I had always intended on doing a long run this weekend as it’s been a good couple of weeks since the last one. I was undecided whether to do first thing Saturday or Sunday and ironically my laziness on Saturday turned out to be useful!

On Saturday afternoon I was over at Laura’s parents in Kent for a party. Whilst out in the car about 5pm I noticed a number of ‘Caution Runners’ signs and a 9 mile marker. I also spotted a road closure sign for the Sunday between 9-12. Returning back to the party I did a quick Google on my iphone to see what run was happening, where and when. That is when I found out about the Dartford Half Marathon on 11 July. They were accepting entries on the morning so at about 8pm on the 10th July I decided I would run in the event which started just down the road. Knowing nothing of the course or how my fitness would be as recently 7miles has been my distance cap.

About an hour after deciding to go for it I noticed a friend on facebook wish people good luck for a tough course. At this point I started to realise this wasn’t to be a ‘flat as a pancake’ Silverstone type race and there were to be hills…oh well, it’s just a group training run for me!

We were out of the house at 7:30 following a cobbled together breakfast and taking on some powerbar energy drink as that is all I had access to. Unfortunately my kit was also not my normal ‘race kit’ as I hadn’t intended on doing anything other than an individual long slow run, however luckily I did have all the necessities.

The race set off at 9. Fortunately it was quite cloudy so the worry of heat from the sun wasn’t so much of a concern. The race headed out of Central Park and into Dartford before moving onto smaller country roads and before long the undulating nature of the course started showing. To be honest the first few hills didn’t bother me as much as it seemed for others and once at the top there was plenty of recovery time down so all seemed fine.

As expected I started to run out of juice at about 9 miles. This was probably partly due to lack of fluid as drinking from paper cups whilst running is almost impossible! I nervously approached the hill at mile 10, I had no idea what to expect but had overheard a lot of natter back at the start about “Gore Road”. That was not a hill for running, in fact contrary to what I would normally do I decided walking was the better option. As people started going pass me I was a little bit upset – for the last few miles I had stuck my position and no-one had over took me. As it turns out I had nothing to worry about – at the top of the hill all of those who had overtaken me seemed to come to a complete halt, they had spent all the energy getting up and had nothing to get back down. At this point I was feeling fine so enjoyed the downward run back to the finish…

The last mile was also a toughy, entering the park the route was very bendy and it was one of those places where you can see the finish but are detoured around the houses to add a few more meters to make up the distance. Very demoralizing end to the race, but fortunately that was the end before a 350m lap of a running track and coming over the finish line!

Ignoring the huge hill this was a pretty well organised run – plenty of marshals out on the course which was a bonus – there were quite a few spectators sat in their drives which was nice. No real goody bag but they are normally a disappointment anyway! I had a good time and it was a great little impromptu run!

N

The last post I wrote had me complaining about having heavy legs following the 10k, since that point I did a fastish treadmill session in the gym on Thursday clocking up 6kms which was again felt heavy and on Saturday morning I went for my 3M ‘easy’ run around the block as a warmup. Fortunately the rest day on Friday seemed to go someway to help with the recovery of my legs and Saturdays run felt much better. However as a bonus I was booked into see Chris over at the sports clinic for a 20min session on my legs – perfect pre race massage!

The massage was excellent and left my legs feeling a lot better than earlier and with the added knowledge that I wasn’t showing any real signs of damage I left the clinic ready for Sundays run, although at that point I hadn’t decided whether to race or just take it as a training run, although Chris did say as I left – go and crack 1:45, i’m sure you can.

Sunday arrived and with all the negative press that Silverstone seems to receive I don’t think I was looking forward to it as much as I possibly should – reports of difficulties getting in and out of the course on top of a dull circuit filled me with a bit of dread on the 1 and a bit hour drive. Fortunately, as always, Laura offered to come along and do the driving as well as watch from the sidelines and take photos, this is always a blessing – to have company before and after an event is perfect as it stops me stressing and getting worked up, not what you need before a race!

We got to Silverstone at about 1015 ish, plenty early for the noon start. We pottered down to the start areas and had a look at the shops before I started the lengthy process of sorting out my kit. Gel belt, heart rate monitor, pre-race isotonic drink, toilet break, banana….this routine takes almost as long as running the race but I find it works so I may as well stick to it. At 11:15 over the tannoy we were ushered into the pens, so I left my hoody with Laura and headed in – bad move. It was actually pretty damn cold still and I realised at this point I would be hanging around for 45mins without a jumper – did they really need 45mins to enter pens? On top of this because I got cold my body decided it needed the loo but I decided to hold it, if I needed to go during the route I would grudgingly have to stop!

Bang on midday Martin Yelling started the race and we were off – as usual I set off faster than I had really intended on and found myself running with the sub 8min runners. I tried to take the pace down a bit but judging by my Garmin that didn’t really happen! I managed to maintain a sub 8min/mi for the whole course – averaging 07:43 min/mi and according to my chip time I came in at 1:41:52 a new PB knocking 6 1/2 mins off my previous PB of 3 weeks prior (Laura – you were right I did a 1:48) and amazingly about 20mins off my Half Mara time of last year. On top of that my 10k chip time was sub 45 mins @ 44:15 another PB for me!

Obviously as I hit PB’s the run was incredible for me – it was tough but it wasn’t a killer I’m not sure I had another half in my legs at that speed but that is to be expected really! Marathon training is going well this year All in all a great run, wide course with no bottlenecks which is perfect! Would I do it again? If i was chasing a PB again then possibly, if I was going for scenery then probably not!See 19Mile Splits

Chip Timer Splits
Split Time
5K 00:23:25
10K 00:44:15
15K 01:11:25
20K 01:35:07

place (total) 671
place (gender) 614
place (cat) 484
finish time 01:41:52
http://silverstone.r.mikatiming.de/2010/index.php?content=detail&type=&id=0000030F5ECC83000005416E&lang=EN&event=SVRM&ageclass=

On my last run I talked of a sore ankle, this was a bit of a concern for me – having up’ed my speed a bit introducing faster threshold runs I worried I may have damaged something. I decided to do the sensible thing and take the Thursday off meaning I would have a two day recovery period rather than the scheduled one.

On Saturday, acutely aware there maybe a problem I took to the streets for the scheduled 3M warmup run – fortunately all seemed well no symptoms which matched Wednesdays run and it appeared that all was good

I’m a leap year baby so 28 Feb is when I opt for my birthday presents, according to facebook today is my birthday. On sat eve a load of my mates came over to take part in a murder mystery evening – whilst the food wasn’t entirely unhealthy I’m not sure the circumstances were the best pre-race routine especially the going to bed at 1am bit!

Sunday, my birthday and also the date of the Roding Valley half which I had decided to do as it’s rare to find an event where the start is less than a mile from home! On signing up, I realised the date, and new that I would be doing things the night before, howerver, I hadn’t predicted the wind and rain crashing into the window as my alarm went off – brilliant! I was so close to going, nah I won’t bother but fortunately I didn’t.

The race was wet and reasonably undulating couple of nice downhill recovery sections including a 1mile downhill to the finish line. The perfect thing about racing locally is the insider knowledge – I knew about the last mile, knew there wasn’t anything uphill so I think my final mile I clocked in a 7:40! Anyway, the finished the course in 1:48 according to my watch. The official race time came in at 1:50 but that doesn’t take into consideration at least a minute waited to get through a gap in a hedge as the main route was flooded!

I think 1:48 is a pb on my watch, and I actually think the official race time of 1:50 maybe a pb for me too from memory! The other positive thing was I still had more miles in my legs, wooo!

Haven’t seen the schedule for this week all I do know is i’m scheduled for an 18M on Saturday and I’m booked in for the ‘Newham 10k’ (completely pointless for marathon training). This run goes via the Olympic park which is always cool so looking forward to that!

Till next time.

N