THE GOOD BUCK

I did the half marathon this morning. Lovely day for it. I was going great guns. They have pace-setter runners who have a helium filled balloon displaying the time they are going for. I started in the 1:30 – 1:45 section, but when we set off the 1:45 pace-setter was way ahead of me. I wanted to threaten 1:30 this year so I had to work my way through the pack until I could see the 1:30 balloon. I missed the first mile marker, but paced myself going up the cantilever bridge hill, opened my legs and got a trot on going down. When I checked my time at the 2 mile point I was averaging 7.15 m/m. Or 1:34 for the distance. I was feeling OK at the faster pace. Then at mile 4 my quads began to cramp again. My right thigh first, then the left. There was nothing I could do about it so I pushed on.

At the 10 mile point, after running 6 miles with cramped quads, I was still averaging 7.30 m/m, good enough for 1:37. Then there was the long, slow downhill past the Dingle and under the Bridgewater Canal. The bit where you get free speed and everyone was getting a move on. My thighs were crippling me and I was slowing down. I gritted my teeth and stumbled on. I was so grateful for the uphill of the cantilever, but then the steep downhill on the other side finished me. I got to the bottom and had to stop. I tried stretching my quads (by lifting my foot up against my bum, I could barely lift my foot off the floor, my thighs were screaming!) but that was useless. I just had to start running again. It was bloody killing me, but at least I knew it was flat from there on in, so the pain wouldn’t get any worse. On mile 12 –13 I had enough energy to pick the pace up and overtake people again. It wasn’t that the pain was any less, just that it would be over in a bit and I still had loads of energy.

I forgot to stop my stopwatch on the line, but after a brief conversation with an official who wanted to make sure I was alright and a stagger to the goody-bag area it was 1:40.15  I reckon I did it in 1:39, but until they publish the official times am kidding myself it might have been a 1:38.

This has been a quiet week. It’s the Warrington half marathon tomorrow so I’ve taken a week off exercising to fully rest up for it. It means I’ve had loads of free time to kill, and that the weather has been perfect for training. Obviously.

Last Sunday was my last run. I did the route into Frodsham, up Froddy hill, down the other side for half a mile and then back. 13 very hilly miles. The two mile ascent to the top of the hill is a slow rise followed by a mile straight up. As it’s the halfway point of the run it can be a bit tiring. ‘Train hard, fight easy’, as they say. Wendy and I had been feeling a bit weakened with some bug that was going round. I forced myself to do the run as it was my last chance if I wanted a week’s R&R. Happily, although I felt weak as a kitten driving over there, when I got going I was alright.

I sweated it out, hit the start of the big climb and just pushed through. I nearly killed myself getting to the top of Frodsham hill then tried to get my breath back on the half mile descent. Suddenly my right thigh muscle cramped like a bitch. I tried to ignore it but it was hurting that much I really thought I’d done myself a mischief. I was gutted. The free-speed, easy, reward part of the run was ruined. I had to stop and beat it a bit to try and get it working. Then stretched off. I started again, same thing. The real downer was it was at exactly the halfway point. I couldn’t be any further away from the car. And I had the two mile descent to contend with. So I could either try and run back or limp for hours. I chose to run.

Cancel last. Cancel everything. Momentous things are afoot.

Sod the bike-bus, the camper van and the transfer-to-Cornwall job, I have a new plan; Canada!

Home of the brave, land of the free. Or some such.

I had another go at my Ironlap today.

The bottle dynamo, which I repaired, re-positioned and tested before setting out, failed utterly. Again. I had to keep stopping, putting in the next position on my ‘phone, starting the GPS, and the satnav, seeing where I was supposed to go, then shutting it all down again to save my battery. Then I’d find I’d missed my turn and have to backtrack. And so it went.

That ‘hill’ at 48 miles, that a fellow triathlete described as “a bit of a leg-burner” is an utter nightmare. You wind up a steep hill. (You get to the summit, think ‘YAY!’, whizz to the bottom on the other side then find you’ve missed your turn and have to go back up the hill. After about 50 hard miles. Your tears on the return ascent are hidden by the sweat running off you.)  I was thinking that at least I’d done the worst hill, that now it was just normal roads back to Warrington. Ha! The road that I should have turned on to, Rivington Way (Rivington something) is the nightmare, the preceding climb was just a warm up.

After my bump two weeks ago I was not so good last week.

You have to have confidence you know what you are doing and a sense of what you can do. Like when you are in a car and doing a reverse manoeuvre and there is a post or low wall. You have to hold in your head where the back end of your car is, where it is going to go and where the object would be if you could still see it.

Of course it can be a tad trickier when you can’t see the whole side your 13 metre trailer, or the wall you are trying not to hit, and you have to judge the amount it is going to swing (without reference to the striking point or the point that could be struck).