Indulging In My Two Loves

What a great weekend it has been.  The two activities that I love more than anything else are listening to music and running.  Obviously, the second activity shouldn't come as any great surprise to anyone reading this blog.  This weekend I have thoroughly gorged myself on music, and it makes a really nice change for this to have dominated my time instead of running.

First of all I bought the new albums by Foals and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds on Friday.  I've listened to both a few times since then, and both are excellent.  I am a massive fan of Nick Cave but I was half expecting not to be too enthralled by his latest offering, solely based on a few snippets I'd heard over previous weeks.  However, the album is a massive grower that offers up more and more rewards on repeated listens.  I wouldn't go as far to say that it is his best work, but it comes close.  It is a subdued classic and very different to his far more raucous recordings of late.  Here's a little taste:

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street

I also went to two concerts over the weekend.  First up, on Friday evening I went to see Richard Hawley at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.  I'm amazed by just how many people have said "who?", when I tell them I've been to see Mr Hawley.  He was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize this year!  He's another great singer/songwriter with an electric guitar and a great voice.  His music also tends to be rather subdued, but with the occasional rock out moment.  He has great live presence and is also a very funny man.  This is one of the subdued tracks:

Richard Hawley on Jools Holland - Don't Stare At The Sun

Now it is quite possible that I drank slightly more than my usual three pint limit on Friday.  But that didn't stop me from going for an 18 mile run Saturday morning.  My good friend Jamshid had arranged to do a run with other friends and running couple, Chris and Suzy, and Lotti, who I don't know so well.  We all met at 8.30am Saturday morning and went for a run on a route that I wouldn't normally choose to run.  However, it was nice not to be the organiser for a change and to go where I was told to go.

Suzy, Chris, Jamshid, Lotti & me

Our run was a 5 mile run out of Cambridge alongside the busy Newmarket Road, followed by a 4 mile run through some fairly nice villages.  We then turned around and headed back the same way we came.  On the way back Suzy wanted to practise running at her marathon pace, so I said I'd act as her pacemaker.  I did a terrible job of pace making as I was consistently a few seconds per mile faster than Suzy wanted to run.  But Suzy did a great job of keeping with me, whilst managing to also hold a conversation for most of the time.  

With less than 2 miles to go to the finish I think my indulgence from the previous night suddenly caught up with me.  I suddenly felt light headed and a little dizzy.  I told Suzy I'd need to walk for a bit and encouraged her to keep going without me.  I do believe she rather enjoyed leaving me behind feeling rather weak and pathetic.  I walked whilst I consumed an energy gel and drank lots of water, and was soon joined by Jamshid, who was a little concerned for me.  By that time I had recovered enough to run the remainder of the way back home.  Some food and a little siesta were all I needed to completely sort me out.

Then in the afternoon I headed into London Town to catch up with Simon and Abigail, who I describe as my Glastonbury friends.  Why?  Well because I first met them several years ago at Glastonbury Festival when I went along with a friend and his work colleague who went to university with Simon.  Over the years that followed I would always bump into them at Glastonbury, despite their being more than 120,000 people there.  Then it got to a point when I decided to get their mobile numbers so I could actively arrange to meet them.  So through Glastonbury and the shared love for live music we've become pretty good friends.  Helped by the fact that they are also two of the nicest people you could meet.  

The main reason for my trip to London was so that we could all go to the NME Awards Tour at Brixton Academy.  It also happened to be Abigail's birthday.  After a beer and a chat in a pub on Stockwell Road we headed off to the Academy.  The NME Tour used to always come to Cambridge, but suddenly stopped doing so a couple of years ago.  It aims to showcase four up and coming bands destined for good things.  Past acts have included The Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Cribs and Florence & The Machine.  This year we had Peace, Palma Violets, Miles Kane and Django Django as the headliners.  Peace were o.k. but didn't completely win me over.  I have seen and heard several things by Palma Violets over recent months and I already think they are an amazing band, so I really enjoyed seeing them live.  Miles Kane has been around longer than the other acts, but I personally find him to be a little too much like Oasis for my tastes, but as a live performer he was fantastic.  Django Django released their debut album last year and I do rate it as one of the best albums of 2012.  I was also looking forward to seeing them and I am happy to report that their live show did not disappoint.  Here's the opening track of both the album and the live show:

Django Django - Hail Bop (official video)

All-in-all a great night for £20 (plus the price of my train ticket).

Today I am having a fairly indulgent Sunday of doing not much at all.  Which is making a very nice change indeed.  Next week I will be able to report on my first marathon of the year.

Run To The Hills

Today I took the biggest Sweaty Betty group of the year so far for a very testing run around Royston Heath.  

All smiles before the run: Julie, Marie, Pia, Viona, Jo, Sarah, Shahla & Silvia.

The marathon girls were backing off on the mileage, but upping the level of difficulty.  The group were made up of four girls training for a spring marathon, and everyone present today will be running in the Cambridge half marathon in 3 weeks time.

Today's route around Royston Heath is roughly a 4 mile loop (3.8 if you like greater precision), with a total of about 6 large hills and a few other minor bumps.  We were all aiming to run a total of three laps.  Not much of the course is flat.  It is fairly relentlessly hilly, so very good for training.

The group set off on very wet ground - the start is the only bit that's
close to being flat.

I've been to Royston Heath many times over the years, but I have never known it to be so wet and slippery.  This didn't cause any problems on the uphill sections, but some of the steep downhills were a bit treacherous.

The second & third main climbs.

We mostly stayed together as one group for the first lap, with myself leading the way.  This is how I managed to get photos of all the girls together.  However, it was clear there would be two main groups.  Pia, Jo and Marie were never too far behind me, and then the other five girls tended to arrive as a group soon after.  For the first lap we regrouped every kilometer, more or less.  Everyone was then left to run at their own pace for the next two laps, but we did all regroup at the start of the final lap.

My favourite downhill section through the wood.  Pia, Jo and
Marie (just appearing from behind a tree) arrive just after me.

Then Viona, Julie, Shahla, Silvia & Sarah arrive.

After the wood comes a short but very steep downhill section, where two girls had a fall.  Fortunately, there weren't any injuries.  However, on the final lap of the day Viona slipped on a tree root running through the wood and ended up with a broken finger.  From a runner's perspective, I guess it could have been worse.

Once out of the woods, and with the steep descent behind us, we had two final climbs, both of which are beasts.

The second to last climb on the first lap.  Just two more laps to go.

The last climb might well be the worst, but I can usually dig deep and will myself to the top without resorting to walking.  If it were a hill on a race I would definitely walk, as I'd want to conserve energy for later, plus I'm sure that running up the final hill isn't that much quicker than walking.  But on a training run I try to run up every single hill, if it's possible to do so without my lungs bursting.

Despite the difficulty of the run, the bruised and muddy bottoms, and the broken finger, the girls all said they enjoyed the run and would even like to go back to Royston Heath.  Of course, it probably helped that it was such a lovely day today.

Double Workout Saturday

Saturday's are going to typically be a double workout day for the foreseeable future.  My day started with me being one of the first people to arrive at Milton Country Park this morning to get ready for the weekly 5k Parkrun.  I hadn't realised I was so much earlier than normal, but the park was pretty deserted when I got there at 8:30am.  I'm sure I'm normally only 10 minutes later, but those 10 minutes clearly make a big difference.  Being so early I had a longer than normal warm-up, running 2 miles around the entire site, and still having loads of time left before the race was due to start.

I met up with a few of my clients, past and present, and had a brief chat before making my way to near the front of the field for the race to get underway.  I was hoping I'd shave a few seconds of my time from the previous week.  However, having already run the entire course, I knew it was going to be a lot more slippery today.

Once the race was underway there was a massive sprint from 5 to 6 guys at the front, who quickly sped away from the rest of the field.  I'd never seen such a big leading group before.  I think I settled into about 15th position and slowly worked my way up to 11th overall at the finish, which was my same finishing position as last week.  There was a time when I'd consistently be in the top 5, so I still have lots of improvement to do if I'm to get back to that status.  It's possible that the standard has vastly improved in recent months.  Four guys finished in a time under 17 minutes, which is pretty good for what is effectively a cross country 5k in muddy conditions.  However, I can't be too disappointed with my time of 18 minutes 19 seconds.  A 14 second improvement over last week.

Once Parkrun was completed I met up with five of the women Channel rowers that I'm training this year.  All five were also present for the Parkrun, with three of the crew absent for legitimate reasons (work, holiday and illness).  I worked the girls quite hard, but also used the opportunity for a workout for myself, doing everything that I asked of them.  This does mean that I know exactly how hard I'm training them.

My intention had been to also go for a 10 mile run after the kettlebell workout.  I said goodbye to the ladies and contemplated my planned additional run.  I decided against it for a number of reasons, mainly because I was feeling pretty exhausted already, but also because my knee still isn't back to full fitness, which I told myself was the deciding factor in cancelling my run.

I'd also planned on making a trip to Advanced Performance to look for a new pair of trail shoes.  The dear running club members at Sweaty Betty had given me £65 of vouchers for Christmas, so I thought I'd see if I could spend them.  I was specifically after some shoes that would prove to be up to the job of running 80km in the Swiss Alps this August.  I'm not expecting them to last that long, but I wanted to see if I could find a pair that I'd be happy to use for that sort of run.  On running forums the Inov 8 shoes come highly recommended.  After trying on a pair of Inov 8 shoes and some very good Addidas trail shoes, I parted with my vouchers and £24 of my own money and left the shop with a pair of Roclite 315's.  Tomorrow I'll be running 3 laps of Royston Heath with some of the girls from the Sweaty Betty running club, so I aim to try them out on one of the 4 mile laps.

How long will they stay this clean?

A Week Of Quality Training

After my appalling result at last week's Parkrun (by my usual standards) I decided to give myself a hypothetical kick up the arse and get back into serious training.  So, Tuesday morning I took myself off to Coldham's Common to re-start my interval training.  I decided to start by running six times two minute intervals, with a two minute resting recovery.  I did this whilst a group of footballers from Cambridge United were also using Coldham’s Common as their training ground.  I’d like to think that I was working far harder than they were.  For those into stats, my best mile pace for a 2 minute interval was 5’26”, and my worst was 5’49”, with an average of 5’39”.  This isn’t great, but it’s also not too shabby given that I was running on reasonably long grass.  I’ll have to see how much I can improve on this over the next few weeks.

Wednesday was the usual Sweaty Betty night, which gives me the opportunity for an easy running night whilst putting the girls through their paces.  This week I made the girls run five sets of 3 minute intervals.  During the course of the running club evening I ran a total of 5.2 miles.

Yesterday was kettlebell day.  I teach three classes on Thursday, and I try to make sure that I do at least half of each class.  I figure that this must give me a reasonable amount of cross training on my day off from running.

Today the weather has finally turned spring like, so I donned a pair of shorts and headed to Magog Down.  I decided to run a few laps around the perimeter of the Down.  Now this isn’t the Lake District or the Yorkshire Dales, but there is a bit of a slope to the Downs.  Each lap is approximately 2 miles and is rectangular shaped.  Starting at one corner, it is all downhill to the opposite corner and then it is pretty much all uphill again back to the start.  So it’s almost exactly 1 mile down, followed by 1 mile uphill.  I aimed for three laps of steady running.  The aim wasn’t to attack the hills but to just get round at a reasonably consistent pace.  The path was incredible muddy almost all the way around.  It was mostly thick, claggy, strength sapping mud, with the odd patch of wet, slippery, “I’m gonna make you land on your arse” mud.  All good fun and akin to a great bit of cross country running, which should be great for building strength in the legs.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading back to Parkrun to see if I can improve last weeks time by a few seconds.

A Day Out At Grafham Water

The marathon training plan that I devised for me and the Sweaty Betties called for a 16 mile run this weekend.  I remembered running around Grafham Water reservoir a few years back and discovering it was 8 miles around the lake.  Therefore, I suggested we made a trip out to Grafham for our weekend's run.

Seven girls wanted to join me for the trip, including two new girls.  These were: Jo, Pia, Rowan, Julie, Sarah and her visiting friend, Izzy, and new girl, Shahla.  Everyone was aiming for slightly different distances.  Myself, Jo, Pia and Izzy were planning on doing the full 16 miles,  Shahla 14 miles, Sarah 13, Julie 10 and Rowan 8 miles.  We mostly ran the first lap together as best we could, but it was quickly clear that Shahla and Sarah weren't quite as fast as the other five.

Julie, Pia, Rowan, Izzy & Jo at the back.

The lead group never got too far ahead of the other girls, and we waited every two miles or so for them to catch up.

The last time we were almost all together: Izzy, Jo, Pia, Julie, Shahla, Rowan
and Sarah at the back in the yellow coat.

It was a particularly foul day today - cold, wet and windy.  When I'd planned the trip to Grafham I had imagined a clear winters day with lovely views across the lake.  When we were marathon training this time last year we did lots of training runs on lovely winter days.  Of course, that was because we were in a drought back then, which ended shortly after London marathon and it seems it has hardly stopped raining since.  We encountered lots of mud and plenty of deep puddles.  I came very close to having my trainers pulled off my feet in one sticky patch of mud.  Fortunately for the girls I was able to advise them to take an alternative route around the mud.  Once we'd completed one lap we ran the next lap in the reverse direction.  I'd managed to forget about the shoe sucking mud in the space of about 3 miles and almost lost my shoes a second time.

As several people were running different mileages we had to say our goodbyes at various different points.  Sarah decided to turn around at the 6.5 mile point on the first lap of the lake.  Everyone else continued to the car park, where we said goodbye to Rowan.  Julie then continued for another mile back on herself and then returned to her car, and Shahla ran back for  about 3 miles and then turned around again.  We waited for Shahla at the point we thought she'd turn around but never saw her again, so I hope she was o.k.

I then continued with the remaining three for the full two laps.  It's possible that I could have planned the route better.  We went clockwise for the first lap, and anti-clockwise for the second lap.  I had forgotten how hilly it is over the first two miles if you run clockwise around the lake.  This wasn't so bad on the first lap with fresh legs, but when we turned around to run the second lap anti-clockwise it meant we'd have to deal with the hills for the last 2 miles of what actually turned out to be a 17.4 mile run.  So I was slightly out with my one lap being 8 miles.  For the second week running I made Jo and myself run about a mile and a half more than the training programme suggested.

It also turned out that I made another organisational error.  There are two main car parks at Grafham Water.  One right by a sailing centre and on the edge of the main village of Perry.  The other is in the middle of nowhere and where there is a cycle hire centre.  I remembered that both had cafes, but I assumed that the cafe next to the sailing centre was the one most likely to be open, but I never thought to check.  As it turned out I was wrong, so we had no chance to get a hot cup of tea at the end of the run.  At least I took cookies to share with everyone.  Maybe I should invest in a large flask.  At the end of the run we had a quick stretch under the canopy of the closed cafe and then piled into my car with our muddy legs for the 40 minute drive back to Cambridge.

Return To Parkrun

Today I returned to Cambridge parkrun for my first 5k run since last October.  I knew I wouldn't be close to my PB from last May (17 mins 27 Secs), but I still expected to do a little better than 18 minutes 33 seconds.  I know lots of people would be more than happy to clock up this time, but it left me feeling old and sluggish.  

Now what's that thing that top athletes do to keep themselves competitive?  I believe it's called "training".  That's what I've been lacking over the last few months.  Sure, I've been getting out and doing several runs each week and putting in the long miles ready for London marathon.  I've also devised plenty of training plans for other people, but my own training has been a little unfocused, and I haven't done enough of the hard interval training.  Hopefully, my parkrun result from today will be enough to get me to pull my finger out and do more speedwork.

After parkrun I hung around in Milton Country Park for an hour of kettlebell training with the female Channel row crew.  Six out of eight of the ladies made it to parkrun and kettlebells today.  I'm also using this training slot as an opportunity for me to do some kettlebell training myself, so I've been pulling out an 18kg kettlebell, rather than using a 16kg bell which I tend to use when teaching classes.  Last October I was using a 20kg bell when I was training myself and the male crew for a Channel row.  My aim is to get back to using a 20kg kettlebell on a regular basis.

On Friday I went out for an 8 mile run.  My goal was to just run at a sustainable pace and see what my mile splits would turn out like.  When I completed the run I was really happy with the results:

Split	Time
1	07:18.9
2	06:45.6
3	06:45.6
4	06:52.7
5	06:27.7
6	06:30.8
7	06:58.9
8	08:02.1
9	00:25.6
Summary	56:07.7

The first mile was my warm-up mile.  I'm still having some problems with my knee.  I run with a limp whenever I start my runs at the moment, which can't look good to any onlookers, but it tends to ease off after a mile and I start running normally.  So I was really happy with the above splits, especially miles 5 and 6.  I was deliberately tying to slow down over the last two miles.

Unfortunately, I had intended doing some interval training on Thursday, but I ran out of time.  I contemplated going out at about 8:30pm after teaching two kettlebell classes, but I just couldn't motivate myself to go for a run when I was feeling hungry.  I need to improve my time management so that I can get out for more regular runs on Thursdays.

Tomorrow is the highlight of the running week as it is long run day.  I am taking a group of the Sweaty Betties of to Grafham Water to run 16 miles around the reservoir, which is two laps of the lake.  At the moment, though, we seem to have a transport issue.  Too many people and not enough cars.  Hopefully this will be resolved by the morning, and I'm also hoping the weather won't be too horrid.

A Runner's Guilt

Today I am feeling guilty because yesterday I skipped a planned run.  At the time I had a good enough reason for not running.  It wasn't that I was too busy or doing other training instead.  No, I skipped my run because my legs just felt too knackered.  My scarred right knee wasn't feeling too great, so I suspect my fall last week hurt it more than I realised.  I had also spent Monday doing loads of kettlebell lunge and presses, which look like this:

It's a reasonably demanding exercise, working the legs, core and upper body.  I was practising the exercise at home Monday morning, and then teaching it in three classes that day.  So it's hardly surprising that my legs were a little tired.  At the time I was convinced that having a day off was the best thing to do.  So why do I feel guilty now for missing a run?  Does anyone else get like this?  I'm even telling myself that I will make up for it by running on Friday instead, which is usually my rest day.  

My right knee still isn't feeling great.  It feels really stiff at the start of a run, but seems to loosen up after 5 to 10 minutes.  It will have a test later on today when I take the ladies from the Sweaty Betty running club for a training session.

The Year So Far

Training, training, training, that's what I've been up to so far.  But in truth not as much as I'd like.  I've also been tagging on to various other run groups for some of my runs.  So here's a brief run down of most of my long runs so far this year:

January 6 - running with JK (who must have been taking the photo) and his band of merry runners, half of whom I knew already.  We did a 16 mile run on the Roman Road, starting from Magog Down, on a fairly mild but foggy morning.  It must have felt quite warm for the time of year judging by all the bare legs.

January 13 - I ran with four of the Sweaty Betties (Anna, Sarah, Jo & Emma) and David tagged along, too.  He hasn't been seen since!  The girls were doing about 11 miles and I was running 18 miles.  For this one we stuck to the River Cam from central Cambridge to Waterbeach and back. I tagged on a few extra miles at both ends of the run.

January 19 (Sat) - And yet another group of runners.  This time a run organised by my mate Tony (in the centre).  Once again, I knew most of the other runners.  As you can see we had a bit of snow to deal with.  But it takes more than snow to stop us hardy souls.  On this day we ran 9.5 miles, starting and finishing at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Grantchester, where you can get the best scones in Cambridge.  It was the idea of having a scone at the end of the run that got me up early on the Saturday morning.  And it might not look like I've been for a run, but being fast for a bloke in his forties I had time to change before most people got back.

January 20 (Sun) - Another run with the Sweaty Betties along the Roman Road and in the snow. This time I was with Pia, Emma, Alison, Jo and Sarah.  On this day we mostly all ran 12.5 miles.

January 27 - What a difference a week makes.  This time we were all over dressed as we were taken by surprise by just how warm it was.  This run was pretty much a repeat of two weeks ago, approximately 11 miles for the Sweaty Betties, but 16 miles for me.  Again we went from central Cambridge and followed the river to Waterbeach and back.  In this photo the ever present Jo, Rowan, Anna, Pia, Rona and me.

February 3 - And this photo brings us up to date.  I met with five of the Sweaty Betties (Rowan, Viona, Sonia, Jo & Emma) and Tom, a friend of Rowan's, outside the Sweaty Betty shop for a run out to the west of Cambridge.  A route that I very rarely run.

Viona and Sonia turned around just before it got really muddy.

The others had planned on running 10 miles, but as the puddles of mud started to get deeper they decided to turn around a little earlier.

Jo and I proved that we're hardcore, and carried on through some pretty thick sticky mud, that added extra weight to our ever tiring legs....

....not to mention a big cleaning job to do when we got home.  Give me snow to run through any day.  You never have to clean your running shoes after a run through snow!  Today I ran 19.5 miles and had Jo as my ever constant companion for the middle 15 miles.  Thanks, Jo.

I have also suffered my first running related injury of the year.  This was sustained at the Sweaty Betty running club on Wednesday as a result of me trying to run fast whilst looking over my shoulder.  This is not recommended, because this is the potential result:

Still, it's better than a torn muscle.