Training today - long weekend run. I did a there and back again run, running down from Hindhead, across Hankley Common, through the village of Tilford, beyond to Bourne Woods and then back again. I was out for about three hours altogether. A very dull, damp day, but at least it was quite mild.
Just five weeks to go until the London Marathon. I'm quite looking forward to it, in that the last two years I've been making a comeback from injury and struggling to be fit on time. This year I seem to be coming back into good form just at the right time. Mind you, I am also looking forward to the chance of having a little break. My streak of running every single day is now approaching the fifteen month mark. I have been back training seriously since last July. I reckon it's about time I had a little bit of a rest.
My Top Ten for this week is my Top Ten of songs with the words "run" or "running" in them. So here you go! Put these on your ipod!
Born to run Bruce Springsteen
Keep on running Spencer Davis Group
Run to you Bryan Adams
Run to me Bee Gees
Run to him Bobby Vee
Run for home Lindisfarne
Running in the family Level 42
Run for your life Bucks Fizz
Run for the hills Iron Maiden
Long may you run Neil Young
An extra treat for you today! We were having a discussion the other day as to what were the worst pop singles ever released. This is my contender for the number one spot. You'd be hard pressed to find anything worse than this! Mind you, it does have the benefit of showing that is possible to make a pop video on a budget of four pounds fifty! I also love the clothes the presenters are wearing - I wish people dressed like that today!
Training today - I did a session which I hadn't done for a little while. I run around a circuit which is approximately one and a third miles long, so therefore six minute mile pace would work out at eight minutes, 5:30 pace would be 7:20. Anyway I ran four times around this circuit with a two minute jog betwen efforts. My times 7:40, 7:43, 7:46, 7:50. A hard session so therefore a good session.
I thought I would say something about this story which has been in the news in the last couple of days, namely the suggestion by the government's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, that children should have their fitness tested at school and warning letters, if necessary, be sent to their parents. (Read this) The suggested test would be a "beep" test, where the children run between shuttle boards, the beeps getting steadily faster as the test progresses. (Actually I would like to see a few MPs made to do this test! Come to think of it, I would enjoy seeing Sir Liam Donaldson made to shift his flabby backside!) But I digress.
Actually this isn't such an original idea. A couple of years ago they came up with the idea that schools should weigh all their pupils. Those pupils deemed to be obese would then have letters sent to their parents. At which point the parents would say, "Oh dearie me, we must stop sitting in front of the telly stuffing our faces with junk food and get ourselves down to the local gym". Or maybe not. People were concerned that this might damage the relationship between schools and parents and they were right. (Read this story)
My first reaction to reading this story was to think, "Oh, give us a break!". There are only so many hours in the day and besides all the demands of the national curriculum, schools are increasingly expected to solve all the ills of society by the miracle of education. If you follow education in the media, you will know that the commonest story is "schools should teach this...." and schools should teach that". In recent weeks I have read stories that suggested schools should teach everything from yoga to meditation to gardening to financial management and so on ad infinitum.
On second thoughts though, it might be a good idea if somebody could do a 'Jamie Oliver' and try and cultivate more of a culture of physical activity amongst our young people. I am not entirely sure if current PE lessons are achieving that aim. I am beginning to think that if I had my time again I might prefer to be a PE teacher. My reasons for saying that are, that you don't really have to prepare lessons, that you don't have to set or mark homework, that there doesn't seem to be any programme of study, you don't have to do any assessments. You just have to keep the kids busy for an hour. The emphasis in British schools seems to be on team sports, (character building you see!). There doesn't seem to be any targets for improving fitness, or at least fitness as we would understand it - that is the strength and efficiency of the cardiovascular system.
If I were appointed minister for education, (and frankly I don't understand why I haven't been asked yet) I would try and involve inspirational figures like Jamie Oliver and David Beckham and Paula Radcliffe and Kelly Holmes to go into schools and encourage kids to be more physically active. If it were me I would like to see a Sports Relief mile (or three miles) in every secondary school this week. It would be great if we could see pupils and teachers tackling the distance together. Actually I'd rather enjoy seeing Sir Liam Donaldson out there doing it, but I'm not holding out much hope of that!
Training today - fastish run on road. I did one lap of my Hammer Vale circuit. Time 38:53, which is about a minute faster than I have run this course before. It was a fine, sunny day - the first time for a while that i was able to run in shorts.
I've been giving thanks recently for my continued good health. The other week I telephoned an old friend and was alarmed to discover that, the previous month, he had been rushed into intensive care with DVT (deep vein thrombosis). DVT can be potentially fatal but thankfully he has recovered and is now back home and doing okay. About the same time I noticed that I hadn't seen one of my neighbours for a while and was dismayed to learn that she had been rushed into hospital for treatment for leukaemia. At least I know she is being well looked after. She also has the advantage of having a twin sister, who could give her a bone marrow transplant, so her prospects for recovery are good.
I've also learnt that two friends of my parents, who have been undergoing treatment for cancer, have reached the stage where the doctors are saying, "Well there's not much more we can do for you". They are not expected to see out the year. They are both about eighty years old and I guess, at that age, you don't expect to live for ever but even so. However old, you don't want to see your loved ones leave the stage.
It's been a reminder to me that no one lives for ever or can expect to enjoy good health indefinitely. With regard to cancer I tend not to worry too much about what might happen in the future. This is partly because there is no history of cancer in my family, either on my mother's side or my father's side. We all conk out eventually but not because of cancer. Also the treatment for cancer has improved immeasurably during my lifetime. People used to dread cancer because it was effectively a death sentence; but nowadays there is a fair chance that it can be cured, or at least its effects curtailed so that you can lead a fairly normal life. Also I cling to the belief that my regular exercise and healthy lifestyle will reduce the chances of me developing cancer or other serious illnesses.
With regard to this last point, I had a quick Google to see if there was any evidence to back up my assumption that exercise can help prevent cancer. The answer is definitely yes. Or maybe no. There have been a number of studies; this one for example (Click) suggests that regular exercisers have a 33% better chance of avoiding cancer and/or a 33% better chance of recovering from it, if they do develop the illness. On the other hand there is no definite link between regular exercise and immunity from cancer. If regular exercisers have a better health record it may be due to other factors - they are less likely to be smokers, for example, or to drink heavily, or take illegal drugs or have an unhealthy diet or to be very overweight. I do know of a number of runners, including some elite athletes, who have developed cancer in later years, so running cannot be seen as a universal panacea.
Oh dear, I've been a bit gloomy tonight. I'll give you a Tommy Cooper joke to end with. "I went to the doctor and he said, "Well Mr Cooper, I've got some bad news and some worse news. I said, "What's the bad news?" He said, "You've only got one day to live". "Oh my God, then what's the worse news?". "I should have told you yesterday!""
Training today - long weekend run. Ran out to the Punchbowl and did three and a half laps. I was out for about three hours in total. A lovely bright fresh morning.
Hindhead has been back in the news this week, not because of the tunnel but because of the fate of the Undershaw building. Undershaw was the home of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes. For many years it was a hotel and restaurant (I went there for a meal several times). Since the hotel closed in 2004 the building has gradually been falling into dereliction. There's an article about it at this link (Click)
What other news can I tell you? I went back to my old address yesterday to check if there was any mail for me. I was pleased to find that I had won a prize in the Hog's Back race three months ago, although they had sent it to the wrong address. Excitedly I opened the envelope to discover a voucher for £10. Well it's better than nothing I suppose, but I think the value of the prize was less than the cost of entering the race! The rest was mainly a load of junk mail. Oh and there was a pair of orthotics for some woman in Somerset. I just threw them in the bin obviously!
My Top Ten for this week. There have been twenty nine London Marathons; here are my top ten.
1981 Not the fastest times or the most competitors, but it was the first, so is at number one in my list.
2002 Khalid Khannouchi sets a new world best of 2:05:38. In the women's race, Paula Radcliffe makes a sensational debut..
1985 A classic duel between Steve Jones and Charlie Spedding. Ingrid Kristiansen sets a women's world best which lasts for fifteen years.
2003 A five man sprint finish won by Gezhegne Abera. In the women's race Paula Radcliffe runs 2:15:25, perhaps the greatest ever running performance by a female athlete.
1993 Eamon Martin sprints across Westminster Bridge to become the last British winner of the men's race.
1983 Victories for Mike Gratton and Grete Waitz (in a world best). More significantly it showed the depth of British distance running at that time, with 62 British men running under 2:20.
1996 Dionicio Ceron wins the third of his victories. Liz Mc Colgan achieves her one victory in this race.
1982 The second running and the only time both male and female winners were British. All credit to Hugh Jones and Joyce Smith.
2005 The first victory for Martin Lel. The last for Paula Radcliffe.
2010 We can but hope!
Just six weeks to go! I shall look forward to hearing how people got on at Silverstone and elsewhere today.
Training today - warm up (15 minutes) then ten minutes fast, followed by twelve times thirty seconds fast, thirty seconds slow. Jog back home. Managed to dodge the showers.
I went back to that website I mentioned the other day and found some more pictures of me in the Milton Keynes half marathon. This one is, I think, at the drinks station at the six mile point. You can see me sailing past without taking a drink. I wouldn't normally take a drink in a race shorter than a half marathon anyway and I certainly wouldn't do it on a freezing cold day when I was hardly sweating at all. You might want to have a look at the website http://42run.com/, as they've recently added a load of pictures from the Bath and Eastbourne half marathons.
Just over six weeks to go till the London Marathon (sorry to remind you) and my mind is starting to turn to what time I might aim for on the day. There are some race calculator sites you can use, where you put in your time for a recent event and they tell you what it equates to for other distances. The one I usually look at is the Macmillan running calculator. (http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/) This one is extra useful in that, as well as giving comparative times for other distances, it also gives suggestions for workouts you can do, based on your most recent performance. Anyway, it suggests that my 79:06 half equates to 2:46:54 for the full marathon, which I feel is a tad optimistic.
I usually calculate my full marathon time by doubling my half marathon time and then adding .... Well on a really good day, the differential might be around ten minutes, so a 79 half marathon would equate to 2:48. More likely the differential would be more in the region of twelve to fifteen minutes, so we would be looking more at a time in the low two fifties. Of course, if I had a really bad day, the difference could be much more than that.
At the elite end of the sport, the fastest times recorded for a half marathon are around 59 minutes or just under. And the fastest marathons are in the range of 2:04 to 2:06, so we're talking about a differential of around six to eight minutes. For women marathoners the differential can be even smaller. For example Paula Radcliffe's fastest half was 65:40 in the Great North Run. Her fastest marathon was 2:15:25, so that's a difference of just four minutes. If we don't allow the GNR time (downhill course, not valid for record purposes) then her next best half marathon time is around 66:40, so now we're down to a differential of just two minutes. I can also think of quite a few female marathoners who would struggle to break 70 minutes for the half, but who have run in the low two twenties for the full marathon. Hardly any difference at all between their half and their full pace.
These days I prefer to use an age graded calculator to assess my performances. These rate your times according to the best recorded performances in your age group. I reckon anything over 80% is good. Anything over 90% is very good. There is one on the Power of 10 website (http://www.thepowerof10.info/) and according to that, my best performance as a veteran was my 72:34 half marathon at age 49 (91.48%). My performance last week in Milton Keynes comes in at just under 87%.
Anyway it is one thing making calculations on paper, another thing actually going out and doing it. Good luck to any of you running in a race this weekend and may you achieve a good age-graded percentage!
Training today - warm up (15 minutes) then twelve times two minutes fast with a one minute jog in between. Jog back home.
I have a confession for you tonight. I have been running for thirty five years, have run hundreds of races and tens of thousands of miles in training and not one of those miles has ever been sponsored for charity. When I go to the Marathon Expo and one of those people with clipboards asks me, "Which charity are you running for?", I have to shamefacedly say "None".
It's not that I am averse to charity. I often make contributions to good causes. I drop coins into collection boxes. I sometimes sponsor other people to do things. I occasionally sponsor kids at school to do sponsored silences and the like (only way to get them to shut up!) I've even contributed to other bloggers efforts by putting some money into their Just Giving pages.
But the thing is I started my running long before the current culture of big charity appeals. The point of modern day charity stunts is to do something difficult, demanding or exhausting, something you wouldn't normally do. But for me running is my sport and my hobby. It's something that I do every day. To sponsor me to run a marathon would be like sponsoring Wayne Rooney to play a game of football. It doesn't really make any sense. I think also I slightly resent the implication that running is not worth doing unless it involves raising money for a charity.
My other problem is that I sometimes think we are going a bit overboard with all these fundraising schemes. There are just so many people doing so many different things, it's difficult to know who to support. I blame David Walliams personally. Since he swam the channel a couple of years ago, celebrities have been attempting ever more grandiose charity events. In the last couple of weeks alone, I have read in the news of the following fundraising efforts.
Eddie Izzard, who I greatly like and admire, completed 43 marathons in two months last year.
Another guy, whose name I have shamefully forgotten, is currently running 50 marathons in 50 days around Europe.
I told you about Martin Parnell in Canada and his plan to do 250 marathons in a year. The latest news is that, after 30 marathons, he developed a stress fracture. He is still continuing with the challenge, but having to walk the distance.
A group of celebrities, led by David Walliams, completed a cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats.
Another group of cyclists, led by former England captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, is touring round all the Six Nations countries.
Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton recently kayaked the entire length of the Amazon.
Ian Botham is about to set off on another of his sponsored walks.
Phil Packer, along with news reader Kate Silverton, is doing the Three Peaks challenge.
TV presenter Christine Bleakley is planning to water ski across the channel.
And I am sure there are hundreds more. I respect and admire all of these people. It's just that there are so many of these charity events nowadays, you don't know who to support. I grow nostalgic for the days when they just broadcast plain charity appeals on the telly. You feel like the guy in that Catherine Tate sketch, who every morning is confronted by a fund raising scheme from his coworker. "I'll tell you what it is, pet. We're all cycling up Mount Kilimanjaro dressed as giant prawns to raise money for gender dysmorphia in the north-east!" I'll leave you with this.
Been a busy day today. I had to take the car in to be fixed, (it's a Toyota. Mind you I've never had any trouble with it.) On the way back I took the opportunity for a change of scenery and did my running around Frensham Ponds. I ran at a gentle pace for an hour or so. My legs felt fine, just a little tired from yesterday.
Just to conclude my report from the Milton Keynes half marathon. I looked again at the results and saw that I was the first over fifty, so I assume that means I will be receiving a prize. The trouble with prize giving on the day is a) you don't really know if you've won one or not until the results are out. B) you don't want to hang around for hours just on the off chance.
The official photos are out. Here's one of me at, I think, the twelve mile mark. I don't remember that other bloke being on my shoulder though.
I also discovered that there is a group, which is taking pictures at races and then publishing them online. They ask for no payment, only that you acknowledge them. So thanks to http://42run.com/. Here's one of me doing my big sprint finish!
The guy, I mentioned, who fell over just after the start - well he ended up in hospital, with a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm. He's presumably back home as I saw his race commentary on Runner's World. He didn't answer the question, "Would you do this event again?" though.
I think I could recommend this event to others. My only tip - don't use the baggage system, it was chaos yesterday. Many people needed well over an hour just to reclaim their bags afterwards. Fortunately I had left mine in the car and was able to just go home.
I've been to Milton Keynes several times before and I have to say that it is not the easiest place to love. My problems begin when I drive into the town (city?) and I start to thinking, "Well, where is it?" The town kind of nestles in the Buckinghamshire countryside; I believe there is some sort of bylaw that says that no building can be higher than two stories, and so all you see of the place are these broad avenues and large roundabouts. When you finally arrive in the town/city centre, it is more like a giant industrial estate with these large warehouse type buildings.
I remember about twenty years ago there was a television advertising campaign for Milton Keynes. It featured a clown, lots of children, a red balloon and ended with a question that could only be answered with a resounding "No!!!" Hang on, I'll have a look see if it's available on YouTube. Yes, here it is.
Being charitable, I shall assume that the town planners had the best of intentions, that they envisioned a future Utopia enlivened by ring roads, concrete flyovers and dank underpasses. I think most people though would prefer to live in a town which had grown organically over the centuries rather than one that had been designed by a commitee.
Anyway, I'm not here to talk about town planning, I'm here to talk about the race. My targets for today were hopefully to run a lot quicker than I have done for a while. I hoped to be back under eighty minutes. Ideally, if I was thinking in terms of 6:30 pace for the marathon, then I should be looking at around six minute pace for the half, i.e. around 78:35.
The course was a long loop around the perimeters of Milton Keynes, on the road for the first three miles, then mainly on bike paths. It was a reasonable course, perhaps not the fastest with all the twists and turns, but no major hills to worry about. I recognised some of it from previous outings around MK, particularly the loop around the big lake, which occurred in the middle of the race. The weather was bright, very chilly with an icy wind.
The organisers were also holding a 10k event, which went off two minutes before the half, and had about 100 metres start. This was perhaps not such a great idea, as we started passing the 10k stragglers after half a mile and then for the next couple of miles the two races were jumbled up together. Another thing I remember from the first mile, just ahead of me a runner - I don't know if someone caught him from behind or if he just tripped over his own feet - fell flat on his face and I had to hurdle over him. I hope he was all right.
I managed to keep a pace of just under six minutes per mile and reached the five mile point in 29:38. I pushed on around the lake and then got to the 10 mile point in 59:38. Hooray, back under the hour and my fastest 10 miles for quite a while! I managed to stay under six minute mile pace up to 12 miles (71:55) but then laboured somewhat up the final mile and a bit. The organisers seemed to have saved up all the uphill sections for the final run in. Anyway, I crossed the line in, according to my watch, 79:06. I am quite happy with that. It's not going to give Sammy Wanjiru or Martin Lel any sleepless nights but it was my fastest half (and fastest 10 miles) for quite a while. No goody bag, unfortunately - all we got was a medal and a bottle of water. I'm not sure where I came, but there weren't too many people in the finish area when I got there.
There is another half marathon in Milton Keynes in the summer, if you want to come and enjoy the bike paths and the concrete flyovers yourself!
I went back to take some pictures and managed to spot Bupa coming in. I was so excited, I forgot to press the button on the camera. I tried to find Bupa afterwards but the crowds were just too big. If you want to have a quick taster of the event, here are thirty seconds of people coming in to the finish.
Right, I think I shall have an early night tonight. I'm a bit weary.
Stop press! The results have just appeared. I was 31st altogether. There were over 3000 finishers, which surprised me slightly - I hadn't realised there had been so many.
Training today - just an easy run around the common. I am getting that “end of term” feeling towards my training, where I don’t feel like doing anything any more. But I do prefer to do a little training in the final week - I soon start feeling sluggish if I do nothing.
While I’m writing this, I’m just keeping tabs on what is happening in the Boston Marathon, which is taking place even as I type. The Americans are pretty excited this year as they reckon that this year, for the first time in ages, there is a possibility of an American winner in the men’s and women’s race. Ryan Hall has gone off very fast with the leading men (4:39 first mile). Kara Goucher is still in the pack of leading women, which seems to be running pretty slowly (78 minutes at halfway)
One person who I am very pleased to see there is Bill Rodgers. For those whose memories of distance running don’t go back to the seventies and early eighties, I should point out that Bill Rodgers is one of the all time greats of American distance running. “Boston Billy” won this classic race four times in the late seventies. He also won the New York Marathon four times, plus he won a large number of prestigious road races in the USA and around the world. To millions of American runners of the period, he was an inspiration and an idol. Bill continued to train and compete seriously well into his fifties. His last serious marathon came in 1992 and the last marathon he completed was the 1996 Boston, which was the hundredth running of the event. The last few years haven’t been too kind to him. After largely avoiding injury for many years, he stepped off a kerb one day and, crack!, he suffered a stress fracture to his tibia. A couple of years ago he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and required an operation last year. He is now hopefully fully healthy again and should be out there again on the Boston course as I write these words. His aims are fairly modest this year - he is talking in terms of doing it in under four hours - but it will be good to see him cross the finish line again. (Interesting article here)
Stop press - Deriba Merga of Ethiopia wins in Boston with a time of 2:08 something. Ryan Hall is third. I guess he will be disappointed with that, but he was the only man in the top ten, who was neither Kenyan nor Ethiopian. The women’s race is won by Salina Kosgei of Kenya in a modest 2:32, with Kara Goucher third.
Extra stop press - Bill Rodgers has just crossed the line in 4:06. It looks like he suffered over the later miles, but he made it to the finish.
In other news, I shall be going along to the Expo on Wednesday and expect to be there round about lunchtime. I don’t expect to see many, if any, other bloggers there, as most people tend to arrive towards the end of the week. But if you are there, I shall be lurking somewhere in the vicinity of the Realbuzz stand between one and two. Don’t put yourself out to be there though - for one thing I can’t guarantee I’ll be there at that time. For another, in real life I am a pretty dull person, so be warned!
Late Friday afternoon at the expo for me,not good timing I know but I know we will bump into each other again. Off to catch up on the Boston (just to get in the marathon mode) x ;-)
Didnt know the Boston mara was on, I'm the same when 100% fit, prefer to do a little bit more through the taper period, Expo on Thursday morning for me.
Late Friday afternoon at the expo for me,not good timing I know but I know we will bump into each other again. Off to catch up on the Boston (just to get in the marathon mode) x ;-)