GNR Preparation

Things I've never done in preparation for a race:

1. Booked a pre-race haircut

2. Revised.

Number 1 is due to the horrifying possibility of being caught on live tv while running. I'm hoping that having bouncy, shiny hair will make up for the fact that I'll be sweating and wearing lycra. Also we're meeting up for a pre-run meal on Saturday night, so I figured that as I'll be meeting some of my heros, I should really make a bit of an effort. Then hopefully the shiny hair will survive the night, in preparation for the BBC's planned attempts to interview us either before the start or on the way round. If you're watching on tv, keep an eye out for us!

Number 2 feels a bit stalkerish, but I wanted to do it. Mike has written a book, together with his wife Erica who is also running, about his career, and his illness. I kind of felt like I wanted to read it before meeting them, partly so that I don't say anything stupid, partly to get an idea of what treatment he's been through since he dropped out of the public eye, and also to get an idea of what he's like. From the tv interview I saw, it seems like communication is a relatively slow task for him, so I wanted to read about him in his own words to make up for the fact that he might not be able to talk to me much in person. Also, he was a bit before my time, in rugby terms, so I want to read about some of the moments I never actually saw at the time.

In terms of the actual running part, I'm vastly overtrained, so not in the slightest worried about that. Hopefully overconfidence won't lead to me completely mucking things up, but at this stage of marathon training 13 slow miles shouldn't be an issue. As long as I can slow down enough I should be fine!

Good long run

I had a surprisingly good long run today. My training this time rounds seems to have been a bit disrupted, with holidays and climbing and relay races, which have interfered with getting proper long runs in. I've been managing to fit in runs up to about 15 miles, but not as many really long ones.

Today's task was to change that, and boy did I succeed. 22 miles! I set off with a vague idea of where to go, but hadn't plotted it out properly on a map. As ever, as I was running I came up with a couple of ideas to make it a bit more off road (and a bit longer), and because I've only just put my footpod on my new trainers they haven't been calibrated yet and I wasn't exactly sure of my distance.

But when I got to the turning round point, I'd already been running for over 2 hours, and I knew it was over an hour back to town, which would take me past my normal long run duration of about 3 hours. When I set off I'd been intending to run back home rather than into town, but when I'm running along the canal I know it's flat and easy into town, and hilly and nasty to home, so I tend to end up in town and get a bus back. I can cope with hills at the start of a long run, but after about 15 miles they look rather less appealing!

I seemed to be going a bit slower than I normally do even on long runs, but not horribly slow (9:20 pace). Probably about right, really. I kept running to the end, and only took a couple of walk breaks when I came across some tricky off road bits, and with a couple of brief stops to work out which direction I should be going in. My last real walk break was after about 1:40, so I was pleased that I managed to finish the run as strong as I started it.

In the end just over 22 miles took me 3:25. That's not bad at all, really.

I walked around in town for about half an hour at the end, dripping sweat and eating before I could face the bus ride home - not least because I wasn't keen on sitting down until I'd cooled down a bit as I feared that I might not be able to get up again! And now I have the rest of the weekend off, there is something immensely satisfying about getting your long run done first thing on Saturday!

Leeds Country Way

I've updated this blog so little recently that it must seem like I haven't been running. I have, just not with any real consistency, and I haven't raced for an age. I've been ticking over, but not feeling really good about my running. Just doing enough to get by, but having to take more unplanned rests from training than I'd like, so it's been very up and down. Nothing very interesting to write about.

Anyway, yesterday I took part in the Leeds Country Way relay race. This is a 64 mile race which is split into 6 legs of 9 - 11 miles each, which you have to run in pairs (12 people per team). It's mainly off road, and it's not marshalled so you have to navigate a bit too, from a sheet of the most cyptic instructions you could imagine. We went out for a recce of the leg I was doing a few weeks back, but I was hungover and it felt like the worst torture imaginable, not to mention unbelievably complicated and easy to get lost so I wasn't looking forward to doing it again!

We were leg 2 so we had the benefit of knowing roughly when we were going to start. As the race gets further advanced, the margins for over/under estimating the times of the previous runners get wider and wider, whereas at least we only had one leg before us. It also meant that we were running at a pretty normal time, rather than early morning or mid afternoon.

I've never done that sort of relay before, and didn't really know what to expect. As we got there, some of the faster runners were already coming through, and we were a bit unprepared when we were standing having a chat and suddenly saw some purple coming round the corner, so had to dash to the handover point to set off. The first leg got to us well within the cut-off time, which meant that we got to carry the baton round with us (so it doesn't take too long, if they don't make it by a certain point there is a "mass" start, so the next leg can set off before the previous runners arrive, but if you do that it means the baton doesn't make it all the way round).

The run itself was surprisingly manageable. I suppose it's not exactly unexpected that it was better than last time I did it, when I felt like death, but knowing what was coming and how far each little bit was made it easier to say to myself that I just had to get over this field or up this hill before there was an easy bit. The ground was treacherous in places (one field in particular where I nearly went over on my ankle about five times), and some of the fields had been ploughed or harvested since we did the recce, but we didn't get lost (a minor miracle!). There were only a couple of points where we had to stop to look at the instructions, which was pretty good.

I was surprised at how spaced out all the teams were. During the whole leg (just over 11 miles) we didn't overtake anyone, and no-one overtook us. We occasionally saw two other runners in the distance. It was a good job we weren't relying on being able to follow someone else (although it may be that that's not a good idea anyway, as apparently quite a lot of people did manage to get lost - despite us not seeing anyone, we apparently overtook two teams, who must have been way off track for us not to notice them).

We got to the handover point about 20 minutes inside the cut-off for our leg, which pleased the runners after us. They had been worried that the start of their leg was quite narrow, and they didn't want to be involved in a mass start because they were aiming to run the fastest time for their leg. We handed the baton on, and they headed into the distance. It was then nearly 15 minutes before anyone behind us turned up!

It was quite fun, and nice to be part of a team event (we got to have a bit of a chat with the support crew at the changeovers, and some of the people on the other two teams (mens and mixed) the club put out (the mixed team beat their cut-off at our handover point by about 10 seconds, everyone was lining up for the mass start when our mixed leg 2 team came round the corner). The odd thing was not having a clue how the team did overall, or where we placed on our leg. Because the winners of each leg are done on their time for just that leg, you could be one of the last teams in and still win it if you started last and made loads of time up, and the marshalls at the change over point know what time you finished, but not what time you set off. I could have gone to the prize giving at the end to find out, but finishing running at 11.25 meant that we went for Sunday lunch at my grandparents' house instead, rather than going up to a random leisure centre at 5pm...

But I was quite surprised when I looked at last years results and saw that the ladies winners of leg 2 took 1:48 to do the leg. Yesterday we managed 1:41 according to my watch. I didn't do it last year, but have heard stories that it was very hot. Maybe that explains why the winning time was so slow, but with a time of 1:41 we might not have done too badly. In the end we came 4th, which isn't bad as there were apparently 12 womens teams. Anyway, we made sure that the baton made it onto leg 3 (although one of the runners on leg 3 fell, which meant it didn't make it any further), which is a nice feeling. Also, given that off road miles are much slower than road miles, 1:41 isn't a bad time for me over 11 miles compared to my road half marathon PB of 1:43. It's certainly better than the 2 hours plus it took to recce it!

So now I'm trying to decide whether to race again before GNR. I kind of feel like I want to do a race to measure my progress, because I haven't raced for so long, but equally this is an important month for long runs, so maybe those would benefit me more. Decisions decisions.