Boston and World major marathons completed… just!

It’s taken me a long time to write this post… not because I’m traumatized by my experience or upset about it, basically just because I’m lazy 🙂

When I set myself the challenge or running all the World majors and knowing I had to run a sub 3:05 marathon to realistically get in to Boston, I’m not sure I truly believed I could do it. I hadn’t even broken 3:30 at that stage!

But after becoming a boring runner and focusing everything on that goal I managed to run a 3:04:48 in the 2015 Berlin marathon. Having already run London, Chicago, New York and having a charity entry for Tokyo 2016, I knew I was in touching distance. All I had to do was wait the best part of a year to officially register for Boston 2017 and hope that the cut-off time wasn’t double what it had ever been.

I had a bit of scare just before Tokyo when I suffered a slight calf tear, but I dosed myself up with pain killers and anti-inflammatories and got myself round. After my long, long wait, I finally got confirmation of my 2017 place in the Boston marathon and that was it; I could fulfill my ambition, I just had to do a bit of training, get to Boston injury free and have a glory run to the finish line.

I started my training after 6 months of pretty much no running and unsurprisingly it was a struggle… okay I was a bit surprised I wasn’t able to hit my old pace, but I shouldn’t have been. I got through a winter’s training block (moaning all the way) and got to Boston with niggles but no injury. In truth, I probably hadn’t pushed myself that hard as I just didn’t want to get injured. Life had changed (for the better) and I knew I’d never be able to devote the same amount of time to my running to ever get another qualifying time, it was now or never. Even so, I never would have expected to suffer like I did.

Before we get to that, I have to write something about Boston itself… it was amazing!!! A wonderful city that was very different to New York and much more Mr and Mrs D’s type of place! We traveled in style, Virgin upper class, and stayed in a beautiful hotel in the habour. We went to the expo, had a look around Boston, had some nice meals and a highlight was a whale watching trip, where we saw more whales than the lady commentator had seen together in 3 seasons. But then it was down to business and the little matter of the marathon.

I was awake early to prepare myself and walk to the bus to get shipped out to the start at Hopkinton. I was nervous the whole way there and was very happy when we made it so I could relieve my nerves in the nearest porta-loo. I had a 3 hour wait until I was due to be called to the start line, but the weather was okay, it was warm enough and dry. For once I wasn’t too nervous as I waited, I guess it was because I had no time targets as such, I just had to go out and enjoy myself. I did want to break 3:30, felt after my training I was more likely to be around 3:45, but would take anything under 4 hours. I felt this was well within my abilities.

After my long wait, we were finally called around to the starting corals and we all started making our way there. There was time for one last visit to the toilets, then I was there, waiting for the gun at the race I’d worked 5 years to get in to. The day had started to warm up but it didn’t appear to be too sunny, nothing that was worrying me. And that was it, the gun went and we were off.

I did my usual thing of setting off far too quick in a mix of adrenaline and the first 4 miles being downhill. I backed it off, but I was starting to feel I was burning up inside. I got some water at the next aid station, but it didn’t really help. I took my first energy gel at 6 miles and started to feel a bit better, but by the time I got 8 miles I was back in the red zone and knew I was in trouble. I was getting slower and slower and making deals with myself. I told myself if I got to halfway still running, I’d reward myself with a little walk. I did get there in 1:49 but I was struggling, I gave in to a little walk and that was it, the second half of my race fell apart in spectacular fashion.

I had nothing, it was the first time in my running career that my stubbornness wasn’t enough to get me through. I gave in to run/walking, that turned in to jog/walking that quickly became walk/jogging until I was eventually just walking. I tried my best to appreciate all the support on the course and the encouragement I was being given, but I was embarrassed to be being cheered on as I trudged along. I was joined by a marshal as I was walking along to ask if I was okay… I guess I was a bit wobbly… but I told them I was fine, just a bad day, and they let me continue. There was only one thing that kept me going and that was the knowledge that my wonderful wife had come out to see me at 22.4 miles and I had to at least get there for her. I was aware though that any predicted time for being there was long gone, but luckily she had been tracking me on the marathon app and knew I was in trouble but still moving.

When I did finally get to 22.4 miles and heard Katie calling out to me, I made my way to where she was standing, I slumped over the barriers and told her I didn’t think I could finish. Despite her worry, she told me to get my arse to the finish and she’d walk with me if she had to. I couldn’t have that as she was pregnant with our first baby; I told her to get the train back to the finish area and I’d see her there. I found out afterwards that it’s the first time she has ever been seriously worried about me and I looked like death; she worried all the way back as to whether she had done the right thing. I meanwhile trudged on, trying to get back to jogging and weaving my way down the road. I was feeling so sick that I stopped at the next 2 toilets to just try and get some relief. I just couldn’t throw up though. I gulped down 2 cup fulls of water at the next water station to try and force something up and still nothing, but it seemed to help a bit. I somehow got through the last few miles with mainly jogging and just a couple of walks; there were others not quite as fortunate as me though, with people pulling up with cramp and others doubled over throwing up. I also had another visit from the marshals wondering what was wrong with me as I had a red bib on indicating I’d been in the first wave of corals and everyone around me were in the yellow bibs of the fourth and last wave. Luckily I managed to get rid of them again.

And then I was there, I turned the corner on to Boylston Street and the finish line was in sight, I got my legs moving as quickly as I could and crossed the line with a mixture of pride, disappointment, excitement and relief. I had completed the Boston marathon, the marathon I had worked so hard to qualify for with a 3:04, and it had taken me 4:56, haha! The second half had taken me longer than the whole marathon had taken me that I qualified with. It was my slowest marathon by over an hour and the first time I had walked, even when I had run previous marathons with injuries.

I can’t really explain why it went so badly. I hadn’t done as much training as for previous ones, but I had done enough to at least get under 4 hours. It had been a warm day, but not that hot; I’d run up to 20 miles in a lot hotter temperatures without any affect. I can only really put it down to the fact that I had nothing to aim for really. My desire to get under a particular time wasn’t that strong. I’d achieved all I’d wanted to achieve; I wanted to qualify for Boston, I didn’t expect to then win it or go quick enough to qualify for it again… the accomplishment was getting there. You have to push your body hard to run a marathon as quick as I had in the past, you have to push it hard to run a marathon in any time; maybe I just didn’t have that motivation anymore to run 26.2 miles.

For all my problems, I recovered quite quickly, I had shuffled along to get my medal and some water, then found the World marathon major stand to pick up a second medal for completing all 6 world majors. Hung both medals around my neck and made my way to the meet and greet area to find Katie. By the time I found her I must have looked a bit more human as she wasn’t as worried about me. We had a sit down for 10 minutes then decided to make our way back to the hotel and as sick as I felt during the race, this was the closest I came to being sick all day. We got on the subway to get back and it was packed; we set off and then the train stopped between stations; it was packed, very hot and I had to rush to where there was a gap by the door to sit on the steps and dry heave in to a bag… the other passengers looked slightly perturbed by the smelly, pasty English guy that was threatening to throw up all over them, haha!!

We got off at the next stop though to walk the rest of the way and once I was back in the fresh air, all was okay with the world. By the time we got back to the hotel, I was fine. I had a shower and a lie down and then I was ready to head out for a traditional post US marathon huge steak 🙂

The next day we got the train to New York and had a few nights there before flying home. If we had known how much we would have enjoyed Boston we would have just had longer there, but New York was great too.

So what next???

I have a deferred good for age entry for London marathon next year which I have taken up, but I haven’t run since Boston. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to as such, but I have had more important stuff to do with my free time. As already mentioned, my wife was pregnant with our first baby in Boston and I spent the summer getting the house and garden ready for our impending arrival. We were blessed to welcome Charlotte Sophie Olivia in to the world at 18:10 BST, 1st October and she is amazing. I’m not sure how having a new born to look after will go with training for a marathon; it will be training through the winter again; I have nothing to aim for and I just don’t know if I can put in the energy to go through it again. I don’t really want my experience in Boston to be my last marathon, so that is a bit of motivation to do London, but I am also worried about going through the same again. I will look at starting with some short runs over the next few weeks and see how it goes. It will definitely be my last marathon if I do it. I may carry on running short distances if I can do it at a reasonable pace, without any niggles and without having to put in the time with gym sessions, cross training, pilates, etc. I am 40 next year though and would like to have one last blow out before I become a couch potato. I’d like to do the Fred Whitton challenge (112 mile bike ride around the Lake District) and the Ride 100 again, so adding in the London Marathon to that wouldn’t be the greatest of issues, they’d all be good training for each other. I’d look at doing them all for the Stroke Association too, for the help and support that they provided my wife when she suffered her stroke and the invaluable support they give others.

Will I keep on blogging? Probably not… this blog was always about getting a BQ and completing the World major marathons… job done! If anyone comes across this and they are aiming for the same thing, good luck and enjoy Boston… however she treats you… you put in the hard work to get there and deserve your day!

                                                                                            Got the unicorn!!!

 

                                                                                                      double bling

Boston bound

Two weeks today I will (hopefully) have finished the Boston Marathon and completed all six World Major Marathons.

 

My last post was after I had been officially accepted and before any training had been started; I was expecting a slow start considering my lack of running over a period of 9 months, but as with previous breaks before (admittedly only breaks of 4-6 weeks), I was thinking I would find some form and get close to where I was before… how wrong could I have been!!

To say I had lost ALL my running fitness wouldn’t be far from the truth, but to be fair I was being stupid to think I wouldn’t have. 96.9 miles over 25 runs in 9 months is hardly great training!

My first run of 5km on 4^th Jan was a real eye opener; I was looking how far I still had to go only ¼ of a mile in and blowing out of my arse the whole way… and things haven’t gotten much better 😀

I have used my ginger stubbornness to grind it out though and I’m at the stage where I have done all the long runs I’m going to and I just need to keep things ticking over until the big day. I have only managed one 20 miler in those runs and I’m glad I got it out the way when I did as the next week it was a struggle to complete 15 miles. My last couple of short runs have been in sunny, warmish weather and running has finally felt nice (sort of) again… the previous 3 months have been pretty shitty weather wise.

I don’t know if a little bit of the training struggle has been down to a change of location, it certainly is a lot hillier around where I live with Mrs D than it was in the Stotfold flatlands?! But then the extra couple of stone of padding has probably not helped either, haha.

Here I am though, 245 miles and 3 months in, my legs complaining a lot but hanging in there with a fair amount of sports massage help from my physio and some hippy shit reiki from my wonderful wife, ready to finish what I started 5 years ago; doing it in style with upper class flights and luxury hotels in Boston… and New York as we’ll be coming home via a train journey and a few nights in the big apple.

I’m in Brighton this weekend with Mrs D and my in-laws as my sister in law is running the Brighton Marathon to raise some money for the Stroke Association (for Mrs D)… all donations gratefully received https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Lucy-Bence

I’ll be running the 10km race that starts before the Marathon and then hopping the barrier to do a few miles with my sister-in-law to get her through a rough part of the course… she did it last year… and with being at work the rest of the 10 days before we fly out to the States, that will pretty much be it for me running wise. I’ll just have a sports massage the day before we leave, where no doubt my sadist of a sports physio will enjoy stretching my IT bands for me!!!!

 

And then what?

 

Well running wise; I do have an entry in to the London Marathon that I have just deferred to 2018; will I do it? I honestly don’t know right now! I haven’t enjoyed this training and I’m not sure I can cope with another winter of running. I’m telling myself I’ll carry on running through the summer, in the nice weather, but I could also see myself just enjoying life instead. I will also be spending time on our house getting it ready for a new arrival… yes, there is going to be a little Dring entering the world towards the end of September 😀

That itself has been a bit of a rollercoaster in the middle of training. We found out we were expecting at the end of January, but then due to some complications and a big dose of hospital incompetence, there were a couple of weeks in February where we had lost our baby! But lo and behold the stubborn little bugger had been there all along and another scan revealed a healthy heartbeat… with stubbornness like that, he/she has got to be a ginger surely?! I’m trying to convince Mrs D that he should be called Jesus if it’s a boy 😉

 

So my road racing career may be coming to a conclusion, but it looks like I will have my hands full running around after our son or daughter in the not too distant future and that sounds pretty perfect to me!

Where have I been?!

You could say it’s been a little while since I lasted posted… that would possibly be a bit of an understatement! So what have I been up to?? Living life!

 

My last post was following the Tokyo Marathon and just before running the Cardiff World Half Marathon race. With not having run in the four weeks in between these two events, I took it easy… haha… yeah right… I went off at PB pace and held on as I was dying in the second half. Managed a 1:32:something, with a spell of rain like I have never seen, and was pleased. My calf still wasn’t 100% though, so I decided to rest it a bit more and seven months later, you could say it’s fully rested (if not fixed).

 

I haven’t stopped running completely, but with only 24 runs in those 7 months and nothing further than 10km, it’s a lot less than I had been doing for the previous four years. The reasons for this are varied. I had a 100 mile bike ride at the end of July that I needed to train for, so I was concentrating on that. I chose to spend time with my partner rather than the amount of time I was putting in to running. During my hiatus, my partner has also become my fiancee 😀 We also have a couple of pupsters that are time consuming in their own right! We have been through the offer/purchase/fall through stages of 6 properties in these months. An unforeseen health emergency decided to throw things out of whack too. So all in all, a busy few months.

I did however manage to drag myself round a 10k race at the start of September… a painful 44 minutes!

 

Why have I come out of the woodwork to post again. Well the whole purpose of this blog has finally come to fruition and my marathon journey appears to be coming to an end… I have been accepted in to the Boston Marathon 2017! Whoop, whoop!!! As the title says ‘sub 180 marathon… although a BQ will do!’, I haven’t gone sub 180 minutes (and never will), but I have managed to do a good enough Boston qualifying time to get an entry in to the race. Technically I did this in 2014 and was able to submit an entry for the 2016 marathon, but I hadn’t been far enough below my qualifying time and missed the cutoff. However, I knocked close to five minutes off my PB and was able to submit another entry this year and it was confirmed in September that it was good enough. Having run that time in September 2015, it had been close to a year before I could apply, knowing it should be quick enough but not having anything guaranteed. It was such a relief to officially have it confirmed… especially as I had already booked flights and hotels for myself and the future Mrs Dring 🙂

Assuming I make it to the start line and complete the race, it will be the sixth and last of the world majors for me to complete and I can retire! I do have a good for age entry for London that I can defer to 2018, so I may do that. I definitely won’t be running it in 2017 and it would bookend my marathon career nicely as my first and last marathon, but my passion for marathons has definitely waned; not running altogether, I will carry on, but nothing further than half marathons.

 

So over the next couple of months I will hopefully be moving into a new house with my fiancee, we will be getting married and then honeymooning in New York… New York just before Christmas! Can’t wait! 😀 Then there is the little matter of Christmas here before kicking off my training in the New Year. The joy of cold weather training and sports massages… can’t wait 😉

 

I’m in… official!!!!

World major number 5… done!

So, what happened in Tokyo?!…

After having left home at 5:30am Wednesday morning and arriving in Tokyo  7:30am Thursday morning (including a 9 hour time difference), the sensible thing would probably have been to get a few hours sleep… I went with checking in to hotel, leaving luggage and heading for a full day of exploring and getting my race number from the EXPO. I finally gave up after 30 hours of no sleep and hit the sack. After 12 hours solid sleep, I was up and at em for a day trip to Mt Fuji on the Friday. It was a bus journey out with a visit to a couple of lakes, cable car journey up another mountain, traditional Japanese lunch… where I tried amongst other things, tuna sashimi, jellyfish and kamaboko (steamed fish cake)… for a non fish/seafood lover, this was quite impressive I think!!! We did also got to the 1^st station of Mt Fuji! 😀

This was all followed by a trip back on the bullet train to Tokyo. 160mph and it felt like you were not moving… pull your finger out British Rail!

proof that I was actually there!

Saturday involved lots more exploring Tokyo by foot. With a calf tear I should probably have been staying off my feet, but what’s the point travelling all that way and sitting in your hotel room. The one issue I had was with food. Not speaking Japanese, most of the restaurants were small places and there was a certain language barrier going on; I managed to get some carbs and protein each day though without resorting to too much junk food.

Sunday was race day and after waking early I shovelled some porridge down me and made my way to the start. I got here early as reviews of previous races had suggested it was difficult to navigate around and a bit of a nightmare. I didn’t find this at all… it probably helped that I had done a recce the day before. It was probably good that I had arrived early those as the queue for the toilet was massive. The baggage lorries also left quite early, so that left me a little chilly in my singlet, but I headed in to my starting pen and huddled in the mass of sweaty bodies for warmth. Certainly didn’t help having the height advantage I did though, haha! I thought I’d be okay as it was quite sunny… the starting area was in the shade, d’oh! I did manage to pick up a sunburn on the way round though!!

When we did eventually get going, it was a bit slow to start with as there were quite a few bottlenecks in the first couple of miles, but as I was relaxed and not going for a time, I didn’t mind one bit. The organisers were very helpful in telling you how far the next toilet was and each station… I made it a whole 4km before I had to stop… what is wrong with me?! I’d already been 3 times!!!

I just set about running comfortably, trying not to put any pressure on my damaged calf and get round. I had some paracetemol and ibuprofen with me to take if I felt it starting to niggle and could probably have gotten round without them… I did pop the ibuprofen at 26km though, more as a precaution than need. In fact it was my damaged calf that was about the only thing in my legs that didn’t get sore. It was good to run the whole way without having to push myself too much. I got quite a bad stitch at 38km, which lasted until 40km, but even this didn’t stop me running. When I crossed the line in 3hrs 18mins and some seconds, I was very pleased with my day’s work. Even more so that I had done Seville marathon on the same weekend 2 years previously and worked my arse off for 3hrs 23mins something… so there is improvement there. If anything let the organisation of this major down it was the rigmarole at the end. There was a massive walk to get some water, and then to the baggage area, then to the exit, and finally to the nearest open metro station… although this final bit of the walk took you through a street food festival thingy, so I indulged in barbequed meats!

As for the route, the first 10kms were pretty much all downhill, followed by 2 long out and backs with gentle undulations that brought you to the 35km point, with a couple of bridges going out to the finish line being the only uphills of note. This is probably a very good race to go for a PB, although I did feel for the people you can see on the out and backs that are over 10km behind you and struggling! There are lots of spectators out, but they are rather quiet, no whooping and hollering like the US and European races. Aid stations are well organised and plentiful.

bling and stuffs…

After the race I had an hour or so rest back at my hotel then made my way into the Tokyo night. I also had another full day of exploring on Monday before flying back Tuesday… via an unsolicited upgrade to business class! Thank you very much BA!! 😀

club world… kir royale sir?… don’t mind if I do!!

What have I been doing since? Nothing!! I have done a couple of short bike rides to turn my legs over, but there is still no running whilst my calf recovers. It was in remarkably good shape when I saw my physio, but still damaged. I was meant to see him again last week to check me over before attempting the World Half Marathon Championship race in Cardiff this weekend, but it got cancelled due to some teeth issues (on my part – another story), so I’m going in to this Saturday’s race blind. It’s feeling alright… I’ll rock up and see what happens.

One week to Tokyo

So a week tomorrow I will be running in the Tokyo Marathon and ticking off world major number 5… will I be finishing it though?!

I have been slightly lacking training wise for this one; I have managed most of my long runs but not done much in the way of shorter speed work or hill strength work. The long runs I have been doing have been feeling okay; they have felt far from Berlin PB material, but I had felt confident about going for a comfortable sub 3:30 attempt… that was until my last long run of 15 miles on 9th February.

I had built up my long runs and ran two consecutive 20 milers. These were both in cold and very windy conditions. I felt some twinges behind my left knee on these, but nothing too bad. I saw my physio after my second one and where I’d been leaning in to a strong sidewind whilst running, my body was all twisted. I put my niggles down to this, he straightened me out and I didn’t worry about it. Instead I headed off for a relaxing holiday in Finland with Kate and forgot about running…

Finish Lapland was amazing, we had a cosy little log cabin with an open fire, feet of snow outside, minus 19C temps (no running here!), horse sleigh ride, great food and a brief glimpse of the northern lights! 😀

cosy log cabin

 

The day after flying back I headed out for the fateful 15 miles. The same area behind my knee started to twinge after 10 miles, but where as before it had stayed a twinge, this time it kept getting worse. I slowed my pace (apart from the last mile) and shortened my stride. I was going to rest it and see what happened, but when it was still sore going up and down the stairs at work the next day, I thought I should maybe get in to see my physio. He kindly fitted me in to his schedule the next day and after some investigations, he diagnosed a tear in my left calf muscle… SHIT was my instant reaction and can I still run Tokyo my first question!!

He is not known for pussy footing around and if Tokyo was a no go he would have told me. The fact that he said I could start the race, take a couple of paracetamol and ibuprofen when I start to feel it twinging and then don’t stop until the finish otherwise I’ll be screwed, filled me with confidence, haha. He will fix me when I get back! 🙂

So for the last ten days it has been gentle stretching, cycling and pilates only. Am I confident of my shape for running a marathon… not one iota! I’m going to be relying on a big dose of stubbornness for this one!!

But still, it’s a visit to a new area of the world. With a trip to Mount Fuji and the bullet train sorted, plus lots to explore, I’m looking forward to it.

 

In other news; myself and Kate decided to add a new member to the family… Basil the dachshund goes very quickly from cute puppy to whirling dervish, but we wouldn’t have him any other way!!! 😀

crazy mutt!!!

 

Sayonara

Long time, no blog!

So, what’s been going on?!

 

Since my last post I have kicked my Tokyo training up a gear; run a marathon in Milton Keynes I shouldn’t have; finally gotten round to running a local Christmas 10 miler; spent work at Christmas and saw in the New Year with friends and the new lady in my life.

 

I say I’ve kicked my training up a gear, but it is still probably well short of where it should be. The main uptake in mileage could probably be put down to running a marathon in week 4… it didn’t go well. I ran a 1:31 for the first half (even after taking a tumble on a slippery bridge), then started dying on my arse from 18 miles onward. I hadn’t done enough long training since Berlin/Amsterdam, plus my head really wasn’t in the game. My body was suggesting a walk and my head gave in. The last 8 miles were a mixture of walk/jogging. I finished with a second half of 2:05, but in a respectable 3:36. My legs felt very heavy, but no injuries, so I had survived yet again.

The next few weeks were nothing too heavy and as the wind has been quite strong, that has been fine with me…. blasted headwinds!!

I am slowly building up my mileage though and with half of my training left, I should hopefully be able to get in long runs of 15, 17, 20, 18 & 20… we’ll see.

 

Due to a switch around of shifts at work I was able to get a last minute entry to Buntingford 10. This is always around Boxing Day or just after and was on the 28^th this year. It’s a local race but as I’m virtually always working Christmas, I haven’t been able to do it up to now. I was hoping to run around a 1:05 but at least average 7 min miles for a 1:10. I split the difference with a 1:08:30 and a 64th place. As it was the first time I’d run it, I had no idea of what the course would be like… it was certainly undulating!!! I was very happy with my effort though and I earned a nice bit of bling whilst burning off Christmas excess.

 

I managed to get out for 13.1 miles of training on New Years Eve to finish my year off with 1218 miles. So all in all, I’ve had a very good year!

I’ve managed to get through a whole year without missing any time from injuries; I’ve averaged over 100 running miles a month; my cross training bike mileage went up massively (which probably helped a lot!); I’ve run a 10k and marathon PB… the later hopefully getting me in to Boston for 2017; with no real negatives. Yes I’ve had a few disappointing times, through running races very stupidly, but it’s all been good experience.

 

As for seeing in the New Year. I had a great night with Sarah, her family and friends, plus the aforementioned lady. It’s early days but Kate is a little bit special, so we’ll see, 2016 has started off very well though.

 

What does 2016 hold….

7 weeks more training to get me to Tokyo, hopefully in shape for a sub 3:30. 4 weeks after that I’ll be in Cardiff for the World Half Marathon race… great planning again Dring!!

After that, there is no real plan. I will probably look at doing some 5/10k’s and maybe a half marathon or two in the Autumn. I don’t want to run another marathon after Tokyo in 2016; I think my body (and my mind) needs a rest from the constant pounding of marathon training.

Hopefully my place for Boston 2017 will be confirmed without stress in September and I can look forward to completing the World Major Marathons, injuries withstanding.

I do fully expect my mileage to drop this year… hence why I pushed to break the 100 mile/month avg this year… I don’t see it happening again. I have no targets at this minute. I’ll get my planned races out of the way and see what speed the summer brings… I’ll take a sub 39min 10k and sub 1:25 HM though!

 

Away from running…

I have my Mothers 60^th birthday to celebrate in the Lakes in a couple of weeks, which will be very nice! Then there may be an amazing holiday booked to Lapland with Kate in early February to hopefully see the Northern Lights!!! 😀

February is going to be quite the month!!!

Beyond that… the world’s my lobster…

 

Happy 2016!

 

End of year stats…

2015
Sport   Count   Distance   Time        Av. Pace
Swim        1        1.5miles     1h04       42:40 per mile
Bike         26      532miles    33h04     16.1mph
Run         164     1218miles  150h00  8:07 per mile
Run**    139     1119miles   135h19    7:15 per mile
and compare to past year…..
2014
Sport    Count    Distance   Time       Av. Pace
Swim         3         4.5miles    3h16       43:33 per mile
Bike          13        255miles    19h03    13.4mph
Run          150      1092miles 141h01   7:45 per mile
Run**     127      986miles   125h50   7:39 per mile

**treadmill running stats removed

 

Sneaky Tokyo training

I’ve done very little since the Amsterdam marathon. I had a couple of weeks of single digit mileage and slowly built up from that. With a little local marathon booked in for 9th December, I thought I better see where I am at; so I did a few more miles last week, totaling 32.3 for the week. The most in one go was still only 13.1 miles though. It felt alright but I’m not sure I’m ready for another marathon… physically or mentally. I guess I’m just going have to wait for 8th Dec and make up my mind.

What has snuck up on me though is that this week is the first week of Tokyo training (if I stick to my traditional 15 week block for A races). It’s slightly worrying considering that I’m not really feeling it… and the little matter that I haven’t booked a flight yet! 😀

Oh well. I’m not chasing times now; hopefully I can get fit enough to dip under 3:15. It would be quite cool to do all the majors sub 3:15. Although that would mean having to go and do Chicago again… plus doing it at Boston (if I get a place with my Berlin time!!!)

I’ll worry about that later…

Sayonara

Targets met and calories consumed

Being bored at work, I have looked at what targets I set myself for this year and some stats (beats entering races… although Luxembourg night marathon is appealing to me!).

Apparently my targets were 1000 miles running, 500 miles cycling, 10 miles swimming, a sub 40 minute 10k and a sub 3:05 marathon.

 

Well, as of finishing the Amsterdam marathon, I have clocked up 1012 miles running, 517 miles cycling, a 39:21 10k and a 3:04:48 marathon. I’ve only done 1.5 miles swimming and I’m unlikely to do any more before the end of the year… so you can’t have it all 🙂

One interesting stat (to me anyway) is the estimated amount of calories I’ve burnt according to Endomondo and it has got me wondering what shape I’d be if I wasn’t doing so much exercise. From just my running and cycling alone this year it reckons I have burnt 126,369 calories. Considering that the recommended daily male average calorie consumption is 2,500 calories; I have earned myself just over 50 days worth of extra food. Shockingly, somewhere along the way I must have eaten it as well as I am only 1/4lb lighter than I was at the start of the year. Admittedly I don’t really worry too much about what I eat as I assume I will burn it off at some point, but I can’t remember really being particularly gluttonous and to have eaten 50 days worth of extra calories to be the same weight is slightly worrying… I’d be the size of a house if I hadn’t been running/cycling so much!!

I guess I’m just going to have to carry on pounding my body as I quite like eating 😀

Amsterdam (unlucky 13) Marathon

Well 3 weeks after running in Berlin I was off on my travels again; this time for a flying visit to Amsterdam for my 13th marathon. I’m not really superstitious at all, so the fact it was my 13th marathon held no significance for me.

After a total of 4 runs and 3 outings on my bike in the previous 3 weeks I was relying on my fitness from Berlin training and really hoping that my body had recovered enough. Turns out it hadn’t 🙂

There was nothing unlucky about my race and finishing time… okay, I would have been happier if it wasn’t drizzling for most of the race, but you have to take the weather you are given. I finished in 3:24:02, which on paper, I’m very happy with. It was another marathon sub 3:30, after a very short turnaround. How I got to that time was painful and stupid though… once again I tried to write a cheque my body couldn’t cash!

I set off in two minds about whether to just run a “comfortable” pace, hoping to just get through it, or to go for sub 3 hours. That indecision really didn’t help my cause; my pacing was all over the place, ranging from a 4:07 km to 4:30 in the first 12kms. It was at 12km that I knew I was in trouble, my mind just wasn’t in the game, I was already fighting the urge to walk and rather than trying to keep my pace up to run a PB or anything like that, I was trying to keep my pace up just to get it over and done with. For the next 10kms I was running my comfortable pace in the 4:20s but they were getting increasingly harder and after going through halfway in a little over 1 hour 32 mins (close to my PB split) everything went downhill fast. We were running alongside the Amstel river on a long out and back and it was very uninspiring; I was taking any positive I could though and I was very glad it wasn’t windy as we would have been very exposed to it! I had 28km in my mind as two thirds distance and bargained with my legs that I’d take a little walk if they could get me there. I have done this many times before and when I get there, re-adjust my target without walking, with keep on doing that until I’ve tricked my legs to the finish line. There was no such deception possible this time, I was going up an incline and I just gave in, I wouldn’t be any slower walking up the stupid thing, so that is what I did; I trudged to the top and then got my legs ticking over again on the down slope. This is basically what the second half of my marathon was… keeping my legs painfully ticking over with the odd walk break… I did try to limit myself to a maximum of a minute walking in any single kilometer, which I think I managed. I got myself to 1.5km to go and then used any willpower I had left to keep my slow run going to the finish.

I was so glad to cross that finishing line… there had been a support vehicle that picked up a runner that couldn’t continue and I was so tempted to knock on the window and get a lift to the finish as well. I’d also had quite a lot of pain in my ankles for the last few kms that I was managing. My marathon experience in Amsterdam didn’t improve much after I had finished though. As I was funneled out of the stadium finish and had a medal put over my head and a heat sheet wrapped around me, we were herded past an area giving out a bottle of energy drink, half a banana and a cup of water and that was it, not even a bottle of water! I had my bit of banana, a few sips of the energy drink… I can’t stomach these at the best of times and this wasn’t one of those!… washed it down with some water and realised that it would be best for me to just get back to my hotel. This was easier said than done as to get to my hotel I needed to head past where the route came in to the finish; there was also a half marathon due to start… from the same area, but on the other side of the road and going in the opposite direction! With people trying to get to the finish to see their runners come in, finished runners trying to get away and half marathoners rushing to get to try to get in their pen before the start of their race, it was absolute chaos and a bit of a crush. The last thing I need in my current state! Luckily I eventually got through to where I needed to be without fainting or throwing up and enjoyed the 1.5km walk back to my hotel… no public transport due to route of said half-marathon 😦

 

All in all, I won’t be doing this marathon again. I’m sure I could get round the course quicker with proper preparation, but I have no desire to. The course was uninspiring, the finish organisation was atrocious and frankly, there is nothing for me in Amsterdam. When I go abroad for a marathon I like to explore the city, but there just doesn’t seem to be that much for me to see in Amsterdam. It pretty much caters for people wanting to get drunk or stoned… neither appealing to me at all, whether I have a race to run or not! Maybe I’m doing it a mis-service and if the weather had been something other than cold and raining/drizzling all weekend it may have been a more enjoyable experience… but you’d have to be lucky to get anything other than that just off the North Sea in mid to late October when this race is run. If you do find yourself heading off to Amsterdam for a weekend, I can recommend The College Hotel though. It was very nice and location was good… as long as you are not going for the red light district, as it was away from the city centre and that area.

 

Berlin Marathon (take two)

Well I headed to Berlin after a couple of short runs where I felt no pain and another massage. I arrived late afternoon and headed to my hotel to chuck my bag in my room and try to get to the expo before it closed at 8pm. I just made it, grabbed my number and left to find some food. I had the advantage of having run Berlin last year I knew my way around and was able to grab some pasta quite easily. I’m glad I made it to the expo in time as it would have been packed on the Saturday! As it was, I met up with a friend, who was also running the marathon, for an early morning 20 minute leg turnover and grab some breakfast. We also spent most of the rest of the day together just chilling out, off our feet and finding somewhere early afternoon to load up on pasta.

This was a new experience for me as I’m usually exploring the city I’m in, even on the day before the race… what’s the point of travelling abroad to a new city and sitting in your hotel room resting your legs?! You gotta go out and about! The only reason I didn’t this time was because I had explored a lot last year and I’d always booked it as a flying visit.

Come Sunday morning, I was up early, shoveled down some porridge, checked out of my hotel (as I was flying out Sunday night) and headed off to the start. After my previous 2 weeks, I really wasn’t expecting much, so much so that I was carrying some money in my shorts pocket as I thought that maybe I’d have to stop and get the u-bahn back from wherever I gave up. I have never gone in to a race with these thoughts and never carried emergency money with me.

It was already sunny and a pleasant temperature so I didn’t need to hang around in the staging area in my warm clothes. I handed my bag in and went off to do a little warm-up and queue for the portaloo. Not to be disgusting, but before a race I usually have a “nervous stomach”, this race I barely passed anything. So much so that I queued up again, but still no joy. There are toilets on the course so I didn’t worry too much as I knew I wouldn’t get caught completely short. After giving up on any substantial movement I went to mooch around in my starting pen. Due to my time from last years race I was one pen further forward in ‘D’. Unlike the free for all you quite often get in UK races, foreign races are usually quite well organised and pens marshaled, so that you don’t get held up by a load of slower people in your run. Therefore once the gun had sent us on our way, I was quite amused to be passing a 70/80 year old shuffling along in the first 1km 🙂 Apart for that one slightly optimistic finishing time prediction, everyone else seemed to be up to speed and I wasn’t held up at all this year.

Despite my trepidations about the condition I was in, I thought I’d head off at PB pace and see what happened… who wants to be on their feet longer than they have to 🙂 This meant running at 4:23 kms and I was basically under this until past half-way… by a number of seconds at times. I was over that scheduled pace in the 2nd km as I had to stop for my obligatory pee! Never been that early before, but I was feeling I’d have to go before too long and there were no crowds about, so I took the opportunity. Pit stop over, I was able to pick up the pace again quickly and onwards I pushed. I didn’t really feel I spent any time looking around during my run last year, but I found I was recognising a number places… unfortunately these seemed to be a lot sooner in the race than I thought they were from memory! 😦

I was feeling relaxed though, I wasn’t chasing a time, I was just trying to run correctly and concentrate on that. I found the kms ticking along nicely and was a little surprised when I passed 10km about a minute quicker than last year. I didn’t get excited though, I just took my first energy gel and kept on running. I passed through 20km with roughly the same split as my first 10km and through halfway at 1:31:36. What was going on! I wasn’t feeling any niggles, felt I was running within myself and I was going quicker than last year!

I’d banked plenty of time so at this stage I slowed ever so slightly and aimed for my target pace to keep my powder dry for the last 10km. It’s also the 3rd 10km that has any elevation of note… although it isn’t much elevation at all. I took my 3rd gel at 30km and waited until I got to 32km to work out if I should put it all on the line or not. In this section I had started to get a niggle, but it wasn’t anything I’d felt in the last couple of weeks; it was in my groin/hip area on my left side and it went if I pushed my pelvis forward as I should be anyway, so it was manageable.

I got to the 32km marker… having passed 32km on my watch about 400 metres previously (damn extra distance!)… looked at my watch and it was just coming to 2:20! Now I was a little bit excited… I had 45 minutes for the final 10km to get under 3:05!! That was 4:30 per km, that was do-able surely?! At this stage last year I was hanging on with every part of me wanting to walk; this year, I hadn’t had any such thoughts yet, I had a purpose, against all my expectations I was going to PB at the very least, but could I really get a London GFA time and make the earlier section of Boston registration?

With all these thoughts going through my mind I got a bit carried away and my next couple of kms were back under 4:20 and I was feeling them. I was a bit slower over the next couple, but importantly they were still under 4:30 though. That status quo carried on for a couple more kms but it was now that my body was starting to suggest it may like a little walk. The amount of times I have had to find the stubbornness not to give in to walking in the last 10km or so of a marathon, I wasn’t going to give in now! I eventually drifted over 4:30 in the 39th km, but I thought I’d banked enough time by now to be comfortable. It turned out I hadn’t! The next couple of kms were in the 4:20’s but during the last km I realised that I was tight for time. After thinking about it afterwards, I had forgotten to take in to account the extra metres… from 32km it is 10.195km to the finish, not 10km. 195 metres doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is close to a minute of running when running at 4:30 pace. Realising your mistake with 700m to go is not comfortable at all, there was no posing for the finish line cameras this year, it was a full on sprint the whole way and it hurt!

I had made it though… 3:04:48! A 4 and half minute PB, a London ‘Good For Age’ qualification time (guaranteed spot), but more importantly, it now means that I can register for the Boston Marathon in the first week and hopefully get a place for the 2017 race. This is what I have been aiming towards for the last 2 years; it has come a lot quicker than I expected when I set out after it, but after failing so spectacularly at London in the spring, I was a bit negative on whether I could achieve it. My 3:09:22 from last years race was below my qualification mark of 3:10:00, but I could only register for the 2016 race in the second week and because it was oversubscribed, this last part of registration went on the quickest times got the places. The cut-off ended up being 2:28 below your age groups qualification mark so being only 38 secs below I missed out (glad I didn’t just miss it by a few seconds though!). I had been thinking of getting a sports tour entry (available to non US citizens), where you don’t actually need to meet the qualification time, but if I had, would it be cheating? I did feel I would be cheating myself slightly, but was trying to justify it to myself that I had actually run a qualification time. Even though it hadn’t officially been announced before this race, I was pretty certain I would be missing out and as much as I wanted to qualify by right and I’m impatient. Plus there was no way that I thought I would be running quick enough this year or in the spring… because of my niggles in last few weeks and I never run as quick after winter training, I need the warm summer training… so I was close to putting my deposit down. In the end I decided that I’d wait until after the weekend to decide and I’m so glad I did. Although 19 months until the 2017 race is a long time to wait! 😉

I don’t know how I managed this finish time. I didn’t do as many miles I as had for last year, or even for London in the spring. The miles I did do were a bit quicker on average, but not greatly. I did do more cross training mileage on my bike so maybe that helped in some way??? I certainly didn’t feel as good going in to this marathon and didn’t think I could run like I did, so maybe that was the difference. I went in to London wanting to run sub 3:05 and when it wasn’t going how I wanted, I got stressed and didn’t run well. With not expecting anything from this marathon, maybe I was just relaxed and it helped?!

After retrieving my baggage, I went and got my medal engraved with my time and hobbled back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. I paid for a guest pass to the gym next door and had a very welcome hot shower, then caught up with my friend and his family for a celebratory beer before I had to make my way to the airport for my flight home. I was very glad that I had paid a little extra for an emergency exit row seat for that little bit of extra leg room!

This week I did 12 miles on my bike to get my legs moving with low impact and have had a recovery massage. I finally went for a short run on Friday and my legs were very heavy. I also went for another cycle on Saturday. I probably need a bit more rest, but as I have to get my arse around Amsterdam Marathon in 2 weeks time and also bed in a new pair of trainers before then, there is no time for rest 🙂

It may be pushing it to bed in new trainers to get round a marathon without blisters in 2 weeks, but my old trainers are past it and were on the edge before I ran Berlin in them. I was pushed for space in my bag and they were going to get dumped in Germany, but I had to squeeze them in and bring them home after they did such a good job… sentimental fool!

In other news, I got the results from a free ‘Health MOT’ I had at work the other week. I’m all good/average, including my 11.9% body fat… officially an athlete (depending on which site you choose from Google). It included the results from my urine sample as well… nothing to report… must have missed the EPO 😉

I’ve also sorted out my Tokyo charity entry… it is confirmed and they have taken the money. Hotel is sorted but I dithered on sorting the flights and they have gone up. I’m thinking I’ll keep an eye on them, but wait until the sales BA usually has at Christmas/New Year… always been a gambler, haha!