A Gallop on the Fens in the Heat

After last week's exertions this week was a little more low key, although I did still manage to keep my weekly marathon-plus long-run streak going. I usually play 5-a-side with some work colleagues on a Monday evening, and last week's match really finished me off after all the miles covered over the weekend. I decided I'd earned a bit of a rest after that, I had a sports massage booked for Tuesday evening and then took it easy on Wednesday and Thursday.

So, Friday was the first run of the week, and it was not a good one! Just my standard 10k route, but my calves tightened up almost instantly and stomach cramps kicked in after a couple of kilometres. I managed to resist the temptation to abort half way round and stuck it out for the full 10km, by the end I was faring a bit better, but still a struggle overall. I didn't go to Parkrun on Saturday as I was ringing in the morning, so the weekend's long run went ahead on Sunday. The plan was similar to last weekend - enter a race a good distance away from home and run to and from the event, rather than driving. The event this time around was the Fen Gallop, a 10km race, mainly off road, around the village of Willingham on the fens north of Cambridge. I ran the race a couple of years ago and so I knew it would be a nice route with a good atmosphere. I also knew that a couple of other Tailenders (yes, there is a running club for bellringers...) were running the race too.

I set out around 7.30, I'd calculated it would be about 20km to get there, through the city centre and then out to the north on the guided bus way. I made it in plenty of time for the start, but could tell it was going to be a tough day as the temperature and humidity were already high on the run out, before the sun had really broken through the clouds. I met David and Cecelia on arrival, David would normally be far too speedy to keep up with, but since he was nursing a thigh injury we decided to all run together. The race itself was a lot of fun, and included several photo opportunities.

 Looking fresh at the start

 Some off-road action on the roller-coaster of doom

This was near the end, I think I was having a better time than Cecelia at this point...

(Photos: David Pipe)

The three of us got round in about 57 minutes, which was pretty good considering the heat and humidity. I felt reasonably good as I set off after a short break to begin the homeward leg. Luckily a bit more cloud cover came in for the first hour or so of the run back, otherwise I would probably have struggled quite a lot in the sun. I made it to the 40km point without too much bother, but soon after I started flagging, and the final 8-10km was stop start and quite a struggle. I think this was likely due to a combination of ambitious pace, heat and not having quite enough fluid on board (although I was not seriously dehydrated). However, overall I was quite pleased with the morning's work considering the tough conditions.

Sneakily edited to avoid showing the slow split times towards the end!

This week has started well - no football tonight, so chance for a recovery 10km run. As runs on the day after a long run go this one was amazing, a nice steady 5:30 min/km pace all the way through, felt very comfortable and legs felt fine - a very nice start to the week! I've got a 50km race coming up this weekend, and since it's timed I'll probably aim to do a decent time. Will I succeed? Or will I crash and burn? Find out next week!

Stephen

A Week of New PBs

Hi Everyone,

I've had a good, but tiring week since the last update. I've been aware as training has proceeded that I've never managed to cover the full 100km distance within a week, let alone in a single day, so this week I'd set my sights on breaking that barrier. 

I entered the Bassinbourn half marathon (which was yesterday) a couple of months ago, with the plan of running to and from the race to make one long run. A quick Google Maps calculation showed it was about 11 miles to and from Bassingbourn from home, so adding a half marathon to that meant I was looking at about 35 miles (or 56ish km). With a 10km run in the rain on Tuesday evening that left me with 35km to find to hit the magic 100 mark. The solution: A run to and from Wimpole for on Saturday morning. Initially I'd intended to run Parkrun too, but as usual there was an email requesting volunteers early in the week and I decided that a rest between running there and running back would not be a bad thing.

So, I set off bright and early on Saturday morning for Wimpole via the Cambridgeshire countryside. I've run the route before but managed to take a wrong turn (in my defence, the field I ran into looked very much like the field I should have run into...), which added about a mile to my route and made me a bit late, although still in plenty of time to get to my marshal point.

View from my marshalling point, not bad!

As always, I really enjoyed marshalling, I did my best to encourage everybody on their way through, from the stupidly fast at the front to the hero at the back who was walking with a full head and neck brace on! Once the tail walker was through it was back to the start to return the fluorescent arrows and then back on the road to head home. The run back was fine - in the past I've tended to struggle a bit towards the end of the return leg, but no such issues this time, quite possibly due to better hydration and more food taken on board during the run - the importance of eating and drinking enough during long runs is becoming more and more apparent!

No getting lost on the way back!

The biggest issue after 35km? Toenails. Some of you may be aware that I have freaky toes - my second toe on each foot is significantly longer than my big toe (don't worry, no photos of feet on the way!). This means that it's my second toes that take a battering, and both of them are currently debating whether to continue with this whole toenail idea or not. At the moment the right one is going for the no-nail option (I think this is probably the way forward), but the left one is stubbornly sticking to the classic look, which, whilst aesthetically more pleasing, is currently quite painful! I was concerned that this may affect my plans for the next day, but fortunately with a bit of rest and a different choice of shoes it didn't feel too bad by Sunday morning.

Another early start! Legs felt OK, toes felt OK, sun was shining, nice cool breeze. Couldn't ask for much more! I had a nice run out, but only just made it to the start of the half marathon in time, partly due to not quite being sure where to go when I got to Bassingbourn, but mainly due to a nasty section of windy country road out of Meldreth which was much busier at 9am than I thought it would be and involved lots of hopping onto the grass verge to keep out of the way of cars. However, I pitched up at 9:27, perfect timing for the 9:30 start! The race was really excellent, only a small affair of around 450 people, but really well organised, a nice route and a really friendly atmosphere. I clocked 2 hours 22 minutes, my slowest ever officially-timed half marathon, but overall a great experience.

Looking happy at 3km (22 total)

(Photo: www.paulholtom.co.uk)

Not so happy at 16km (35 total)

(Photo: www.paulholtom.co.uk)

I was feeling a bit drained by the time I made it to the finish line and was a bit concerned about the remaining 20km, but after a cheeseburger, plus the post-race energy drink and apple, I was ready to set off for home. Obviously I was taking it steady and managed to navigate the nasty section back to Meldreth without too much hassle. I was expecting to start to struggle at some point on the way back, but actually found that I was able to keep up the steady pace for most of the way without too much trouble. I did take a couple of decent walk breaks to eat a bit and have a good drink, but overall I felt good and added a few kilometres onto my distance PB. Most importantly, I just managed to push over that 100km mark with a total of 102km for the week!

This week I think I've earned a little bit of a rest, but I should manage another long run at the weekend and hopefully keep up my current streak of running a marathon distance or more each weekend (3 weekends in a row so far).

Thank you as always for reading, and don't forget to click the sponsor button to the right if you fancy donating some money to MacMillan!

Stephen