And the beat goes on...

With the Ironbridge half finished for 2009, my appeal for a fresh target drew only the suggestion that I move up to a full marathon, which was not quite what I had in mind. Firstly, to run twice the distance I would probably have to do twice the training, midweek runs of 3 & 4 miles become 6 & 8 miles, long Sunday runs of up to 2 hours would now take 4 hours, and I just don't fancy committing to that much time spent running. Secondly, my initial target was a podium finish in the over-60s, which would probably require a time of about 1:45. So, I had a time to aim for. The sort of target that I was looking for was more along the lines of a 4-minute mile, or make the Welsh team for the 2010 Commonwealth games. Bearing in mind how far my last target was from a world-class performance, and that I failed to achieve it, I probably need a more realistic goal!
Time rolls on, and the Telford Sexarathon starts with the Lilleshall 10km. Perhaps I should explain. The Sexarathon is a six-race series, one race a month from April to September, with an overall winner being the person who gains most points in the series - a bit like the F1 championship, but without the sponsorship.
My first clever thought was to save money by entering the series right at the outset, and get a discount for entering all 6 races - a bit like buy 5, get 1 free. But before I did that, I thought that I'd save another £12 by joining a club, and not paying the surcharge for being unattached. So I joined Telford Harriers. As an unemployed, it cost me £9, so I'm £3 ahead on that deal. In order to join, I went along on a club night, and joined a group going for a training run, including a woman called Lisa.
And last night was the Lilleshall 10km. I'd left it quite late to enter, what with waiting until I'd joined the Harriers, so I still hadn't received my number when I left just after 6 pm, got there to find parking was getting rather crowded, and I looked as if I'd left it a bit late. However, I found registration, got my number, got it pinned on, and still had time to spare when I got to the start. The race itself started uphill, then ran around the gardens of Lilleshall Hall. Very attractive gardens, but did we have to use those gravel paths? It's like running through sand. Then, we head out along the main entrance drive, passing kilometre markers as we go. I pass the 3 km in what looks like 16 minutes on my watch, and I do a quick conversion into 3 km = 2 miles = 8 minute miles = OK, then I remember that 2 miles is a bit further than 3 km, so it's not quite so OK. After all, I was running 8 minute miles for about the first 7 miles of Ironbridge. Then we go through 4 km in just over 20 minutes, about 5 minutes per km = 8 minute miles, so I'm feeling a bit better about my pace. Just then, the pace car comes the other way, reading 19 minutes. Obviously, we must have started just after 7 pm on my watch, and I'm well ahead of 8 minute mile pace. Also, the leader is now about 2 km ahead of me, and on course for what I worked out to be about 35 minutes. It turned out that he was on course for a much faster time, just over 31 minutes, winning by a clear 2 minutes. He was certainly well clear at that point.
One of the things about the sort of course that we were running, where we ran out from the hall along the entrance drive, turned around at the entrance gates, and then ran back, is that you can see how many people are ahead of you as they all come streaming past you before you reach the turning point. You also get to see how many people are behind you, including...a woman called Lisa. Plugging away uphill back towards the Hall, and it's starting to get a bit tough, even tougher when Lisa comes past me, asking if I'm allright!
It gets tougher still when we get back into the garden, and have to plough through those gravel paths again, but I keep going, encouraged by passing a youngish guy in Wrekin Road Runners strip, and finally pick up the style to cross the line in decent form, but with no big finish left in me.
Results were out today, and I finished 167th out of 276, my worst performance since Delamere in terms of the % of the field who beat me, in a time of 49 minutes 39 secs, which at 159% of the winner's time, is again my worst result since Delamere. On the positive side, I was 3rd 60 year-old, disappointingly only 10 seconds behind 2nd man, and I DID beat 5 minute kilometres for the entire distance, and the Lucozade site converted to a 1:49 half-marathon, nearly 4 seconds faster than the converted time for Action Heart, and the actual time for Ironbridge.
How do I square the "worst performance" figures from the start of the paragraph above with the "best performance" figures at the end? Firstly, the winner was 2 minutes clear of the field - I ran 150% of the 2nd man, much the same as Ironbridge. Secondly, this was a much more professional field, with much less of a turnout of "fun" runners. A final thought on Ironbridge, where my actual time was slower than that predicted by Action Heart: At Action Heart, I was so bushed that I had nothing left for a big finish, whereas at Ironbridge, I had saved something. It would seem that running at a steady pace, and finishing the race with nothing left is the way to get your best time (University of the Bleeding Obvious)
Now, the rest of the Sexarathon is shorter races, 3 & 4 milers, so it's down to speed training, and let's see if I can make up those 10 seconds...

The Last Post. Or is it?

Some more thoughts on the numbers...accountants rule, OK?
1/ After the Action Heart 5, my time there converted into 1:52:55 on the Lucozade website, and yesterday I only ran 1:53:09. The last few weeks of training didn't unlock a better performance, on the other hand, it was well within tolerance. And my time was 149.7 % of the winner, against 151.6% of the winner at Action Heart. It will, of course, take me forever - at that rate of improvement - to reduce my time to 100% of the winner!
2/ My time for the first mile was about 8 minutes, if fact for the first 5 miles I was averaging 8 minute miles (i.e. running this 5 miles pretty much as fast as Action Heart. Either I was running faster, or there's a lot of downhill up to this point (which is before the plunge down Coalbrookdale).
3/ I reckon that I was pretty much on 8 minute miles all the way to Coalport - about 7 miles, so that's 56 minutes, and the last 6.1 miles then took another 57 minutes - that's 9.34 minute miles. OK, it's a tough uphill slog from Coalport to Madeley, but I averaged 9 minute miles for the 4 miles from Coalport to Stirchley last weekend, so it looks as if I need to do something to supercharge my homeward leg - perhaps the Carbo Gel that I forgot made a difference?
4/ My charge over the last 200 yards gained me 14 seconds on Colin Pheasant, so if I had maintained that pace for the full 13 miles, it would have gained me - let's see, 13.1 miles is 23,056 yards, so divide by 200 and multiply by 14 gives me 1,614 seconds = 27 minutes. That's a finishing time of 1:26, still 11 minutes behind the winner! Encouragingly, though, the same calculation at Delamere would have had me finishing 17 minutes behind, and that over a distance of only 6 miles.
5/ Wendy commented that my running style changed from droop-shouldered shuffling - for most of the way round - to something altogether more dynamic for my finish. Certainly, I was consciously lifting my knees and 'running' on the run-in, and I did seem to pick up speed in two stages, first when I changed into 'running' gear, and then again when I put in the effort and started to sprint. Lesson seems to be that I need to learn how to run. I know that if I could maintain the fast shuffle for the whole distance that I could reduce my time to 1:45, but it seems that, to do better than that, a change of style is indicated.

So, I've run my half-marathon. Where do I go now? I know that I will continue running, but - What is my motivation?
Answers on a postcard, please.

It's Over!

I intended to blog last night with all the "the preparations are over, all that's left is to run the race tomorrow...", but I ran out of time, and here I am having completed the run without having charted my last preparations. Not too good, really. After last week's long run of 8 miles, I tapered with a couple of shorter runs, where I didn't exert myself, on Tuesday and Thursday. The "glycogen loading" high-intensity short run on Saturday just didn't happen, and I left it too late to get any energy gel to give myself a boost during the race - when I got to Asda, they were sold out.
Owain came around with Leyla on Sunday morning, and we discussed the points where the groupies were going to cheer us on from. Ten O'clock we headed for the start, with them expected to show up at various points around the course. Twenty minutes of hanging around, and then we set off, just an "on your marks", 2, 3, and then the hooter. We lapped the arena once before setting out on the course proper. About half a mile out, we went down a fairly steep slope to the bridge that carried us over the Silkin way, and I let gravity take me, and flew away from Owain so that when I reached the groupies (Wendy, Rhiannon and Leyla), I was clear ahead of Owain. Went through the 1 mile mark in 8 minutes - on target for 1:45. At the bench (second groupie check point) at about 2 miles (done in 16 minutes) I was still clear of Owain. However, he caught me up, and pulled ahead when I slowed to a walk at the drinks station. Past the 5 miles in 40 minutes - still on schedule, and heading down Coalbrookdale, and Owain is nowhere in sight ahead of me, when who should come jogging past me! He'd stopped for an unwatering pit stop, and was only now catching up! He was still ahead of me as we went past the groupies on the Ironbridge, and they were giving me grief about letting Owain beat me. I said to myself "this is where the tough get going", and started picking up places as we headed out alongside the river, including passing Owain again.
We recrossed the river at Coalport (last groupie check-point) and started the long climb out of the valley, still picking off people ahead of me, but still finding that there were people behind me coming past me. Eventually, we re-entered the town park, and went past the 12 mile mark in about 1:45, so that target is beyond reach, but the 2 hours looks comfortable. It's all about how fast, and how far down the field now.
There was one guy (he looked as if he might be in my age group) whom I had passed just as we headed out of Coalport, and who had re-passed me (etc., etc.) several times since then. Now, about haf-a-mile out, he comes steaming past me again. This awakens my competitive instincts, and I track him until we start to go past Wonderland, a couple of hundred yards from the finish, when I change from long-distance fast shuffling style to big-finish actually picking my feet up and running style, and I go steaming past him (I later found out that he was about ten years younger). And then picked up the speed, and picked off another 3 places before the finish, in what turned out to be 1hour 53.09 seconds, with the groupies whooping me home.
Results, 293 out of 660, and Owain finished just over 8 seconds and 134 places later! I was 7th finisher out of 20 in the over-60 class, and I managed to beat all the over-65s, and I finished 5 minutes behind the 6th over-60. At least he didn't beat me by an embarassingly narrow margin, where I'd have kicked myself for not trying that much harder.
It's now nearly midnight, my buttocks are still aching, so I'll have an early night, with more analysis of the numbers tomorrow.

A Mixed Bag

Another week of exceeding the planned mileage - of course, last Monday's 12.5 miles got me off to a good start, then 5.7 miles of interval work, combined with running every day since Wednesday contributed to a total of nearly 30 mies against 20 planned. As with most of last week's runs, the times were disappointingly slow. In particular, the 4.29 miles around the town park, where I've been close - but not quite making it - to breaking 38 minutes. This week was the furthest away from that since I stopped wearing my boots!
However, today was a great improvement. 8 miles down to Coalport and back, 8 minute miles on the way down, and better than 9 minute miles on the way back up. I was as quick coming up as I was going down the last time that I ran this, and 5 minutes faster over the whole route. Now to taper off for the last week, with girly rest days, and softy short and easy runs in between.

One last throw

After reading Katherine's blog about how hard she's training in China, Wendy more or less challenged me for my girly training methods, taking a day's break between sessions and the like. So on Friday (which would normally have been a rest day) I ran 6 miles, then on Saturday another 4. Disappointingly, the 6 miles was in 53 minutes - slightly slower than my time at Delamere way back at the start of January. This brought the week's total up to 34 miles, against a planned 22. Since the race is in a fortnight, it's perhaps a little late in the day to intensify the training, but an extra week of hard training, before I taper for the last week, may just make all the difference.
Then I started this week with long run day, basically running the whole course, only omitting the start and finish, but including an extra long loop to bring the mileage back up to - well, only 12.5 miles. Completed this in just over 2 hours, again disappointing. Somehow those last couple of miles are a killer, either that or I really need the taper to find me some extra zip, otherwise I won't even break 2 hours, let alone reach my target of 1-45, or even my predicted 1-52.

Going the distance

At last! I've run a half-marathon distance. In fact, I've run more than a half-marathon distance - 13.84 miles. Part of Marshal Zhukov's "train hard, fight easy" philosophy. I think that I said a few weeks ago that I intended to do at least one training run over the full distance, so that, come the day, I wouldn't find the extra couple of miles from my previous longest run as an unwelcome surprise. Certainly, this much extra (my previous longest, a month ago, was only just over 11 miles, so this is nearly 3 miles further) gave me some real grief on the homeward stretch. The course that I'd plotted was home to Coalport, then back up the long slog as far as Aqueduct, then turn around and go back down, and then back up. The result was doing the climb out of Coalport twice, intentionally, since it looks as if this climb is going to be what sorts out the men from the boys, after about 9 miles of running. It was a hard run, enlivened by passing groups of people whom I'd already seen as I went down (or up). One pair of women I passed as I approached Aqueduct on the first climb, passed them again as I headed back down, and then passed them again as I climbed back up again!
The time, 2 hours 15 minutes, was disappointing considering my target time, and the predicted times that I'm getting. I'm just going to have to push it a bit harder this week, before beginning to taper down my effort in the last fortnight.
And today, I received eMail notification that my race number (142) should be with my in the post in a few days.

Another week, another 23 miles...

Results for Action Heart are in - I'm 236 out of 762 in a time of 40 minutes 41 secs, which predicts a half-marathon time of just under 1 hour 53 on the Lucozade site, which comes in pretty close to the time calculated on the % of the winner's time.
This week, other commitments (like a job interview and taking Katherine to the airport) interfered with my normal training days, so I trained Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Monday I followed the Coalport Dodger route from Stirchley and Dawley Station, past Madeley Market Station, and down into Coalport. And then back! Part of my intention to remove the sting from that long gruelling run back up into Telford. It seemed to work, this time (I don't know whether it was second wind, or the slope actually eases) I was able to pick up the pace as I neared Madeley, and I covered the 8 miles in 1 hour 12 minutes, 35 minutes going down, and 37 minutes coming back up. Wednesday was only remarkable in that, for the 3rd consecutive run on this route, I've completed it in just over 38 minutes (38:02, 38:09, 38:08), and Friday was about 5 1/2 miles - when I tried to measure it on Runfinder, it packed up on me! I'll do it later!