The final straight of the half marathon training. I’m not really sure what the plan has achieved at present. There’s been barely any speed work, but a good quota of long runs. I’ve built stamina rather than pace this time around. Cambridge won’t see a PB, but it could be one of my most consistent performances.
The penultimate week before Cambridge saw a change of schedule. I’d planned a visit to the North for the weekend to catch up with one of my Tokyo partners in crime, James. He was going to introduce me to his weekend vice, Burnley Football Club and I’d be introducing him to mine, parkrun.
With all of this in mind it was time to shake the week around a bit. As predicted last week, Monday was indeed full of post cricket aches and after a work trip ruled out Tuesday and Wednesday, by midweek I was hankering for a run. Thankfully core team colleague Paul was game and we arranged to meet at 0645 at the forest car park on Thursday morning.
Before that could happen we had some Wednesday night excitement. Our parkrun website went live, slightly earlier than expected and I spent the evening trying to downplay the inaugural, knowing the limitations of the venue during the winter season in terms of car parking and extolling the virtues of our even more awesome summer course. Locally the genie has already escaped the bottle after the fundraising event, so all of the preparation will focus on managing what will very likely be a large attendance. I was still buzzing by the time I managed to try and sleep, the goodwill from just getting to this point made me very proud of what we’d done so far.
Thursday morning arrived with a reminder that I really could have done with a bit more sleep. Thankfully a stunning forest on a nice spring morning was more than sufficient to clear the cobwebs away. We opted for another lap of the winter route, testing the turn around point once more. I’m hoping the refine the route once we have summer to play with. The out and back section has its merits, as a team we’re looking at ways to reconfigure it slightly. It certainly provides a great high five opportunity!
On our way round the forest we bumped into NT Simon, running with the current summer course record holder, his dog Jack. After a brief chat we finished off the course, the muddy section continues to be exactly that, a little icing on the cake, you can’t visit a forest without getting a little bit muddy after all!
The last long run
Friday morning marked the start of my weekend. Despite this, the alarm was still set for work o’clock, allowing me to get out nice and early for an extended loop to the north of Stansted.
Another stunning more, but a bitterly cold one. The barriers were down at Elsenham so I scaled the staircase and paused to take in the sunrise with a member of the Greater Anglia staff, he was right, a beautiful day would be in the offing.
Once past Elsenham I continued on the country roads until the junction near Newport, turned and headed back into Quendon. Continuing south would take me home with a basic ten miler. Instead I turned into Rickling and made my way across the ice to Manuden.
At this point the gloves went back on. I was an hour into the run, but my hands were suffering in the cold air. From Manuden I had a simple 4km to return to Stansted. Simple once you remove the climbs out of Manuden, into Bentfield Bower and Bentfield Green itself. With the Cambridge Half being flat, these hills might seem unnecessary, but Larmer Tree a week later offers a whole different prospect.
My pace did start to slip away towards the end of the run. I’d only taken on one gel, at halfway and the climbs did fatigue me a bit. I also wasn’t interested in pushing. Getting another two hours into the legs was more important than pace. I have to keep reminding myself that distance rather than pace is the goal for 2015.
Another stunning more, but a bitterly cold one. The barriers were down at Elsenham so I scaled the staircase and paused to take in the sunrise with a member of the Greater Anglia staff, he was right, a beautiful day would be in the offing.
Once past Elsenham I continued on the country roads until the junction near Newport, turned and headed back into Quendon. Continuing south would take me home with a basic ten miler. Instead I turned into Rickling and made my way across the ice to Manuden.
At this point the gloves went back on. I was an hour into the run, but my hands were suffering in the cold air. From Manuden I had a simple 4km to return to Stansted. Simple once you remove the climbs out of Manuden, into Bentfield Bower and Bentfield Green itself. With the Cambridge Half being flat, these hills might seem unnecessary, but Larmer Tree a week later offers a whole different prospect.
My pace did start to slip away towards the end of the run. I’d only taken on one gel, at halfway and the climbs did fatigue me a bit. I also wasn’t interested in pushing. Getting another two hours into the legs was more important than pace. I have to keep reminding myself that distance rather than pace is the goal for 2015.
Pendle parkrun
After a bargain fiver journey to Leeds, I found myself in what is known as The North. In return for James’ hospitality I cooked on Friday night. Picking up supplies meant a visit to Booths, a high end food chain based out of Lancashire. My food bill would be dangerously high if I had one of these within my grasp, please don’t expand further south (oh go on, please do). I served up some steak (predictably), with green beans and asparagus, a far more healthy combo than the fish and chips the next evening!
Saturday morning soon arrived and a mere five minute drive took us to Pendle parkrun.
I’m not sure what first alerted me to Pendle having a pavilion named in my honour, but when it turned out to be the most local parkrun it made sense to visit. A brief enquiry mid week on twitter confirmed that trail shoes would be the most appropriate footwear. As ever with parkrun, the weather was grim beforehand, but magically got slightly less grim once the clock struck 0900. The Run Director had promised that if we tried hard and concentrated we could see some sunshine if we looked down the valley.
Me? I was concentrating on the look down. The crew at Pendle appeared well briefed, the course description was a communal effort, down the hill, up the hill (less enthusiastically), then do it all again. It appeared James did indeed live close to a parkrun, one that was according to the locals the toughest in the area. Gulp.
The start was fun, a school like sprint down hill, with lots of bumps thrown in for good measure. I was already experiencing soggy feet, my inner numpty had not allowed the trail shoes to dry out from the forest run earlier in the week. By the first turn I was also experiencing a stubbed toe. I can only think that clumsiness had led to me treating on a stick and slamming my opposing big toe into it, either that or I’d hit a rock. Not fun, took a while to shake it off.
The first half of the lap involved navigating around the rugby and football pitches, every time you reached the end of the length of a pitch you had to turn and climb.A good guide to how a run is going is when you watch rings up a split and it surprises you. When I passed through the one kilometre mark I too was surprised, how can I have only completed just one kilometre??? It was going to be a long & tough day at the office.
Saturday morning soon arrived and a mere five minute drive took us to Pendle parkrun.
I’m not sure what first alerted me to Pendle having a pavilion named in my honour, but when it turned out to be the most local parkrun it made sense to visit. A brief enquiry mid week on twitter confirmed that trail shoes would be the most appropriate footwear. As ever with parkrun, the weather was grim beforehand, but magically got slightly less grim once the clock struck 0900. The Run Director had promised that if we tried hard and concentrated we could see some sunshine if we looked down the valley.
Me? I was concentrating on the look down. The crew at Pendle appeared well briefed, the course description was a communal effort, down the hill, up the hill (less enthusiastically), then do it all again. It appeared James did indeed live close to a parkrun, one that was according to the locals the toughest in the area. Gulp.
The start was fun, a school like sprint down hill, with lots of bumps thrown in for good measure. I was already experiencing soggy feet, my inner numpty had not allowed the trail shoes to dry out from the forest run earlier in the week. By the first turn I was also experiencing a stubbed toe. I can only think that clumsiness had led to me treating on a stick and slamming my opposing big toe into it, either that or I’d hit a rock. Not fun, took a while to shake it off.
The first half of the lap involved navigating around the rugby and football pitches, every time you reached the end of the length of a pitch you had to turn and climb.A good guide to how a run is going is when you watch rings up a split and it surprises you. When I passed through the one kilometre mark I too was surprised, how can I have only completed just one kilometre??? It was going to be a long & tough day at the office.
Mercifully the long down hill section is all on tarmac, usually I try & maintain shape, but I could see the climb back up that was waiting for me, so why not, just gun it down & enjoy the respite! Sadly it came to an end far too soon & the climb back up to the finish area to complete the first lapt was laid out in front of me. It was one of those hills. The type that starts off shallow, then got steeper as it continued. At least the shallow section was on tarmac, the moment the angle changed we were on to some really rough hard standing, with drainage gulleys every few metres for good measure. I managed to keep running throughout, but given the walkers around me, this might not have been the right decision.
I managed to navigate the first downhill of the lap more successfully this time around, no damage to the toes. The soft underfoot conditions just kept sapping away at my legs, I can understand now why they is so much coverage of soft, firm, good to firm etc in horse racing. This pantomime horse managed to slog around the fields one more time, chuntering to the photographer about there being no hills in Essex! The 20km from the day before were certainly being felt, perhaps not the wisest decision the day before.
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| Another event at which I moved too fast to be photographed |
The downhill didn’t feel so generous second time around, but as promised at the start, the sun did start to break through. Sadly it didn’t improve my mood once the last uphill stretch came into view. I chose to walk up the final steep section, I wasn’t alone, although I think it was a good 18 months since I’d last resorted to walking at a parkrun. Brentwood pushed me close the week before, but this was a proper walk. I tried to march up and still made decent progress up the hill, kicking back into a run once I could see the finish line.
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| Pendle parkrun course profile. A toughie |
Crossing the line for the second successive week over the 28 minute mark. So very slow! Based on the soft conditions combined with the hill, another truly tough parkrun. It appears there is more tarmac being introduced, that’ll certainly help drop some times, but it will also lower the challenge. With 107m of elevation over the course of 5km, this event held more climbing over a parkrun distance than I’d completed in nearly four times that the day before, which surprised me as I’d been seeking out hills! Perhaps the steepness of the climb is what did for me. I need to reassess how I approach some climbing, knowing when a fast walk would be more sensible is the key.
Where’s James?
I’d not really paid much attention to where James actually was on the course! I’d not collected him during my second lap so assumed he must have been loving it as much as I was! After a couple of minutes I saw him coming into view, I even pointed him out to the Run Director as my debutant friend. Then he stopped, turned and hurled. It was like a projectile scene from Bottom, quite impressive!
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| Here he is! |
In the slowest 100m finish parkrun has seen we eventually welcomed James into the finish funnel. Turns out he’d tried to run up the hill on the second occasion and having taken on too much water, nature took over!
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| Introducing James to the post parkrun ritual |
Once feeling a bit better he told me he’d be back next week (and this post has taken so long I can confirm he did). I’d tried to encourage a name of James the Chunderer, not sure if it’ll catch on! To want to come back and conquer that hill again tells you just how warm and friendly the whole Pendle event was. We decamped to the aforementioned Holt House Pavilion where tea was available as well as some awesome brownies (and flapjacks, though one sugar hit was enough). This was a real community event, the kind of atmosphere I’d hope to have at the forest.
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| I’m kind of a big deal in the north….. |
The Conclusion
Pendle can be added to my hill of doom collection. Sure, it’s probably just a standard hill to them, but I was yearning for a return to Essex. With over 100m of elevation gain in just 5km, it’s a toughie.
The Football
The last plan for the weekend was a visit to Turf Moor, Burnley vs Swansea. The atmosphere was again good, the kid in front of us losing it at every opportunity was entertaining. The match itself was last in the running on Match of the Day, a 1-0 away win courtesy of an own goal. Not quite an epic! It was probably my first premier league game since the 90’s. Sadly my presence wasn’t enough to lift a performance out of either team!
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| EPL Soccertainment |
Run for the Eat 