Great South Run

This year we ‘illegally’ attach both our timing chips to my number and then I start the race on behalf of both of us. I run the first five miles before removing my number and handing it with the chips to L who has her own now ‘unchipped’ number on. In return she hands me The Lad, hereafter known as the Baton.

While my Strava only shows half of the Great South route with me disappearing into a puff of smoke at 5 miles their tracker does have me finishing the course this year, arm in arm with L as we cross the line together.

Brewers 10k

Today it’s our warm-up race for next weekend’s Great South Run. We run the Brewers 10K in Burton which is a new closed roads race starting and finishing at the Pirelli stadium, the home of Burton Albion Football Club. The route took us through Stretton and Rolleston before returning to the Pirelli Stadium.

I take it easy, because I don’t have any choice these days, and finish in 56 minutes. Then I head off to get the Lad out of the car so that we can cheer L in. Unfortunately the days of having a nice buffer of time between the two of us finishing are long gone and we have to yell our support from a distance across the car park as we can’t get back to the course in time.

We get a t-shirt and a medal that they described as being made of eco-friendly wood but surely it's a beer mat. It looks like a beer mat to me and that's surely what you should get from something called the Brewers 10k in what used to be the brewing capital of the UK e.g. before they closed nearly all the breweries and soon the National Brewery Centre as well.

Burton 10k

Today we do the Burton 10k. This is one of a dying breed - a local no frills race put on by a local running club in this case Hatton Darts. It’s not entirely no frills I suppose. There’s no medal (yay!) and you get a buff instead if you want one. I didn’t as it wasn’t my colour. You also get to finish with a lap of the athletics track, if you like that sort of thing but if you don't like that sort of thing you still have to do it. 

It's also a challenging course being basically uphill for the first 5k, including a really steep hill right at the start, and then largely downhill for the second 5k.

I did this in 47 minutes back in 2019. Following the great decline, I do it in just under 56 minutes this year.

The Run

Tonight The Run at Breaston. 

This four miler that we’ve done several times before, this is my 6^th time, starts and finishes at the Navigation pub where we set up my Dad up to watch. It’s not the most exciting of routes but it’s a good leg stretch for those of us trying to get back into running. A long leg stretch in my case, nearly 34 minutes worth. Slower than the 29 I did last time in 2019 but I wasn’t hobbling as much then and way off the 25s I did back in the day when I was a ‘younger’ person.

Derby Ramathon

The weather conditions are much better for this year’s Derby Half Marathon but then last year’s had been put back to November where I nearly died of hypothermia waiting to get my bag back from the baggage tent. This year they have also restored the Ramathon name after needlessly removing it when they took over the running of the race in 2018. Unfortunately they've also added the name Derbion to the front of it, Derbion being this week's name for Derby's main shopping centre.

I am of course nowhere near fit enough for this race but I struggle on regardless. L is again doing the 5 miler and my Dad has come to support. We have dropped him off in the Market Place with a chair and instructions of where best to watch us both start and finish.

When I start he is in position but by the time L starts ten minutes later he’s gone AWOL. L retrieves him later from a café from where he’d headed to for a Full English. Which I’m sure was much enjoyable than watching us run.

The route is the same as usual. Out along the main roads to Elvaston, then through the Castle grounds before heading back along the river and through Pride Park.

I was relatively pleased with November’s run where I went from 8:30ish miles to 9:30ish miles and finished in 1:57. Here I start in the 9s and degrade into the 10s, struggling home in 2:04. Not the best.

Grimsthorpe Gallop

Time for a bit of Canicross. The Lad and I are running 10k at the Grimsthorpe Gallop. Whether this is good training or not for next week’s Ramathon I’m not sure but it seems to be the only training I'm doing.

It’s a chaotic start with an all dog field but this could have been much worse as there's only 20 of us. L gets to start later in the saner human field. The dogs are doing one of three distances. Four do 10 miles, nine do 5k and seven do 10k. 

The route is mostly off road with lots of grit paths which aren't really my forte. There's even a river crossing which we avoid and take the bridge but the photographer gets a really good photo of us that ends up on the results email. Pace wise the Lad keeps me at a 'reasonable' nine minute mile pace and stops me slacking.We finish 4^th in our category which obviously sounds good but is very mid table when there's only seven of you..

Brighton Marathon Weekend

The two and half year long build up to my Brighton Marathon misadventure finally reaches its conclusion as we head down by train to Brighton after first dropping the dogs off in kennels.  

The event that was to have seen three of us celebrate L’s sisters 50^th birthday now has just one mug standing. Moi. The one with only one leg. Although L is doing the 10k. Of which I am kind of jealous.

Despite supporting our chosen hotel by keeping our booking in September 2020 after the second of three covid induced cancellations we have now be bumped out of that hotel and have had to book a different one. This one is called the New Madeira Seafront Hotel and as its name suggests it on the seafront and right by Madeira Drive where the Marathon finishes. Perfect planning you would say? Apart from the fact that it is practically a top a cliff face and the rooms appear to be above a night club but this second issue turns out to be fine. The first could be a problem tomorrow.

Having checked in we head down the cliff face to the race Expo where we both have to register and pick up our numbers. Dragging everyone down to Brighton a day early to do this seems to me rather cruel. It is also really busy and the queues for collection are ridiculous even at supposed quiet times.

Luckily the wait for the 10k wasn’t too bad and as I’d entered the Marathon on my Amex card I got a separate shorter ‘priority’ queue. Which turns out to be a good call. If it wasn’t for that I would have joined everyone else standing in a queue for ages which isn’t exactly what you need just before a marathon.

Another issue with handing numbers out the day before rather than posting them out meant that we didn't get our names on our numbers which is pretty a useful thing to have for a marathon where crowd support is so vital.

Having got our numbers the next issue was that despite knowing in advance what size t-shirts we wanted, they didn’t have enough in our sizes. Apparently small ran out on Friday, medium on Saturday morning.

Then we had to drop our bags a day early because apparently logistics meant they couldn't have a bag drop at the start this year. It's a shame that there were all these issues the day before because race day itself turns out to be really impressive.

On the day we walked up from the hotel to the start in Preston Park dodging the cyclists that were on the course doing the Brighton Ride event. With the 10k starting at 9am, over an hour before my start for the Marathon I had lots of time to kill once there. It was actually one of the most chilled starts to a race I've ever had. I got chance to watch L start and then made use of the facilities provided by American Express – coffee, cakes, gels, water etc and our own way of filtering into the start. Once again it was well worth paying by Amex.

Eventually my wave came around and we were on our way. We did a lap of the road around the outside of the park and then headed down through the town towards the sea front. There were spectators everywhere lining the route and then there just before I hit the coast at around the 5 mile point was a beaming L, clearly buzzing after running a great 10k.

After a quick hug and a kiss I headed up the coast the three miles or so to Rottingdean but not quite as far as the Lido at Saltdean. Then we turn back towards Brighton where the pier more or less marks the halfway point. Once upon a time my target Marathon pace was nine minute miles, here I start at something closer to ten minute miles but hold this pretty consistently through halfway recording 2:08 for the half marathon which I was reasonably happy with. Obviously that’s not going to produce the coveted four hour marathon but if I could keep it going it would just about bring me in under 4:30.

I have to say that the first half of the race had been great and I’d almost enjoyed it. The route was varied, interesting and with some great views. It was a little hilly in places but not excessively so. The second half however... was a bit grim. It seems they were a bit devoid of quality ideas on how to add miles for the second half.

From Brighton we head into Hove and a tour of the residential streets which involved the very straight, very long and very boring Church Road. Once you’re at the bottom of Church Road you have to U-turn and do it all over again in the opposite direction. It’s a four mile stretch that feels like double that distance. The words ‘repetitive slog’ doesn’t do it justice. I will never forget Church Road. By now my pace was pushing out towards eleven minute miles but that was ok, I had a bit in hand for a 4:30.

Church Road actually makes the next bit, the industrial estate section including the infamous lap of the Power Station at mile 21, seem almost seem sane. I guess the real problem here is the lack of crowd support here which was a shame because crowd support around most of the course was brilliant. You could literally have curled up in a corner somewhere and probably no one would have noticed. This was actually very tempting.

The thing that does break up the monotony is the amazingly abundant feed stations. They’d been impressive all along but were every mile for around the last 10 miles. They were all well stocked with not only water but energy drinks, gels, sweets and Oranges. The only thing missing was the beer. I could have done with a strong one because by now I was now tumbling towards and then into twelve minute miles, so 4:30 was long gone.

Apparently several people were tracking me online but by now, because I was barely moving, they’d probably decided that the tracker was playing up, like it had at the Great South leaving me stuck out on the course for weeks later. They’ve probably all put the football on instead.

Then at long last we were on the promenade for the last two miles or so. Two very long miles. L popped up again, as she had done throughout, and I cling to her like a life raft before realising that I do actually have to complete this damn thing. So off I go again, staggering down Madeira Drive to a finish line that barely seemed to be getting any closer.

I finish in 4:41:58. They hand me a medal and my kit bag before pointing me in the general direction of the meeting points e.g. somewhere to collapse. There were bodies everywhere so it wasn’t easy to find my own personal collapse zone. Eventually I see someone vacating a patch of ground and claimed it for myself with not a lot of elegance. An alarmed helper quickly appears from nowhere with a chair and possibly an oxygen tank. The chair was a very nice gesture but I wasn’t really sure how he expected me to get into it. Thankfully he had a solution to that and strong muscles as he hauled me into it.

Eventually L finds me which also means that I have to extract myself out of the chair and somehow make my way up the cliff face to the hotel. I made it halfway up the steps before my legs cramped up but there wasn’t really any stopping now that I was halfway up.

Would I do it again? Hmmmm.

Rutland Spring Half Marathon

Sunday sees my final training race before Project Brighton comes to fruition. It’s the Rutland Spring Half Marathon at Rutland Water. The organisers have helpfully arranged for car parking to be over a km away to give everyone a decent warm up. Nice of them.

The route is on a mix of tarmac and compacted gravel\grit, which isn’t my ideal surface but then what is these days. My legs feel tired throughout which is either due to over training or under training. One of those things. My pace unfortunately matches a group of girls who decide to chit-chat all the way around, which is rather annoying. Both listening to it and the fact that they have the breath to chat, unlike me.

Despite a much flatter course than Sheffield last week my pace is slower and I run 2:03, over four minutes slower.

Sheffield Half Marathon

This week it's the Sheffield Half Marathon, which has always been one of my favourite races with its no messing straight uphill first half up Ringinglow and then the plummet back down to Sheffield in the second half. Well it was my favourite before my knees went awol.

When I last ran Sheffield in 2018 my calf, which seized up during most races in those days, gave up the ghost in the warmup yet I still hobbled round in 1:55. Today it’s a 1:58.

Ashby 20

My colleague from work is doing the Tromso Rat Race this weekend. Snow biking, snow shoeing and cross country skiing across three countries. It sounds amazing and costs an amazing amount of money. None of which is of course is going to be as amazing as the Ashby 20.

They haven’t had a lot of luck at Ashby in recent years. 2018 was snowed off and although 2019 went ahead the last two years have been Covid-ed off. The original 30^th Anniversary was cancelled at the 11th hour in 2020 with the first lockdown about to be announced.

I have the iconic hoodies for that race and the 2021 Virtual one, so I thought I best actually earn this year’s 30^th Anniversary ‘take two’ one. Plus I need the training.

'Organised by runners, for runners' by Ivanhoe Runners, race HQ and the finish is in Bath Grounds although we start at short walk away on the road.

The weather is good, sunny but cool. The course has a great first mile which is all downhill, which of course means that the last mile wiil be all uphill. Then you arrive in Packington where you start two nine mile long laps.

These are hilly laps but with steady and rolling hills rather than anything too severe. We head through Sponge, then up an incline through Swepstone towards Heather and then finally through Normanton Le Heath as we head back to Packington where my support team of L, MD and the Lad await. I've kept a good pace at around 9 minute miles and lap one is done in a decent 1:29. Then I do it all again, just more slowly slipping down into the 10s and 11s.

Although I finish five minutes quicker than at Oundle last week in 3:12:10 this isn’t the fastest Ashby 20 time recorded by anyone in our house. L’s 3:07 from 2003 still stands and may never be beaten.

Then it's time for the iconic hoody, the iconic cheese cob and a commemorative 30th Anniversary medal which is the first time the Ashby 20 have issued a medal.

Funnily enough I quite enjoyed it.

Oundle 20

What better way to destroy your confidence for a marathon than to attempt to run two 20 miler back to back. My ‘long awaited’ Ashby 20 debut is next week but first the Oundle 20 miler down in Northamptonshire.

This a newish event by Nice Work that started in 2018 and rather sweetly has most of the same snacks etc that you get on their 5ks.

The next thing I notice is that almost everyone from the Stamford race last month is here. Anyone would think there are some marathons coming up.

The race HQ is at Oundle Primary School but parking is all in the little estate roads around the start. I’m not sure what the residents thought of this... the ones in Retford last week would have gone ape and have done so in the past.

The route takes us out from Oundle around the local country lanes taking in the villages of Fotheringay, Nassington, Yarwell and King’s Cliffe.

They describe it as undulating with PB potential which is of course both contradictory and a lie. It was indeed hilly although not quite as bad as Stamford and quite windy too but thankfully not cold like it was for Stamford.

Like Stamford I started off with 9 minute miles and this time avoided dropping into 10s until about mile 13, two miles later than at Stamford. Then into 11s at mile 18, one mile later than at Stamford. All of which meant nothing as my overall pace was about the same. I’ll blame the obligatory last bit around the playing field. I came in with 3:17:36 which is about 4:25 marathon pace. 

Overall it wasn’t too bad an event and I’d probably do it again, if I had too...

Retford Half Marathon

Today it's the Retford Half which was the last run L and I did in 2020 before lockdown. L even put in extra distance afterwards as we expected the Ashby 20 to still go ahead the following week but it didn’t.

Instead of Retford this year I had considered Warwick Half which we could have possibly combined with a trip to see Son and it would have been more interesting place for L to spectate. Then I found out that Warwick is £36 and a t-shirt is £15 extra whereas Retford is £20 including a t-shirt. Given that Retford is also organised by the local running club that I would like to support, rather than a profit making race company, here we are.

Run wise it is what it is. Country lanes, not terribly exciting but useful training.

During the race I get caught by someone local to us who I’ve sort of being trying to beat for years and have usually done so until recently. Now he’s ageing better than me and he’s five years older than me as well. As we run a few miles together he’s delighted that we’re running at around 8:10 pace. While I’m dying because my target marathon pace is 9:00 and that's what I want to be running at. 

I ran a pretty amazing 1:45 for this race back in 2020 which was a typical time for me ‘back then’ even though I was struggling to get my distance up for the marathon. These days I’m running closer to two hours (different era, different knees). 

His daughter is running with him and is in training for the Manchester Marathon. Even 8:10 is too slow for her and she skips off in front because clearly we’re holding her back. A mile or so later I tell him I’m slowing down and drop off his pace. 

I finish in 1:54, which is still quite good and I suppose all thanks to his suicidal pace making.

Victoria Embankment 10k

I have another run today which is just a 10k at Victoria Embankment. There’s also a 5k which L was tempted with but £20 for that, the same price as the 10k, isn’t cheap. So she decides to run there instead.

My 10k is pretty dull but it’s a necessary training run. My time of 51 minutes is pretty good for me these days.

Stamford Striders St Valentine’s 30k

On Sunday though I have a real live run of my own. Back in February 2020 when I was training for the Brighton Marathon, as I am now because it is two years late, I was down to run the Stamford Striders St Valentine’s 30k along with my (then) fellow Brighton trainees L and her sister. L was to be my 'Valentine Pair' as they have such a thing but now it's just me, 'Valentine No Mates'.

That race in 2020 was cancelled but not due to Covid which hadn't yet reached crisis point but down to Storm Dennis who was throwing a strop with 40mph winds. In the end they ran it a week later, which meant we couldn't make it. Instead I dragged the Lad around a 15 mile tour of Nottingham in the not quite gale force winds. 

Now I'm back at Stamford and wishing this year’s was being cancelled as well because the weather is possibly going to be worse than in 2020 just without the gale force winds which means it’s going ahead.

In the morning the temperature is just about above freezing with a brisk cooling breeze and the prospect of heavy rain later. Nice. I come equipped in long trousers, long sleeves and with a rain jacket that in the end I don't use and it stays wrapped around my waist throughout.

The race starts at 11am (a really civilised time) in the dry but the rain does come, although it’s not as heavy as promised, and the 'breeze' makes for a challenging last few miles.

I maintain my ideal 9 minute marathon pace for just the first seven miles before slipping to 10s and then 11s after 14 miles.

It is one of those races that makes you do one last humiliating stagger around a sports field to reach the finish line and as I do so I am shocked to realise that 30k isn’t ‘just’ 18 miles as I thought but it’s actually almost 19 but I should have known that.

 

My time is 3:05 which is apparently a mere fraction quicker than L ran ‘back in the day’. If I carried on crawling long at 11s pace it would turn out to be about a 4:25 marathon. Which I’d probably take. That’s if I could continue to crawl that fast.

Sherwood Pines New Year 10k

Today it’s the New Year 10k at Sherwood Pines that L and I ran when I was last marathon training two years ago, for the same race I’m now training for e.g. Brighton. Only last time she was training for it too but now she isn’t. She would have done this 10k though if she’d not had her foot injury.

It’s a two lap course which this time they seem to have measured properly as last time it was well short. This time it may actually be slightly long. It’s a two lap course and last time we did an extra training loop with the Lad but I was younger then. So I don’t do that this time.