quite well, logging reps of 4:13/4:18/4:20/4:21/4:20/4:17 along the way which surprised me a. because of the consistency, and b. because I managed, after starting out too fast and tiring in the middle, to bring things back up to speed at the end.

The following day I took full advantage of my employers flexi-time system by starting work early, taking a long lunch break in order to fit in a long run, then working later than usual in order to make up the missing time. This would then allow me to take off-spring number three out for a meal in the evening to celebrate her impending 19th birthday.

Compton Dando by WJ Muller (c)Tate Gallery

The previous evening JaykeeBoy had told me that he was working in Keynsham for the day, so we arranged to meet up and run together. A late inclusion was fellow club runner/speed merchant, MattyEll who joined us as a chance to squeeze in another run. And so it was that three lycra clad runners ran a somewhat hilly 11 miles around the hills of Compton Dando and special-guest venue Hunstrete, in very cold conditions. We only really noticed the bitingly cold wind as we crested the numerous hills, or choked on the odd snow flurry, but when we had finished all exposed areas of flesh were on the rather wind-burnt side of red raw.

Thursday came and, like the proverbial Weeble, I had a little bit of a wobble... I got into work early as I intended to run for 14 miles in my lunchbreak. Unfortunately, circumstances caused me to get stuck in the office longer than I intended and, consequently, I didn't get out for a run as early as I had wished. "Never mind", I thought, "I'll just do as much as I can..." I headed out on the same route as the previous day, with the intention of adding in another 3 mile loop of Compton Dando & Hunstrete. However, after roughly 5 miles I looked at my Garmin 205 GPS which said that I had only run 1 mile - in 25 minutes... Then it went blank. I managed to get it working again (press all the buttons at the same time to reset the system) but I could no longer trust it. Something will have to be done to address this situation before I head to London...To ensure that I was assured of the distance run, I cut out the extra 3 mile loop and stuck doggedly to the previous days route. With roughly 3 miles of the run left to go, another problem came to the fore - the pain in my right quadriceps flared up. By the time I got to Keynsham Leisure Centre at the end of the run it had tightened up significantly. So much so that tackling the stairs to and from the changing rooms was quite a painful experience. The answer? Swallow some Ibuprofen with coffee and rest. I also took the decision not to run on Friday...

I did some exercise on Good Friday though. I swam in the morning and traipsed around shops in the afternoon, test driving prams... Luckily I don't think I'll be needing the 'L plates' this time around...

Hicks Gate: a non-magical roundabout

As there was Hanham Horror type things for me and MrsC to do on Saturday afternoon, and most of Sunday, it was decided upon that my final pre-London long run should be done on the Saturday morning. A warm looking sun type thing shone in the sky when I drew back my curtains in order to help wake up the slumbering MrsC the next morning. Unfortunately it was only warm looking inside the house. It was perishing freezing outside. Minus two apparently...  As the rapidly expanding MrsC is no longer up to cycling along with me during my long runs, I gave her a set of directions, along with a list of stopping places, and she drove around the route to provide water stops and moral support. I ran from our house in Kingswood, through Hanham, and down to  Hicks Gate. From there I climbed all the way up through Keynsham, before meeting MrsC at the 7 mile mark, before I dropped down to Publow. From there I passed through Woollard, where I once again met MrsC, and took a circuitous route to Compton Dando, where Mrs C was once again waiting with refreshment. From there it was a steep climb up Fairy Hill followed by an undulating road through Chewton Keynsham, to Keynsham itself. Once back in Keynsham I followed the back road to Saltford, then dropped down onto the Bristol-Bath Railway Path, ran through Bitton, and finished, finally, 19.5 miles after I had left home, at Warmley Station, where MrsC was waiting to take me home...
After some much needed rest, recuperation, coffee, and incinerated hot cross buns, the afternoon was spent, in my role as a Lead Marshall, walking around a third of the Conham Valley, marking out the course for the following days Hanham Horror race. (Fact of the week: The lock at Hanham was the first to open when the Avon was made navigable in 1727. It is also the first lock of over 100 on the Kennet & Avon Canal that connected the region with London and beyond in the early 1800s.)



Drawing a Vale over Conham...

Lionel Ritchie sang about being 'easy like Sunday morning...' It's alright for some... I seriously cannot remember the last time that I had an easy Sunday morning. For me, this Sunday was no different from any other. MrsC and I was up early, in the car, and heading back out to the Conham Valley whilst the early morning sun was struggling to find any semblance of warmth. The temperature was minus four degrees as I began to around run my section of the course, putting out directional arrows and 'caution runners' signs. When we were done we headed to the Race HQ for a quick cup of coffee and for me to gather the troops before they went out to their marshalling points. I followed them out to the course, ran another loop to ensure everyone was okay and in the right place etc. then headed back around again in order to watch/support the runners coming through. A friend of mine, Dan, staggered past, aiming expletives at me because I'd talked him into running, complaining about blistered feet, so I jogged 1/4 of a mile with him, before stopping to chat to other Marshalls. I saw him after the race and, although he had butchered/blistered feet, he promised that one day soon he would join BRR. After I'd finished my third loop I was now behind the last runner. The Marshalls cleared their position as soon as the last runner passed them, leaving me to 'sweep up' behind them collecting in marker tape, missed signs, stray rubbish etc. By the time I was finished and ready to return to the Race HQ, my Garmin was telling me that I'd managed, over the course of the morning, managed to run over 13 miles!
After cake and beer at Race HQ the rest of the day truly was a rest. And, with a taper in training, as mileage and intensity of runs begin to recede in the run up to London, rest and recovery is something that I fully intend to make the most of.

Weekly totals:

Run miles: 63.7

Swim lengths/metres: 86/2150m
Sit-ups: 640
Press-ups: 320
Sleeping Beauties: 1