The Giants Head Marathon

I have a big five in my events list this year. These are the events that really stand out for me as the ones I truly look forward to, and this Saturday was the second of them. The Giant’s Head Marathon. I put this event up on a pedestal when I first discovered White Star Running a couple of years ago as the medal was great (it got better for this year), it was winning awards for being the best Marathon (quite rightly it turns out), and I didn’t think I could ever do a marathon. Then last year I accidently did a marathon and though it was time to step up to see what the Sydling and Cerne Valleys had to offer.

The race start was an early Saturday morning, so we headed up the day before and camped. While sleeping in a tent the night before a tough race isn’t everyone’s ideal preparation, I sleep like a log under canvas so I woke fresh and ready to take on the hills in the morning.

My trail marathon kit is pretty much sorted now, fine tuned over the last couple of years running. Trail runners, sock type gaiters to keep the stones out, compression socks which are there to partly to apply compression, mostly to fend off bugs and nettles, and obviously my shorts and t-shirt. On top of that I have my water bladder which has enough pockets for my phone and some gels. A bit of surgical tape is crisscrossed artistically to protect myself from runners-nipple, and some Vaseline is applied liberally to bits of me which protects from the worst of the blisters. I was also taking music with me for the first time because I knew there would be some dark moments on the course.

I have been blessed so far with the weather on event days this year, and again the sun was out with the perfect amount of cloud to knock the temperature down to make running pleasant. We were gathered for the usual pre-race preamble which is always a bit more light-hearted with White Star events, and then before I really knew it, I was off to take part in my second marathon.

I have done a number of endurance events now,including multi-day kayaking and cycling, I’m even starting to consider myself an endurance athlete, and I have learned that the moment I start, I am in a race against the dispirits. These shadowy specters will catch up with me at some point, usually during another stupid hill or when I haven’t seen another competitor for ages, and sure enough at about the half way mark I started to seriously not enjoy myself.

I found myself clock and distance watching, and it didn’t seem to matter how much I tried to run, I didn’t seem to cover any more ground. It was hard, I had been going for about three hours and I knew there was at least another three to go. I had pretty bad blisters on both of my feet (I forgot to Vaseline a couple of bits). At the previous water station I hadn’t put the lid on my bladder properly and didn’t realise until most of my water had soaked my back, and there was another hill... Fortunately I've faced the shall-I-just-quit? demon before and come out the other end... And I also had a secret weapon this time, the dispirits cannot outrun The Phoenix by Fall Out Boy. Before I knew it I was bouncing along again.

There are three things that I will take away from this race.

Giants Head Elevation

Number one. The route always went uphill. I don’t know how that is possible, I'm sure we should have come back down at some point but all I remember is up. The race started, we ran about five hundred metres before facing the first of what was claimed to be nine hills. Most of us were reduced to walking, a couple of runners who had done the route before said that the first one was the worst. I agree with them! It was the first and only hill I remember. I didn’t count any of the others because they all just blended into hill number one.

Number two. The Scheduled Monument that is the Cerne Abbas Giant, while gloriously endowed with a thirty five foot erection, was a little underwhelming from ground level. From the air, after his chalk outline gets a renovation I’m sure it is an impressive sight, but if you’re planning on making a trip to take a selfie from the closest layby I would suggest there are better photo opportunities to be had (with a humongous willy or otherwise).

And the third thing is cramps. I have never suffered from particularly severe muscle cramps before but I was literally twice tripped over by my own leg going into spasm. It came on usually after I tried to start running again, after either stopping at a water station or after walking uphill, a final spasm again nearly tripped me over just as I was crossing the finish line.

Six hours, eight minutes of running what seemed like mostly uphill was rewarded by a warm welcome back at the village, a pint of cider, and a spinning willy medal, and as I sat there back in my tent I had mostly forgotten the grim bits and was contemplating which marathon to do next.

Giants Head Marathon Medal (with spinning member)

Swim the Lake 2016

This week’s post nearly didn’t happen. Why? Well mainly because I didn’t do very much last week at all except for a Parkrun (didn’t get a PB) and a bike ride (60k, wasn’t very fast), both of which happened on Saturday. With tapering for a marathon this coming weekend and the weather being dire, I didn’t really feel like I had much to say… but then Tuesday happened and here I am all keen to share.

Quick note on the Saturday bike ride. This was the first time I have used my new tri-bars and I have to say that I am smitten. When I go into the aero position the speed difference is palpable, and they are really comfortable to lie in. I do think I need to tweak my bike setup to maximise the benefit of the bars, with a shorter stem and maybe take out a couple of spacers to make the aero position even more aero, I don’t intend to change my setup until after the Ride London 100 though as the tri-bars are not allowed for that event and the bike is currently set up nicely for sportives.

Swim the Lake 2016

I think this is the first time I have taken part in an event on a weekday. 7pm after work on a Tuesday night is not like me, I’m usually in bed by then. However I had been goaded into taking part in the enigmatically named “Swim the Lake 2016” race. The mystery lake was actually Ardingly Reservoir and I decided to go for the medium distance of 1.5km.

I haven’t exactly been working on my open water swimming, I think I have been swimming once since my tri. Coupled with the fact that pretty much every other swimmer in my wave was from a triathlon club, I didn’t hold out much hope for a top position. In fact, I was worried that I might have sloshed ashore near last but I actually feel that I represented myself quite well.

After the water warm up we were herded together to plop into the water from a floating pontoon. I had entirely forgotten about my goggles which I had on my head, and after I plopped, they pinged off and floated away. Fortunately my friend recovered them for me but I did spend a few moments contemplating how I would cope swimming 1500m without them. I need to be more careful next time.

At the start I positioned myself near the front at the very end of the swimming line so that I didn’t get caught up in the elbows-n-feet argy-bargy that I knew would happen in the middle of the pack. Right from the word go I went for it with my less than bomb proof front crawl. If I do say so myself I was actually not bad, I had to alternate between my crawl and breast stroke but there was a great deal more front crawl from me than usual. I was even enjoying it.

In the end I’m very pleased with my time. 00:33:35. Much faster than I thought I would be and I know I can do more to bring that time down (mainly by crawling more). Practice is needed.

Swim the Lake 2016 medal

 

Nothing

This is going to be a short post about nothing much at all. (Actually thinking about it, this might be considered an excessively long post if it’s about nothing much at all).

Last weekend during the Worthing 10k I picked up a bit of a niggle in my right quad, nothing too serious it just felt like someone had rather meanly given me a dead leg. I made things a little bit worse because the following day was the last nice weather day and I made the most of it by going for a longish run in the sun. Since then I have been keen to give my leg some rest, and also since then it has been raining. The rain/dead-leg combo has proved to be the perfect excuse for me to mostly play the Playstation.

I did take delivery of a set of clip on aero bars for my bike this week. I have been contemplating them for a while but have hesitated because my bike isn’t a TT bike so they might look a bit out of place, and they are banned for the sportives I enjoy. Talking to a few people over the last few months, and reading bits and pieces online, I persuaded myself to get some as they do offer an alternative riding position and in theory will give me some more speed. I have yet to take the bike out for a spin with them, but soon…

The weekend, usually a bastion of exercise for me was this week spent in Manchester to celebrate a friends 40^th. So for the best part of those two days I was either driving, drinking, or sleeping. By the time I got home on Sunday I was quite jaded and didn’t really want to do anything. I did manage to pluck up enough enthusiasm to sort out my less than byzantine kayak storage system though. Two of my boats have been blocking the side alley for ages so I bungeed them to the fence. To complete this marvel of engineering I have essentially stapled a tarpaulin over the lot to offer protection from the worst of the weather. I don’t think it win any awards for style but it is an improvement on where the boats were previously.

Worthing 10k

I ran the Worthing Half marathon a couple of months ago, it was fast, flat, and I managed to knock 2 minutes off my half marathon PB. When the Worthing 10k race appeared in my periphery (I can’t remember if it was a clever bit of facebook targeted marketing, an email, or a recommendation from one of my runny friends) I knew there was the potential for me to set a new 10k PB, so of course, I signed up.

It was a relatively early start for a race with a 09:30 gun time, but that wasn’t going to be a bad thing as the sun had been turned up to maximum and the wind had been set to idle. Had it been closer to noon I think it would have been unbearable.

It was a sell-out event and the sea front was packed, by the time I got to the start line I was about 200 metres away from the start line. The man on the tannoy said something, there was a muffled cheer from 200 metres ahead and two minutes later the runners in the middle of the pack including me, started that run/walk thing that you have to do with the busy events.

I thought that I would spend the first couple of kilometres trying to get past the slower runners in front of me but as it was a closed road event it proved to be much easier to find the space to run at my pace once we shuffled over the start line. The PB was on!

I’m not the best at race preparation to be honest. I know what I should do, eat right, hydrate properly, blah, blah, blah but I hadn’t had time for breakfast and I was a bit dehydrated before I started. It was hot, my pace was sizzling, and very quickly I was feeling it. I knew there was water at the 5k mark though and I could use it to cool down and rehydrate. I powered on.

I could see the runners ahead all moving across to the left hand side of the road. A sure sign that a water station was coming up, I moved over, snatched my bottle and kept on running. No time to stop, I was chasing my PB. The plan was to give my feet and head a squirt of water to cool down a bit before drinking the rest but I fumbled it. I dropped the bottle onto my left foot which unhelpfully hoofed it over a ditch and into a field. So much for the water stop.

I knew quite a few people running and I was ahead of most of them, with the return leg back along the same road it was about a kilometre of high fives and encouragement which was really great. What was also really great were the two guys who were spraying a fine mist of water from pressure washers over the runners.

The last two kilometres or so along the sea front I found pretty grim, I knew it is the final stretch but I couldn't see the finish line. Memories of the half marathon came back to me, it was about here that I choked. I had caught up with my pace runner and was flying but for some reason that long slog back to the finish line was too much and I ended up walking much of the way. Not this time though, I dug deep and gave everything I had.

I felt a bit faint towards the end and this next bit was a bit dream-like. I crossed the finish timing mats and stopped my Garmin, made sure I got my medal before staggering a little way to clear the funnel, I picked a bit of tarmac that was in the shade, went to my hands and knees and gently rested my head on the ground. It was all very deliberate, I wanted to get out of the sun and get some blood back to my head but it clearly was quite concerning behavior, I had a concerned runner checking on me, and when I lifted my head back up there were a couple of St. John medics making their way over. I gave them my best “I’m still alive” thumbs-up which seemed to cheer them up though.

I did get that PB. Fourteen seconds off my previous, taking me to 00:49:45 for the 10k. Fast and flat, well organized, and a really decent medal. A jolly good Sunday despite the sunburn and the weird bit at the end.

Worthing 10k Medal

Scouting

I’m back, I knew you’d miss me.

I spent last week in tent, in a field, next to a river, trying to resemble the rough approximation of a scout leader. As you can imagine I had no computer, Wi-Fi, or much spare time, hence the lack of update to the blog last monday. This week it’s going to be a bumper double edition (though if you’re reading this in the order that the blog publishes it, you’ve already read the other half of this double). It’s probably for the best that I didn’t get a chance to write anything last Monday though as the week following my Tri was really boring.

So yeah, anyway. I’ve been a scout leader for a while and scout camp for me is essentially an excuse to spend a week living out of a tent and kayaking. Not everyone’s idea of a good time I’m sure, especially when you throw in 20 scouts to look after but it is actually a whole dollop of fun as far as I’m concerned.

As one of the kayak coaches I spent the days pottering about on the Thames in my white-water boat, trying with partial success to discourage scouts from throwing themselves into the river. In the evenings I had some free time to take the K1 out for a blast and I was able to clock up 20k over the course of those few days, on my longest solo run I managed ten kilometres, at an average of 8.5km/h. Swapping in and out of the WW boat and the K1 made me realise why I am increasingly turning my attention to K1 paddling. A trip around a handy island in my WW boat (admittedly with a cohort of scouts in tow) took over forty minutes. In the K1 it took six. It’s almost frustrating how sluggish the plastic boats move on slow moving water.

A quick change of subject but very much blog related… I can’t remember if I have put up a picture of my medal board here yet. Up until the end of last week I shared half of it but it was becoming increasingly crowded, so in a spare few minutes I kicked out the previous tenant and increased my real estate.

Medal Board