Damn Bugs!

My Runuary aims have been hampered by some damn bug this week. I was forced to resort to the 'walk for at least a mile if you can not run' fall back option on three consecutive days. I really didn't expect that I would have to make use of this option when I made my plans for Runuary at the end of last year. I started to feel a little ill on Wednesday, with the main symptom being a complete lack of appetite and a slight feeling of nausea. I just wasn't able to finish either my lunch or dinner, which is very unlike me. I was still able to take the Sweaty Betty Running Club in the evening, but I coasted along at the back of the group.

Thursday was a very up and down sort of day. I felt rough first thing in the morning, so cancelled my first client of the day. I considered cancelling my lunchtime kettlebell class, but held on to the last minute. As the time drew nearer I convinced myself I was feeling better, so off I went. I didn’t say anything to my clients, but I tried to do as little as possible and used a much lighter kettlebell than normal. As I wrapped up the class I was sure I felt much better and told myself that the fresh air and exercise had helped. However, by the time I arrived back home for lunch I was feeling awful again and couldn't eat anything without feeling sick. So I cancelled the next one-to-one session but decided to wait until the last minute before cancelling my two evening kettlebell classes. By this time I still hadn't been for a run. The idea of running seemed too horrendous and I contemplated not doing anything and writing off my Runuary attempt there and then. But then I thought that I might feel better for doing a 1 mile walk and I could use the time and brief bit of exercise to decide whether I needed to cancel my classes and Friday's one-to-one sessions. As it happens I did feel a lot better after the walk, so decided to carry on with the classes.

In the evening I felt absolutely fine teaching my two classes. In fact I seemed to get better with each passing minute. I taught the first class with a 12kg bell and the second class with a 14kg bell, still lighter than my usual weight. I also felt hungrier as the classes progressed, and I couldn't stop thinking about pork pies. I decided that I should give in to my cravings and buy a couple of calorie dense pork pies on my way home. Clearly it was what my body needed. I stopped at the supermarket on my way home and stood looking at pork pies and suddenly felt that it wasn't what I wanted. I looked at pizzas and decided that a pizza would certainly help replace some of my missed calories from lunchtime and yesterday's half eaten meals. I waited to see if my stomach would reject the idea or be in agreement. It certainly didn't seem to be against the idea, so I grabbed a fairly plain chicken pizza and paid for it before either my brain or stomach had a chance to consider other options.

At home I plonked myself in front of the TV with just half of the pizza to see how that would go down. All seemed good and I felt I had room for more, so I helped myself to another quarter of pizza. Several minutes passed and I had no adverse reaction and was possibly still feeling hungry. Hmm, should I finish it all off? What’s the worst that could happen? I wondered. So with an entire pizza in my belly I was feeling very happy with myself and believed I’d conquered my bug.

But, oh no! My little bug was just getting going. I’ll try to spare you from the worst of the details, but let’s just say that that night I spent a long time considering the wisdom of eating a pizza as I spent my time on my hands and knees in front of the toilet making noises that I thought could quite possibly summon Beelzebub. With no food in my belly and a mostly sleepless night there was no way I was going to work on Friday. Being self employed I don’t cancel work lightly, but by Friday I was feeling absolutely awful and spent most of the day in bed. I did manage to go for another walk late in the afternoon to keep my Runuary streak going. I combined my walk with a trip to a chemist to buy some aspirin.  In the evening I managed a small meal. This one also passed through me very quickly and so I spent a second night making repeated trips to the bathroom.

By Saturday I was utterly fed up of being ill. We were supposed to be meeting friends in the evening at a new pub in Cambridge that has had some great reviews for both its beer and food, and I was really looking forward to eating there. Sadly, it was evident that I wouldn’t be going out. I did manage another walk of about 1.5 miles. So that was my third consecutive day without a run. In the evening I also managed to eat half of my dinner. I was in bed before 10pm, and had 10 hours of completely undisturbed sleep. I didn’t even notice Ruth come to bed later in the evening. I was so thankful that when I awoke I was actually feeling better and looked forward to eating some breakfast.

I do have a tendency to feel completely sorry for myself when I am ill, and I know I am lucky to have Ruth who is willing to fulfil the role of my nurse during these times. So whilst it was a big relief to me that I was feeling much better, it must also have been a huge relief for Ruth, as I must have been a burden over the last few days. I’m sure I’m not the only man who has a very understanding and carrying partner in times of sickness. I’d like to think that we all pay them back for their devotion and compassion during these times. I'll be thinking of ways to pay Ruth back over the next few days.

So after three days of not running I went for a very tentative run this afternoon. The plan was to go for 2.5 miles.  As soon as I was out of the door and running down the street my entire body was overcome with shear joy at being able to run again. My legs actually felt better than they have done in ages. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with my legs before, but they suddenly felt like the legs of a younger man. The three days of forced rest must have been a blessing in disguise. Within a couple of minutes of my run I had decided I would go a little further than originally planned. Rather than just heading around the block I would head to the river to run by The Cam for a short stretch and then back home, making for a distance of just over 4 miles. I’m still feeling rejuvenated by my run and I’m looking forward to completing Runuary and to next weekend’s 66 mile Pilgrim Challenge.

Sunday On The Heath With The Betties and Berts

After yesterday's 21 mile undulating solo training run, today I headed to Royston Heath with a group of runners for a hilly 12 mile run. Flat Cambridgeshire is a long way from the Lake District and even further from the Alps, so we have to make do with the bobbly hills of Hertfordshire for our hill training. Today I was joined by ten of the Sweaty Betties and two Bearded Berts.  A circuit of the Heath is about 4 miles. Most people in the group were aiming for about 8 or 9 miles, i.e. either two circuits or two and a bit. Three of us were aiming for 3 laps. The hills aren't high, but they are relentless. It is a great lung bursting and leg wrecking training ground. 

The last time I took a group of Betties to the Heath I ended up taking one girl to A&E with a broken finger. On that particular day the ground was especially slippery and a few girls slipped and ended up smeared in mud. Thankfully, today's mud was more sticky than slippery, so it was just pure hard work rather than treacherous. Amazingly, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

The vast majority of the runners today are training for the Cambridge Half Marathon, with those doing three laps also training for a marathon. At the end of the run one of the girls asked if running around Royston would make the Cambridge Half seem easy, to which I replied, "but of course". At that point Viona cast a spell of negativity over everyone by muttering, "but it won't, will it?" I'm hoping her fiancee, Chris, took my advice and took her home to work on improving her optimism. 

The Sweaty Betties: Julie, Jen, Rowan, Emma, Jo, Caroline, Rachel, Louise, Viona & Sonia,
and the Bearded Berts: me, Chris and David.

Emma, closely followed by Rowan, at the top of the first climb.

Chris leading the way over the series of short bumps that make up the third climb.

The girls and David arriving at the top of the fourth climb, quite possibly the hardest of the hills.

I don't really consider this one a hill, but it is hard work with tired legs.

The fifth and penultimate hill on the course.  Louise leading the majority of the group,
just a short way behind Rachel.

My other news of the week, which I forgot to mention yesterday, relates to the outcome of my application for the 100km CCC race around Mont Blanc this August. Once again I was unsuccessful in the ballot. However, this year I felt confident enough to upgrade my application to the 119km TDS race instead. All of a sudden I have a much stronger motivation for running as many hills as I can get to. I think there should be a handicap system for running mountainous events, with those coming from very flat areas having the biggest handicap. The handicap should be translated into a time bonus which should be deducted from your finishing time. What do you think?

The Wrong Socks!

No it's not the title of the next Nick Park animated adventures of Wallace and Grommit. However, I dare say Wallace would be tutting and shaking his head at the obscene amount of money I spent on a pair of socks that have given me the biggest blisters ever. Just before Christmas I bought a pair of Seal Skinz waterproof running socks, which set me back £25. That is £25 for one pair of socks! I bought them to keep my feet warm and dry when training early in the morning throughout the winter. To this end they have performed marvellously. When I bought them I was told that they should perform well as a running sock, as they are made up of three layers of material, which should help reduce blisters. Prior to this morning I have only used them for short runs, and they have been fine. I had contemplated using them at last weekend's cross country marathon (which I didn't), and also for the upcoming Pilgrim Challenge on the North Downs Way, which consists of 66 miles of potentially very wet and muddy running over two days. I decided it would be prudent to test them on a long training run, so this morning I went for a 21 mile trail run along the Roman Road to Linton. I was aware that my feet were starting to rub on the return leg of the run, and by the time I got home I had three blisters on my toes, which I have named Mini Monster, Terrible Terry and Bastard Bob. 

If I only had Mini Monster I could probably carry on just fine, we could probably learn to live with one another. He's a bit of a nuisance but I don't think he would stop me from doing anything that I wanted to do and I suspect he will have a short life span. He's residing on the little toe of my left foot. Terrible Tony is on the big toe on my right foot and slightly on the underside. I feel him every time I put my foot down, and this is after popping him, draining the fluid and covering him with a blister plaster. He was a reasonably large blister, but not as large or anywhere near as angry as Bastard Bob, who took up residence of my little toe on my right foot. Bastard Bob was bigger than the toe he was on, and I think he was hoping to take over my whole foot. I contemplated taking a photo of my feet invaders but decided that that would be unnecessarily gratuitous. And I didn't want to put anyone off their tea. Bastard Bob was also lanced and his remains were buried under a blister plaster, but he is still causing considerable pain in his after life, like a zombie blister. 

Tomorrow I am going to Royston Heath with the Sweaty Betties and a couple of Jogging Jims (they will probably find that nickname a little patronising, I'll have to see if I can come up with something a little more butch). I really hope my blisters don't curtail my run tomorrow. This was supposed to be my double long run weekend, but I have already cut short tomorrow's run to 12 miles from a planned 18 miles. I'll try to convince myself that 12 miles on Royston Heath is like 18 miles on the flat, and all will be fine.

Cold Christmas to Good Easter Marathon

Home, clean, fed and still feeling knackered after marathon number 1 of the year. The Cold Christmas to Good Easter Marathon on paper looks like it shouldn't be so bad. It's described as a trail run going from Cold Christmas in Hertfordshire and finishing at Good Easter in Essex. It's not that hilly, just nicely undulating. So why was it so hard? Firstly, for a trail run there was a distinct lack of trails. Now I'm not saying we were running on roads, there was a distinct lack of that as well. It was certainly cross country, but this meant following water logged field boundaries, and at times crossing soft, squidgy mud right across ploughed fields. It was about -1 degrees Celcius at the start, which meant the ground had a general covering of thin ice. So as we ran across fields we'd break through the crunchy ice to the soft squidgy, water logged earth below to find freezing water which in turn would find feet within running shoes.

The course of the marathon wasn't marked, it required each runner to self navigate by following written instructions on four sides of A4 paper. I've done a few marathons like this now, and I have to say that I'm not a particular fan of this type of race. I do them out of necessity, as they tend to be cheap, which helps keep the cost down when trying to do many marathons in one year. Trying to run and read instructions certainly slows you down. It is also way to easy to somehow miss a section of the instructions and read an instruction a few lines further on and then convince yourself that you are at that point and to turn right when you should have turned left. I found myself going wrong about three times. First time I was on my own, and realised I had gone wrong after about 400m, I turned round and found myself catching up with a group of four runners who had been behind me. I went past the group and shortly afterwards went wrong again, but not by much. When I caught up with the same group again I decided to stay with them. However, even as a group we all collectively made a few minor errors later on, especially a we started to tire. At times we stood for a minute or two at certain points to double check that we knew where we where, and where we had to go next.

I also had a couple of other minor mishaps. At one point we were running down a tarmac road towards a ford. We were aiming to cross a small footbridge beside the ford, but as I approached I discovered that the road was covered in black ice and found it impossible to either stop or change direction. I had to decide between falling on my arse or running into the ford. I decided on the latter, and I can confirm that the water in the ford was deep and freezing. I had to put up with cold, squelchy feet for quite a few miles after that. Then towards the end of the marathon when I was really starting to feel quite fatigued I miss-judged the height of log lying across the path. I jumped it, tripped and landed face down in the mud. At least I wasn't hurt.

Some people raved about how scenic the route was. We did pass through a few pretty villages, and we also ran past a massive Henry Moore sculpture in the middle of a field, which was quite nice to see (apparently he lives nearby). But for the most part the route either followed field edges around farmland or crossed ploughed fields. I find that after 26 miles one field starts to look like another, and so wasn't particularly inspired by the scenery. But it was a nice day, we had lovely blue skies, and the company was good. The organisers also laid on food at the finish, so I filled up on chili, rice pudding and cake before leaving for home.

I guess I should mention my time, which was 4 hours 1 minute and a few seconds. This had me finishing in 8th place. I would have finished in under 4 hours if it hadn't been for the few deviations I made.

At the start in Cold Christmas

Passing the Henry Moore sculpture

26 miles of mud later

Parkrun Win!

Just a few things to report today.  First, Runuary is still going well, for me at least.  I've heard from a couple of people who seem to be developing a few niggles.  I hope for their sake it isn't serious and that they are both sensible about how they proceed.  Over the first week of Runuary I completed a total of 42 miles, which I'm happy with, considering I was tapering towards marathon number 1 of the year, which takes place tomorrow.  My longest run in the first week was 12.5 miles, and my shortest run was 4 miles.  I experienced just about every possible type of weather imaginable, and on one occasion all during one run, from unbelievable sunshine in January to high winds, heavy rain and hail.  But I would still say it has been fun.

Today was the 1st birthday of Wimpole parkrun.  I've been meaning to try out the Wimpole 5k for some time, but hearing that there would be free birthday cake afterwards was all the incentive I needed to make today my debut.  It would seem I wasn't alone as the turnout today was 207 people, compared to 122 the previous week.

The Wimpole run is a very different experience to Milton.  Milton is completely flat and entirely on a well trodden path, although this can get very muddy after heavy rain.  The Wimpole run starts on a tarmac road for about 1km, but then is almost entirely on rough grassland with very little evidence that anyone has every walked or run there before.  The ground seemed completely water logged and very slippery in parts.  Many fools attempt to run in these conditions in road shoes.  I was also told that some people tried to avoid the puddles!  The ground was so wet that maintaining dry feet just wasn't going to be an option.  The other big difference to Milton is that Wimpole is hilly.  I don't just mean Cambridgeshire hilly.  I'm not talking about a pimple on an otherwise flat landscape.  At about the 2km point there is a proper hill that saps the energy out of your legs and has your lungs working to near bursting point.  

I was in first position at the start of the hill, but was then overtaken by a whipper-snapper towards the top of the climb.  I kept him in my sights and found myself overtaking him again on the descent the other side.  He never came anywhere near me again.  The landscape tilted upwards again at about 4km, but the second rise wasn't so steep.  I then turned the corner to run downhill past Wimpole Hall to see ahead of me two friends who cheered me on at the tops of their voices.  Thank you Paul and Shelley.  After passing Paul and Shelley I probably had about 500m to go to the finish, which was quite possibly the hardest 500m of my life.  As I turned the last corner I looked over my shoulder and knew the runner in second place wouldn't catch me.  And so, at my very first appearance I managed to win the Wimpole parkrun, which is only my second ever parkrun win.  Ruth reckons the usual winners probably expected lots of newbies like me to turn up for the anniversary run and so stayed away.  That's a measure of the respect I get from my partner!

Start of the 1st anniversary Wimpole Estate parkrun

Yours truely with the finish in sight

With about 200m to go and a young whipper-snapper about 10 seconds behind me.

Race director, Richard Lyle, cutting into the birthday cake.

Enjoying tea and cake with friends after a run,
what more could you want from life?

The last thing I have to report is that I have decided that this year I will be raising funds for the British Red Cross.  Given that I plan to run 26 marathons or ultra marathons I feel that this is a significant enough challenge to warrant the collection of a few of your pennies for a good cause. I thought long and hard about who I'd want to raise money for this year. For some reason I kept thinking of the ongoing troubles in Syria and also about the recent typhoon that has devasted parts of the Philippines. I wondered if I could somehow help raise money for both causes. Then it struck me that whenever there is a catastrophe anywhere in the world then the British Red Cross are always there to help. So it seems fitting that I should be undertaking my biggest running challenge to help an organisation who help others who are often left homeless and with no possessions as they have had to either run away from conflict or from a natural disaster in order to save their lives.  If you'd like to read about the seven fundamental principles of the Red Cross you can do so here: http://www.redcross.org.uk/principles.  Now all I need to do is set up a JustGiving page.

Team Sunday Run

Could it just be the effects of New Year resolutions that resulted in there being more people joining us for a Sunday run today than usual?  Surely not!  I found myself meeting up with a group of eight of the Sweaty Betties today, and we were also joined by my friend David.

Meeting up outside Jesus Green Pool - 8 Sweaty Betties & David.
I'd already run 2.5 miles to get here.

We all headed off in the same direction but everyone had slightly different goals.  Everyone except me thought today's run was a log run.  Now I was running further than anyone, but in my eyes today's run was my taper before next weekend's marathon, so for me it was fairly short at 12.5 miles.  Five of the girls were aiming for about 6 miles, so we headed off from Jesus Green to Grantchester via the meadows.  When we got to Grantchester we waved off the five who were turning around and heading back towards central Cambridge.  The remaining five, which included myself, David, Jo, Marie and Alison continued through Grantchester and Trumpington and then back to Cambridge via Trumpington Road.

The route in general is quite nice, taking in Kings Parade past the front of Kings College and it's famous chapel, then across the meadows and back via the Fitzwilliam Musuem.  Back at our meeting point we said goodbye to David whilst I then continued for another mile with the remaining three girls before we all went our separate ways.  I then had a final 1.5 miles to go before getting back home.  Finally, I got to run in some nice weather.  It wasn't too cold, very little wind and no rain.  Result.  And it is always nice to run with some good company.

Running along King's Parade...

...and Grantchester Meadows

Time to say goodbye to 5 of the Betties

Happy Runuary

I've set myself the challenge of running every single day in January as a way to kick start the year.  I'm calling it the month of Runuary.  I've managed to convince a few friends and clients to also give it a go.  It's only day 4, but so far I have completed the following runs:

1st - 4.3 miles easy run - wet and windy
2nd - 5 miles around Cambridge Airport - nice weather
3rd - 8 miles via Fenstanton and Bate's Bite Lock - started nice, turned into hail, thunder and heavy rain
4th - Cambridge Parkrun - damp and muddy (approx time 18:30 for 5k).

If it hadn't been for Runuary I might well have missed at least one run.  Strangely, the run I was probably most likely to have missed would have been on 2nd January, the day of the nicest weather, simply because Ruth and I had been out for most of the day and I didn't run until quite late.  So far I can say that I have enjoyed every single run and I'm really happy that I've set myself my Runuary challenge.  I can't explain why it's been so enjoyable other than to say that each run seems to lift my spirits.  Must be the endorphins.

Since my last blog entry I have entered the following three events.  I also made a mistake with the date of the Pony Challenge in my last entry, the correct date is below:

27 April – Shakespeare Marathon, Stratford-upon-Avon

3 & 4 May – The Pony Express (30 miles each day), New Forest

11 May – Halstead Marathon, Essex

So, along with all the other runs entered so far, that takes care of the first 5 months of the year.  I have also registered for the 100km CCC race around Mont Blanc, which takes place on 29 August.  I won't know until the end of the month whether I have a place or not.  Fingers crossed! If I do get a place then my summer holiday will be spent around the French Alps.