THE GOOD BUCK

I’ve referenced it before but I’ll jog your memory. It’s a war drama film, a German sergeant who has an Iron Cross and his younger, vainglorious officer who desperately wants one. The officer lies to try and get one and tries to get the sergeant killed to cover his lie. In the end, as the allies are closing in and all hell is breaking loose, the sergeant prepares to run out into the fight he says to the officer “Come with me, I’ll show you where the Iron Crosses grow.”   That is where my rather pretentious and somewhat tenuous blog post title came from. I’m using it to refer to my latest ambition, the sub 3 hour marathon. It’s that special. I thought, now I’ve broken the 7 minute/mile barrier I’d just trot in at that pace. This training plan I’m trying to follow says: “week 1, run 3 miles in 18 minutes.” You have to remember it’s only a week or so ago I was thrilled to set a new PB of 6.45 m/m. That wasn’t an accident. That was going at it full-on. Then I tried to the 3 mile sprint (19.43). Not good. I mean, new PB for the mile and 3 miles, but not up to scratch. In the week one of the training days was 10 minutes (easy) run to warm up, then 4 X 1 mile sprint. It was blowing a gale so the runs into the wind were slower, but none of them were brilliant. (6.45, 6.23, 7.08, 6.22) Again, that was two new PB miles, but PB doesn’t count for shit. It just means my best isn’t good enough. Today I jogged an easy mile to get warmed up then sprinted the 3 miles again. It is pure hell. I’d prefer to run a full, steady, marathon than sprint 3 miles. This time was even slower (20.15) but that was because I burned out. I seriously can’t get enough air in my lungs to support that much effort. I set another PB for the mile (6.05, so close!) but then dropped to 6.45 and 7.23! 7.23! Let’s focus on the positive here, I’ve managed to knock over a minute off my best mile from 3 weeks ago. I think I’ll have to adjust the training plan. I have plenty of time, it’s a 14 week plan and I have just under a year until the Chester marathon. I’ve booked into some races roughly where they should be on the plan though. A 10 mile, a half marathon and a ‘fun’ hilly-as-buggery marathon. That should keep the momentum up. I need to train to reach the base standard. I’ve proved to myself that a 6 minute mile is possible. If I run a mile sprint one day, a long, easy paced run the next, a day of rest and repeat it might be a better plan. Get used to doing a single mile in 6 minutes, then 1½,  2 miles, etc. I […]

Bugger. You know how I’ve set myself the goal of the landmark sub 3 hour marathon for next year? And how 4 runs ago I was pleased to get back to my pre-injury PB 10 mile time of 1:15 (7.30 m/m)? Yesterday I was over the moon to do it in 1:14.43 (just under 7 m/m). Today I started looking for flattest/ fastest marathon courses for next year. This lead me to Runners World website and from there to training plans and an equivalence calculator. ie, if you can run 5 miles in X you can run 10 miles in Y. It turns out the sub 3 is equivalent to a 10 mile time of 1:03.46 (6.20 m/m). Oh dear. The (10 week) training plan said week 1: do a 3 mile run in18 minutes! Just been out and ran my chubby little heart out and it took me 19.43, which (taking off someone stopping me for directions!) I reckon was about 6.32 m/m.   Holy, holy crap.   Mountain to climb. That was hellish hard. I really wanted to stop for virtually all of it and I was still 30+ seconds per mile off the pace.  I suppose it’s better that I’ve got a realistic goal, but it’s a bit of a gutter just how hard and far away it is. Still, if it was easy it wouldn’t be a landmark. I’ve knocked nearly a minute per mile off my time in 2 weeks and still have 30 seconds to go to reach the starting point! Larf! Buck.

Fun weekend off, after a fashion. Actually, not so much fun. Fulfilling, maybe.   Last week at work was something of a nightmare. They closed the M6 in two places on one night, two different sections the next night, and it was just miserable. The main lesson I have learned is; whatever the circumstances *NEVER* divert through Stafford. It took me about two hours to get through the 8 or so miles of diversion one afternoon, and an hour and a half to get back then next day at gone midnight. It takes you straight through a poxy town centre, replete with traffic lights, single lane streets and road works. The first night I ran out of driving hours (maximum of ten driving hours a shift, three times a week. Normally your maximum is nine hours.) The second night I just scraped in at ten hours. As I say, you can only do that three times in a week, after that you have to just do nine hours, so I was a bit worried for the rest of the week. The godawful reverse is still godawful, but I’m getting the hang of it. I’ve noticed my reversing in our yard is improving vastly due to the practice I’m getting at Cowley. That was a 60+ hour week. The bum thing being the start time is 1400 so twice I finished at 0400, not in bed until 0530 then you start stirring when it gets light. Up at 1030 first day, can’t remember the second but it wasn’t great. By the end of the week I was shagged. I got in Friday, well, Saturday at about 0230 and thought I’d get my race pack and kit sorted for the Rivington half marathon at 1000, it was gone. I spent an hour or so going through all the draws, the bins, all the draws again, under the draws, in  my sports bags, through the draws, I woke Wendy (not pleased) and finally gave up. One of us must have thrown the envelope out.  When I say ‘one of us’ I mean ‘Wendy’. Not best chuffed. Possibly it will turn up in a month or two and we will laugh about it. Or not. Either way, no race on Saturday.   Last week I was feeling a bit off colour, possibly just psychosomatically as Wendy was ill as buggery, but I put off my training and cycling to work. That and the being shagged every day. The odd thing is; the more exercise you do the more you want to do, the less you do the less you want to do. So it was a struggle to put my trainers on Saturday and go for a run. I forced myself into it as I’d missed out on the half. I ran my flat 10 miles course, which it turns out was 10.24 miles. I was right the first time, my Map My Run app on my ‘phone said it was too short because […]

After my last entry, saying how I’d banged that reverse in without breaking a sweat, the rest of the week I made a meal of it. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working. On Friday I watched as another driver set to it. I was reversing the trailer down the middle of the road, swinging the arse end up to the posts and trying to wriggle it in from there. He drove from the far side of the road and swung the back as wide as possible. He was more or less lined up whilst still eight feet from the posts. Loads of room to straighten up and correct without worrying about hitting anything. I’ll try that tomorrow. I’ve got the directions in my head for both drops now. All I have to do is crack that reverse. When I’m confident about that I think I’ll be applying for a new job. I’ll be competent in all respects of the job then. I mean, I can get it done now, but I want to be able to bang it in first go, knowing that the side I can’t see is not going to hit anything. That’s still my biggest problem, having the confidence to back in at an angle. This is brilliant practise for that. I have warehouse lads to shout if I’m going to hit something. Ideal. That is the game plan, then; crack this reverse, apply for new job. I want one because the hours on this one are shite. I ended up finishing at 3am twice last week. That’s not good if you can’t sleep so well in the daytime. And there’s the problem with it being a ‘self-employed sub-contractor’ job. I’ve still not paid any taxes and have no idea where I stand. I fear next April is going to be horrific.   In other news Wendy has caught a vile bug. She was off sick on Friday, spent all yesterday throwing up and has moped about the place, ghastly ill, all day today. Now I think I’m coming down with it. This is far from ideal as it’s my trails half marathon (up the stupidly steep hills around Rivington) next Saturday. Bugger.   I am all kitted out for Winter cycling now but I’ll not be riding in until I feel better. Not even feeling properly bad yet, just weak and hot/cold. They had a special in Aldi on Thursday. All cycling gear. I got a shedload. I turned up at 8am, on a workday, (having got up especially after little sleep) and by 8.02 (when they finally opened the doors) there was a queue outside. I was caught out last time when Lidl had a special on. By the time I got there, two hours after opening, it was mostly all gone. This time I was prepared. My mate on Twitter tipped me off that it was coming in. Just look at the goodies! Winter cycling tights, waterproof jacket and trousers, socks, gloves, winter […]

Just a quick one. I had my first crack at my new run yesterday. I went to some hideous one horse town on Friday, end of the M65, Barnoldswick, Lancashire. Tight as buggery getting in, stupidly tight crossroads to turn down, scary tight bays. It seems that is going to be a regular feature on my new run. I didn’t do it yesterday, (Monday) but I heard them saying that I was to take returns there today. Ace. My truck driving instructor gave me a tip, he said if you see a railing on the pavement on the corner of a turn it’s a visual clue. It’s been put there to protect pedestrian. ie, it is so tight there is a good chance your trailer will mount the pavement. The crossroads going into Barnoldswick has railings on all four corners. And re-enforcing stumps before them. It is tight. You have to drive in to the oncoming lane, take all of it, and then swing in. That *just* gets you around the corner. To add to the fun there is a cop shop on one of the corners, so there’s no getting away with a hit. So that’s fun.   The run I was told I was doing, and that I did yesterday, was set off from Irlam, run down to Crewe, pick up a trailer and take it to Cowley, Oxfordshire, then come back. I was thinking it wasn’t going to last long as a job. I couldn’t understand why you would pay someone to start in Irlam, run down solo (without a trailer) to Crewe (an hour’s wages and diesel) before starting the run. Why not just get someone from Crewe to do it? If I have to take returns up to Barnoldswick first that makes sense.   My first run yesterday, then. I drove into Crewe, (I went there on Friday as well, so that was easy enough to find) and was told to shunt a trailer onto a bay as they were going to put my load onto a different trailer. OK, fair enough. I picked up the trailer, drove around to a bay and was just about to start to back on when I saw the main transport manager had come out to watch me. As it was my first run for him I thought he’d come out to assess me. The skill in artic driving is 95% in the reverse. No pressure then. I reversed it on in one, then took a little shunt to straighten it up a bit. Not too shabby. It turns out they have a H&S system in place there, whereby someone from the office has to physically unlock the bays when the trailer had been made safe. ie, when the driver’s keys have been handed in, or in this case, when I’d dropped it and pulled away from it. He wasn’t there to judge me. D’oh! That went about as well as can be expected. Which is to say; it […]