Vitality London 10k

Monday, which is a Bank Holiday, is what you could describe as a busy day.

First L, Daughter and I get the 6:30am train down to London. We are heading to the Vitality 10k run in Central London. On the train, which is largely quiet, are several fans already getting tanked up ahead of Derby’s Play Off Final with Aston Villa. Yes, I’ll be there later, but not tanked up.

L has suggested not taking the tube to the race village in Green Park but jogging there as a ‘nice warm up’. It's 3.5 miles! and I’m not sure she’s mentioned this to Daughter. We take the tube. At Green Park we meet up with L’s sister, who is also doing the run, and with her family.

The race starts on The Mall and takes in quite a few sights of London (Trafalgar Square, St Paul's, The Bank of England, House Of Parliament, where Daughter went for her interview at Somerset House) before finishing in front of Buckingham Palace. Although we finish before it, not after it like they do in the Marathon.

I finish in a disappointing 47:05 and then head back up the course to cheer in first Daughter, then L and her sister, who are running together. I have a different start time to the others, so get a head start on them.

After a sandwich, a coffee and quick clothes change in a portaloo I’m off to Wembley for the match. While everyone else, apart from L’s sister who is my partner in crime at the game, head off home.

Windermere Marathon

With around a thousand entries this year the race is growing year on year. In addition to the Marathon there are also seventeen runners doing the 10 in 10 challenge in aid of the Brathay Trust. Basically this is ten laps of the marathon course over ten consecutive days. Gulp. Sixteen of them have lasted the distance.

These mad folk/legends (delete as applicable) are given a heroes send off when they start one by one an hour before us mere mortals.

Then it’s our turn and we led down from Brathay Hall to the start line on the main road by a marching band. Then we’re off and it’s all somewhat pleasant, undulating as you’d expect but nothing too extreme. The roads have even been closed for us and remain so for most of the first half of the race. They are briefly open around Hawkshead, where we are diverted through the centre of the village which was packed with spectators who lined the street and cheered us along the cobbled streets and alleyways.  

Then we are back into the countryside past Esthwaite Water with Lake Windermere itself in the distance. The next landmark is when we reach the bottom of Lake Windermere at Newby Bridge and then start coming back up the other side. This is roughly halfway and I’m pleased that not only am I feeling pretty good but also that I go through 13 miles in 1:59. Therefore I'm running at four hour marathon pace despite the testing terrain.

We turn onto the A592 ‘coast’ road and past Fell Foot where we have parkrun. Here it’s busy with cars but after that the road is made one way until Bowness and goes relatively quiet again. I really cannot fault the organisation on how they have minimised the traffic.

The course though gets more difficult, hiller and not as scenic with Lake Windermere largely obscured despite the fact you’re mostly alongside it.

After 20 miles we arrive in Bowness, which is packed with mostly bemused tourists but with plenty of spectators too. I recall from when I did the bike leg of the Windermere Triathlon, which started in Bowness, that there is a bloody big hill coming all the way up to the main A591 road and beyond. My memory is not wrong.

This is where I begin to struggle. Although I have had no calf problems at all my lack of training post-Manchester is telling and I drop well off my four hour marathon pace. In fact it get so tough and my legs so knackered that I walk considerable chucks of it. I do put on a spurt when I pass local legend Rocket Rod who was helping at the next feed station.

It probably doesn’t help that I know the A591 through Troutbeck Bridge to Ambleside so well, that I know exactly what is coming. Even then Ambleside seems hillier than before and even once through Ambleside it goes up again at Clappersgate and then just to cap it all the finish up the driveway back to Brathay Hall is uphill as well.

I cross the line in 4:15:22 which, I suppose, for a course like this still isn’t too bad and at least I’ve not got another nine laps to do.

Orston Spring Dash

Today L, Daughter and myself run the Orston Spring Dash 10km in the Vale of Belvoir. It is a 10k in name only as it’s actually 10.2k long but , apparently, as it’s a ‘mixed terrain’ race they’re still allowed to call it a 10k. Who knew...

I’m also not sure that anyone mentioned the dreaded words ‘mixed terrain’ to me when this was put on our race calendar. There are apparently some muddy tracks which isn’t exactly what I want when trying to avoid further injury ahead of Windermere next week.

However the route isn’t too bad, not too muddy, as they take us on a loop from the village of Orston through Flawborough and Thoroton then back to Orston.

Daughter sets an impressive new PB but then we all do for 10.2k. I guess she’s referring to her time at the actual 10k point. I limp round in 50:23. L is equally disgruntled with her time but soon cheers up when she sees the impressive cake selection.

Great Northern Half

Monday is the May Day Bank Holiday and is the day of my inadvisable half marathon, the Great Northern Half in Mickleover, but if I’m doing the Windermere Marathon in two weeks time I need to do some training, however inadvisable. It is run by Huub and is possibly the dullest race you’ll ever do but it’s shockingly popular. At least it usually is when it’s run in March when there’s not a lot on. Having it in May, when there are more races on, means it hasn’t proved quite as popular.

There is a 10k option which L does. It’s the same course as mine but just the one lap!

I take it steady, in a damage limitation exercise, and run it at marathon (e.g. two hour) pace. Which goes well for ten miles, so I decide to up the pace for the last three and come in at 1:54:08 but I’ll probably regret it tomorrow.