The Hever Castle triathlon marked the end of the UK triathlon season (OK if you’re being pedantic there were probably one or two outliers, but nothing big), and as I’ve had no targets I’ve not been doing a great deal since.
Training…. or not…
In an attempt to mix it up a bit, I decided to listen to what my sport massage lady said and do a bit more stretching. I opted for yoga. I’ve never done anything like yoga before, so I had no idea what to expect as I burst through the studio doors at my local David Lloyd to find I was the only chap in a room full of spandex clad women.
I bustled to the back of the room so no one would see the carnage that would ensue as someone who’s pre and post race stretching amounts to putting on his socks attempts to bend his body into shapes that would make a contortionist’s eyes boggle.
“Now then ladies and gentleman…” began the instructor before making us twist our bodies into some very odd positions. The class ended up with me trying to suppress my giggles as she told us to, “Feel the brown energy flowing through my chakras.” before asking us to imagine we were in a little boat heading out to sea, like we were Iggle Piggle from the Night Garden.
Iggle Piggle – Vinyasa yoga master (probably)….
More seriously, much of yoga it seems, is an extension of the stretching I do at karate, so figuring that this can only help, the next week I decided to try a different club and a longer lesson. This class was lead by the most bendy man on the planet. Fortunately I wasn’t the only bloke this time, but it was much much harder as he took us from plank to half press up to side plank and back again and again. Sweat started dripping off me, and my core muscles which are only usually worked really hard after a particularly heavy Sunday lunch, began to scream at me.
At one point the instructor handed me a foam brick and said, “You might need this.” I’m not sure what for, as I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have hurt him that much even if I’d managed to score a direct hit on his head.
Not much use as an offensive weapon….
The downside to doing increasingly ridiculous endurance events is that once you’ve finished one, people ask you what’s next. This has lead to me looking for more new and innovative ways to injure and generally damage myself events next year.
So far I’ve found two possibilities. Andy has decided that he wants to do a ‘real’ Ironman. That is a branded event. Having done IM Melbourne myself this year, I can see the attraction. To that end he’s trying to persuade me to do Ironman Maastricht with him. This has the positives that:
- It’s Holland, and therefore reasonably flat
- It’s Europe and therefore likely not to be tropically hot with fauna and flora which aren’t going to try and eat/kill/molest you (locals excepted) and…
- It’s not too far away, so mincing can be kept to a minimum
- It’s not sold out
The second possibility was suggested by Oren, a guy I do karate with. It’s probably worth mentioning at this point he’s so thin he weighs about the same as my road bike, and is pretty close to breaking 20 mins for a 5k, and approaching 1:30 for a half marathon (so quite fit then). He’s suggested that we look at the the London to Brighton race.
I know what you’re thinking. Loads of people do that every year, and hardly anyone breaks, but he’s not talking about the London to Brighton bike ride, he’s talking about the London to Brighton Ultramarathon. Yes really, 100km of running. That’s roughly two and a third marathons back to back.
I’m currently considering whether to do either or both of these events, they’re around 4 weeks apart, so I’m not sure doing both is possible, and/or sensible.
In any case, in order to see how much fitness I’ve lost I decided to enter a half marathon. The race in question was the River Thames Half Marathon. I entered this because, apart from being on at the right time, I could walk to the start line from my house in around 10 minutes. Even accounting for the fact that I’m pathologically incapable to leave the house without at least 30 minutes of hardcore mincing, I should be able to make that start line with a few minutes to spare.
It was a chilly start to the morning, so I opted for a gilet (a running jacket with no arms), compression shorts and a running hat. I arranged to meet Oren (from Karate) as we’d both registered at the last minute and after a bit of chatting we dumped our bags and headed to the start line, optimistically (for me anyway) picking the 1:30-2:00 timing lane.
Gilet – not a razor……
It’s been ages since I attempted a half marathon. I usually pace races at either as hard as possible (anything up to 10k running and sprint triathlon) or zone 2 max for a marathon or Ironman. I decided to just go on feel and see how it panned out.
As it turns out, I went off way too fast, somewhere around my 10k pace, clocking the first 7k in under 5 mins/km. My pace then slowly decreased until I exploded at around 14k, and had to slow right down. My heart rate was surging out of the top of Z4, and I was overheating. I stuffed my hat in my back pocket to try and cool off a bit. Someone passed me and helpfully pointed out that I’d dropped it a few hundred meters back, so I ran back and picked it up, stuffed it inside my top and kept running.
Every so often I would have to stop and walk to let my heart rate drop a little which explains why my heart rate did this:
Z4 – it’s where the pain is at…
…and I looked like I was going to have a coronary. If you really want to see that picture it’s here.
After what seemed like an eternity I spotted the finish line and decided to try for a sprint finish, managing to overtake another running with centimetres to spare, and only just holding my breakfast down. I was knackered. I checked my Garmin which told me I’d finished in a time of 1:54:56, under two hours, but not by much, and way slower than I had done earlier in the year. I met up with Oren had a quick chat and hobbled home, stuffing my face with the kitkat that the organisers had put in the goodie bag, and marvelling at whatever genius had thought to combine the medal with a bottle opener.
A medal AND a bottle opener…. Genius….
In the hope that I’d just overcooked it a bit, I decided to give the half marathon. The following Sunday was the Luton marathon which I’d done last year. It’s local to my in laws which meant a lift to the start line and someone to help babysitting the kids. Following a particularly painful karate session on the Monday where the Sensei, on seeing Oren and I hobble in announced, “Today we’ll be doing lots of kicking.”, and a day off on Tuesday, I signed up.
I usually do some sort of training on Wednesday night, and following the pain and suffering from the yoga the week before, I decided to meet a mate, Vic, for a pootle about on our mountain bikes around Bushy park, checking out the deer who would honk occasionally to announce their presence in the darkness.
Everything went fine, and as Vic headed off home, I decided that I’d take a circuitous route back home via the thames path I’d run down on Sunday. I decided to cycle as fast as I could to get the heart pumping, and, stopping only briefly to let a massive stag with very pointy antlers cross in front of me, I headed out of Kingston gate, cycled up the road to Kingston bridge and started giving it the beans down the bike path.
The path wasn’t lit, but I have a very powerful front headlight for my bike. It was by the light of this powerful headlight that I noticed the tarmac suddenly change orientation and get closer and closer to my face as my brain tried to process the fact that I was now sliding down the tow path using various body parts to decelerate rapidly. I managed to keep my head off the ground for most of the slide only slamming my helmet into the floor once, resulting in a bright white flash.
As soon as I stopped skidding uncontrollably across the tarmac, I jumped up to attempt to style it out, staggered around, fell over again, and then started to check myself over for broken bones and other assorting injuries. Fortunately I was wearing a soft shell jacket and a pair of bibshorts which seemed to have taken the brunt of the friction. I have no idea what caused the bike to go down. I don’t remember hitting anything, the front forks seem OK, there are no broken spokes which could have caused the wheels to deform.
I clambered back onto my bike and continued along the path. My shoulders were sore where I’d been trying to keep my head from hitting the floor, I must have slid on my right side, because my right elbow was sore, and my right thigh was throbbing like a throbby thing. My left shin must have hit a pedal with considerable force too as it felt like it was bruising up nicely.
Eventually I got home, staggered in, and in a rare show of sympathy, my wife helped me out of my bibshorts and handed my a bottle of dettol to pour into the bath. Normal service was swiftly resumed when she said, “Where are the life insurance documents? For next time…..”
A bit sore…..
The next morning my leg had bruised up a bit.
Quite a bit more sore…..
There were mixed reactions the following evening where my eight year old son winced when he saw it, and my five year old daughter who was dressed up as a devil to go to her school disco, poked it with her trident. My two year old, completely oblivious, ran head first at it and nutted it until I collapsed in a heap weeping.
As I’m an idiot, I decided to do the Luton half marathon anyway. Rather than go by feel this time, I decided to try for 5:15/km in the first half and attempt a negative split (i.e. do the 2nd half faster than the first half).
I’ve mentioned before I did the Luton half marathon last year. Unfortunately last year the people setting the course up made a mistake and the course was set up short, so it was unlikely that I was going to get close to my time.
Race day started with a minimum of mincing, and the nicest portaloos I’ve ever seen at a race (flushing, real toilet paper and didn’t smell – they even had hot water to wash your hands!). The course started with a 400m lap around an athletics track followed by going down a big hill. I gave up on trying to keep my speed at 5:15/km and just freewheeled my legs down to the bottom before we entered the scenic grounds of Luton Hoo.
Luton Hoo – still impressive
I have previously done an event at Luton Hoo, the Jensen Button Triathlon, which has since moved to Derby, and the grounds are really nice. I didn’t, however, remember quite how lumpy the grounds were, and keeping my pacing was proving pretty problematic, but I did my best.
Eventually after around 13km we emerged into Luton again and started an out and back loop to finally finish in St George’s Square. It wasn’t exactly the most scenic end to a race I’ve ever done, but I crossed the line and looked at my watch, which read “1:49:52”. Five minutes quicker than the race I’d done the week before.
‘Love’ is a bit of a strong word……
Crucially it was also only three seconds slower than last year. A race that was 400 metres shorter, and only just over a minute slower than my personal best which was not only flatter, but I did it when I was better trained, and without a leg that looks like it’s been badly stuffed with beetroot.
Anyway, enough of this drivel, I’m off to the walk in centre to get checked out, so until next time…..
FerrousTom over and out….
Update: I’ve just been to the walk in centre. I explained that I’d fallen off my bike and after the nurse poked around a bit, I mentioned that I did a marathon on Sunday. “You’re an idiot.” she said.
I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do any training for at least a week. I don’t think I can describe the look she gave me when I suggested I could rest up after doing Karate this evening…. Oh well….
ferroustom 