Newburn river race report 18/06/2014

I had signed up for this race a while back, but my 14 mike run on Saturday had left me with a very painful right shin so I was in 2 minds as to whether I was going to run or not.

In the end I did what I usually do - run anyway possibly risking further damage and hope the pain doesn't get any worse.

In the end it held out OK, although it was pretty sore afterwards.

It had been a scorcher of a day, my phone reckoning it was 21 degrees on the start line and my hayfever was kicking in big style. John hadn't pre entered but managed to get a number on the day so was running too.

The course is a scenic 6.5 miles from newburn leisure centre along the Tyne to wylam and back on the other side. Based on my 10k time at Blyth I reckoned around 39.30 would be a comparable time and that is what I was aiming for.

I got caught behind a bunch of people at the start, but once I got past them I settled into a/reasonably comfortable pace. Around half a mile in I ran past Graeme from wallsend harriers who looked like he was having a good race.

First mile went past in 5-40 and it seemed like no time until we got to wylam , over the bridge and onto the other side of the river. This was the 3 mile point and my time was just under 18 mins so I knew I had slowed down.

I then started to tire and running was becoming more difficult. I sensed a few runners on my shoulder trying to overtake me, and looking round I saw one of them was Graeme. I put in a burst of speed to get away from them but within a few mins Graeme was back on my shoulder again.

The next mile or so we ran shoulder to shoulder - I was really tired by this point and didn't have the energy for another burst so I decided to wait till the end and try and out sprint him.

We reached newburn bridge- the path goes under the bridge then doubles back on itself and there is either a ramp or some stairs to get up onto the bridge.

I chose the stairs, but after getting half way I was shouted back mpby a Marshall and told to use the ramp.

I quickly retraced my steps, but by this time Graeme had a gap on me and seemed to be speeding up. I tried my hardest to get back to him, but didn't have enough time as the finish was just round the corner and I was empty.

My final time was 40-40 which was a minute slower than I'd hoped for so I was a bit disappointed as I don't think I could have ran any faster on the day,

John was also disappointed in his time of 47 mins, although he has just ran a marathon so I don't think he's got any worries.

No point dwelling though - onto the next race,  Windy Gyle on Sunday.

Sunderland Half Marathon 04/05/2014

My original plan for this race was to try and break 1-20, but that was when training was going well and I was injury free. Apart from a few races I've done very little running in the past few months and had to rely on cross training in the gym to try and maintain my fitness.

Today would be a good test of how well that has gone, and how much fitness I've lost in those months. My revised plan was to try and break 1-22, which based on my 10k time of 37:23 at Blyth should be achievable if things went right on the day. My B goal if it didn't was to try and break my pb of 1:23:.31.

John was trying to break 1:40 but wasn't confident he would be able to before the start of the race as this was his first half marathon and he wasn't feeling great.

As we set off I felt pretty comfortable and settled into a good pace, doing both the first 2 miles in 6.02. The next few miles went by at pretty much the same pace and I wondered if this would come back to bite me later in the race but I decided to stick at it while I could and then push through the remaining miles when it started to hurt (hopefully not many of them).

The course winds its way around the city centre and brought back memories of the marathon a few years earlier. One of the nice features of it as that there are a number of places where the route doubles back on itself and you can see the runners coming down the other side of the road. This lets you potentially see the leaders, and also the other runners behind you so you can see how they are doing too.

After about 7 miles I started to feel the effects and my pace started dipping to around 6-10 average. I felt ok about this, but knew that I couldn't let it drop much further if I wanted to hit my target. There were a handful of other runners around me at this point and I managed to pick a few of them off - probably as a result of them setting off too quickly rather than me speeding up.

At around the 9 miles point the route goes back over to the north side of the river and it was nice to see Chris Redfern just over the bridge cheering me on.

I was starting too feel really tired at this point and it was a real struggle to try and keep my pace from dropping. The route pretty much goes up the coast, through Roker Park and then back down the way you come to the finish in the stadium.

Once it got to 11 miles in Roker Park I started to feel confident that I was going to hit my target of 1-20. I think one of the skills in endurance running is regulating your speed so that you have an even paced run. If you are able to speed up in the last few miles then you have probably started too cautiously, if you really struggle in the last few miles then you've probably went off too fast. Once you reach a certain point you know that your going to be ok as you have the strength to get through the remaining miles at a decent pace. For me today that was the 11 mile point.

I'm not saying the last few miles were easy, far from it, but I was able to run them at close to my limit which I wouldn't have been able to sustain for the entire race. The last mile especially was really tough - the last drag into the stadium seems to go on forever and then you also have to go round the corner to the end.

Normally I can muster a sprint finish at the end of the race, but I didn't have the energy today which made me think that I had probably got my pacing about right, apart from going off a bit too quickly at the start.

1:21:50 at the end then - a massive PB which I was over the moon with. Jim didn't quite hit his target of breaking 1-20, but he still had a fantastic race and finished in 1:20:45 - a PB.

There were also PB's for Dave (1:30:29) and Gemma (1:33:03) and John came in at 1:36:41 -well inside his target. There were also solid performances from fellow Saltwellians Mel, Annie & David.

So all in all a great day out. I feel really pleased that I managed to knock over a minute and a half off my PB with the amount of training I've been doing lately so my next target it a sub 1-20, probably at the Great North run later in the year unless I do another half before then.

3 Peaks Fell Race 26/04/2014

This race is arguably the biggest in the UK fell running calendar with and entry list of 1000 hardy souls. 2 of those hardy souls (me and Jim) traveled down to the race on the Saturday morning (Keith had also entered the race but had to withdraw because of an ankle injury).

Originally this was going to be one of my 2 A races this year (the other being the Yorkshire Marathon) but the calf and ankle injuries I've had over the past few months meant that I've done no-where near as much preparation as I'd liked and so I was aiming to just try and enjoy the day rather than going for a specific time.

There was a fairly low cloud base which obscured Pen-Y-Ghent (the first peak) and it started raining at around 10 o clock so it looked like we were in for a wet day (at least the start of it anyway).

Just before the race started I had a bad moment when I realized I didn't have my dibber  and had to race back to the car to get it, just making it back with about 20 seconds to spare.

So we were off, snaking round the streets of Horton in Ribblesdale before joining the Pennine Way and the first ascent to Pen-Y-Ghent. By this time it had stopped raining and felt quite warm as there was also a lack of wind.

About half way up and it was hands on knees time. To be honest I could have continued running but I knew there was a long way to go and I had to conserve my energy. 40 minutes and I was in the mist on the summit of Pen-Y-Ghent, and turning round to race back down the path I'd just struggled up. About half way down there was a woman writhing in the ground in agony with what looked like either a broken or very badly sprained ankle which made me conscious of being especially careful with my own ankle injury which was still heavily strapped.

By this time the mist had cleared, which probably wasn't a good thing as I could now see the 2nd peak Whernside far off in the distance. As well as "The marathon with mountains", this race is also described as 3 fell races separated by 3 cross country races, or 1 big cross country race with 3 big hills in the middle. After descending from Pen-Y-Ghent I could see why as the next 10 or so miles until the next peak were very runnable and pretty flat as you can see from the profile.

 Its very easy to run too fast on this section, and it was also starting to get warm with the Sun making regular appearances from between the clouds. As the route approaches Ribblehead it takes you along a road for about half a mile and I have never seen so many cyclists and walkers in such a short space of time. Many of the walkers I would imagine were attempting the 3 peaks walk (walking the 3 peaks within a 12 hour period), and the Tour de France passes through this area later in the year which is apparaent by the many roadside posters and paraphanellia on display.

After picking up my water bottle from the checkpoint it was time for the seconds ascent. The normal walkers route snakes round to the far side of the peak before making a steady ascent to the top, but as this was a fell race there was none of that messing around - it was a beeline for the top.

After fording a stream which guarantees you have soaking wet feet for the rest of the race there is another boggy section as the gradient steadily increases before taking a brutally direct bearing to the top involving a fair amount of scrambling.

After eventually reaching the top i tried to start running again but cramp in both of my calves stopped me in my tracks and I had to stop for a couple of minutes to stretch. I wasn't the only person in this boat as there seemed to be quite a few other runners with the same problem.

Half way down the descent I went over on my bad ankle and had to pull up for a few minutes until the pain subsided. I was starting to feel tired now as well and the looming figure of Ingleborough ahead was a reminder of how far was still to go.

After picking up another drink at the next checkpoint it was uphill again and the tiredness was really kicking in. The ascent isn't as steep as Whernside but it isn't far off, especially the final section which involves a fair amount of scrambling.

It's easy to think that once you reach the top that its easy from then on as the last 4 miles to the finish are all downhill on a steady descent (at least that's what I kept telling myself). In reality though its probably the toughest part of the race.

By this time I was seriously fatigued, my legs were sore and although there are some nice runnable sections there are also a fair amount of rocky & stony sections, boggy parts and generally tough terrain which saps your strength. It took my 53 minutes to run these final 4 miles, getting cramp again on the way down and being reduced to a slow shuffle at points

Eventually I crossed the line in 4 hours 40 mins and 5 seconds, more than 40 minutes behind Jim who had a cracking race to finish in 03:58:04.

All in all I had a great day and will definitely be back  next year to hopefully run a faster time, unless I decide to do the Fellsman which is also ran on the same day.

2013 summary

Well its been some time since I've posted anything on here so I thought I'd have a bit or a recap of last year.

Since I started running again around 5 years ago, 2013 has definitely been the worst year of training and racing I've had, certainly the first 3 quarters of it anyway. It all started going wrong after Cramlington cross country race in October 2012 where I picked up a slight hamstring niggle. I then made it 10 times worse by running aggressively downhill cross country training the week after which left me completely unable to run on it for almost a month.

When I did finally get back into running I was only able to manage 2-3 miles at an easy pace and only 24 miles in total for November and December. January was a little better and I was able to progress up to around 7 mile runs (and 35 miles in total), but then in February I badly hurt my back trying to lift a CRT TV which again left me completely unable to run for a good few weeks.

March was a little better, clocking in at around 55 miles in total but I still didn't manage to run longer than 8 miles and nothing at any sort of decent speed.

I had entered the Sunderland Marathon again and was hoping to break 3 hours, but had no chance of achieving that given my lack of training which was also compounded with working some long hours at work so I had to withdraw from the race. Gutted.

I still hoped to run an Autumn marathon, but again through May and June I just couldn't seem to find the motivation to put in the required base training.

I ran the Chevy Chase at the beginning of July with nowhere near enough preparation and this led to another injury - calf this time, which I was unable to shake off for around a month.

By this point I had around 5 weeks preparation for the Great North Run, so I decided put in some effort to do some high quality sessions & speed work in the hope of being able to at least match last years time. Unfortunately some hill sprints put paid to that with another hamstring injury which again left me unable to run for about a week and a half before the race.

Some Ibuprofen on the day helped me get through the race, but my lack of fitness left me 3 minutes slower than last year.

Next race a few weeks later was the first cross country race of the season in Tanfield which was equally as disastrous with me pulling my other hamstring within seconds of starting the race - this time so badly that my leg was physically bruised. An autumn Marathon now was definitely out of the question.

So October 2012 - September 2013 is without doubt the worst period of training I have had since starting running again. I averaged less than 50 miles a month, only 2 long runs and no marathons and had more injuries in that period than the 4 years which preceded it.

2013 wasn't entirely all bad news though, from October on-wards things have got progressively better and I think a number of things have contributed to this. I've joined a gym and am now doing regular strengthening & core exercises and I have managed to find my motivation again.

Since October I have been steadily increasing my mileage to the point I am now up to 55 miles a week, and am also doing some quality speed work. My race times have improved and I am now at the point where I fell better and fitter than I have ever been before.

I hope to update my blog on a more regular basis again, and will also post some race reports from last year (although some of them won't make for pretty reading).

Here's to a more successful 2014!!