Monkey Sweeping Duties

It is 17^th April 2015, the time 10:57 am and an email arrives:

Please see reassigned sections below :

Start Richmond to Dorney CP3 : Simon W
Dorney CP3 to Henley CP6 : Mark T
Henley CP6 to Whitchurch CP8 : Jerry Smallwood
Whitchurch CP8 to Clifton Hampden CP11 : Pip H
Clifton Hampden CP11 to Finish Oxford: Garfield J

New sweepers … welcome!  Please read the attached and the below and let myself or James know if you have any concerns

Jerry – can you confirm your phone number for me please :o).

Yes Dear Reader I have volunteered to be one of a team Sweepers helping out at the Thames Path 100 (TP100). This race has become part of me since I completed it which was my very first 100 mile race which seems so long ago in 2012. Since then I have completed the Winter 100 and run numerous ultras and marathons along it length. In 2013 I remember being a Sweeper for the same race and ran a 40 mile length!

I am really looking forward to doing my duties this weekend as I will be taking on a 16 mile (30 km) slot but hope to team up with Pip at Whitchurch to run the extra 4 miles together so that I can get some breakfast at a local hotel and then take the train back to London. Some of you will note I said "breakfast" and that is why I am excited, one of my  favourite forms of running is doing it at night with the added fun that it will be by Old Father Thames.

In true tradition for the TP100 looks bleak with the promise of some rain and social media groups chatting merrily but with a hint of nervousness about the comments. All I can say to this year's runners that they should not underestimate this event, it is mainly flat but is surprising hilly in places, there will be mud, lots of mud and there will be tarmac, lots of that. Foot bridges that whilst at 20 miles you will bound over in the latter stages of the race you will swear at the God of your choice as your aching muscles do the same to you.

I cannot wait for Saturday when I turn up early for my shift to kick the runners out on to the night section. Whitchurch will be the maker and breaker for runners as it is the halfway point and the mind does funny things at this point in a race especially with the night ahead.

No GUCR 2015 but a new start

And so with the completion of the Hanover Marathon last week I have to look to the future and what is on the cards for me.

 

A lot of my readers will probably have noticed the lack of posts on my blog over recent months caused for so many reasons but primarily because of my father passed away just before Christmas. Nothing prepares you for such a thing and it certainly hit me for six as did to my whole family and the last thing I wanted to do was run. A friend of the family told me "Life goes on Jeremy" and indeed it does, your mind in turmoil but you still have to put bread on the table.

 

I am feeling a little bit more confident now with my running, I trudged through the marathon last week with only a few aches and pains afterwards with my heel feeling OK but I still have a long way to go before my basic fitness is up to where I need it.

 

So the news....

 

You will have probably noticed that there has been no talk of the GUCR 2015 this year and that is because I dropped out a few weeks ago after I realised that for me to take that monster on I would have had to run throughout the Winter and into the Spring taking marathons and shorter ultras to build up the stamina and mental toughness for the event, I am saddened and a little jealous when I see other runners getting their numbers but it was the best decision in the circumstances, I wish them well.

 

I have however decided to do one last long ultramarathon later this year which I do not want to say too much about now but will do when I have confirmation that my entry has been accepted.

 

The Monkey Feet are back in town.

 

 

Hanover Marathon 2015 - Race Report

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and indeed it does so that is why this blog entry is very short today where you can sit back and watch a video of the Eskorte 2300 a rag tag bunch of runners who got together from 6 European countries to run in the Hanover Marathon together to celebrate Christian Hotta's 2300^th marathon which is simply an amazing achievement by anybodies standards.

A lot of the runners are quite fast in the group but the run was not about winning or competing it was about the camaraderie and the spirit of being together and enjoying the day doing the sport we all adore.

I seem to appear in quite a lot of the film but you can now see my union flag shorts, monkey feet and my, now, very large beer gut caused by not running enough! There is also a lot of high jinx which made the day fun.

Enjoy...

Just us three lunatics

...and not a Monkey in sight.

The subject of this blog was coined by the great Che this evening, no Dear Readers, it is not the Che we know as Ernesto (Che) Guevara but the son of my running pal Duncan.

By some great prophecy the three of us arrived at the local nature reserve for a run of 3-5 miles, the reason for the large bandwidth was Che was unsure of his fitness levels and we were to see how we all felt. I was happy for the distraction because I was out to test my heel which seemed better in recent days but didn't want to push it.

I have a feeling that Che, like many sons, wanted to know what his Dad got up to when he went for a run. His briefing, if you call it that, was the conversation could go anywhere from the order of flowering in the white and black hawthorn to "Does red and white tape mean no entry or a route marker?" to Facebook comments. At one juncture Che was heard to exclaim in a horrified voice "Why am I talking about grammar?" His face a picture of shock and distaste, he was assured by Duncan that it was fine but I have to admit it was a bit weird (Che, I am joking)

We crossed the road and jumped into my local woods, Duncan and I pointing and commenting on trees, where you can find wild garlic, shapes in tress like elephants when we both stopped and Duncan looked upon high looking at the trees and commented "This is why I do it, nothing here, just us" to which Che commented in words older than his years "Just us three lunatics" we could but agree to his sage-like remark.

We went back into the nature reserve and plodding along the main path we spotted a pile of logs stacked up to form a camp,tee pee like and could not help but stop to investigate. Inside was a sawn stump perfect to sit on and to the side a shack made with right angles. I slipped back 42 years and looked on in complete jealousy that I never had a camp like this. I then noted the red and white chevron tape.

"Does red and white tape mean no entry or a route marker?"
Through my experience of races as a runner, marker or sweeper, my mind has been taught that chevron tape is a marker to follow but upon seeing the tape at "The Camp" it was being used as a warning to say foresting was taking place.

So it was no surprise to me when the three of us ran an extra 0.5 miles to make it 5 miles and whilst Che and I were working out how the human sundial worked we spotted Duncan walk through a gap in the trees marked with tape, I turned to Che and said "Please be like your Dad in the future and learn to explore like he does." so we followed him in to discover a copse that was being cut back. There the other two scavenged a 2 metre length branch and went about discussing the best way to make a Zulu stick and bark shaving, a wonderful thing to hear.

The heel is OK, I am unsure how well and what will be an interesting marathon next week.

Getting the heel sorted.

My priority at the moment is to get my heel better, it is one of those annoying injuries that come and go when you least expect it.

I thought I was fine last Thursday and padded out a warm up of 200 metres, stretch, 200 metres, stretch more, 400 metres, stretch. By the time I had go to the 400 metre section the pain in my heel was very unpleasant so I grabbed my jacket and went home, standing in the cold whilst listening to the local "know it all"* who was proud that he could say plantar fasciitis without spitting when in fact it was not that at all.

I have a new idea under my running hat at the moment which will be announced soon but my priority is to get this damn heel sorted. I am dutifully standing on my steps at home pushing down with my body weight to get a stretch in and then lifting my self up on one leg to stretch and strengthen my calf. I have to say that I am totally amazed by this stretch as it really felt like some of the scar tissue was releasing, a feeling like a bendy straw is is pulled. With that I am icing it and also using this wonderful microwaveable pad that warms the area.

I am not out of the woods yet but I do feel it is getting slightly better and then I can start training again. 

* this was the same expert that told me in the middle of a race that bananas contained salt!

The trials and tribulations of a [not so] long distance runner living in deepest, darkest Kent.

It is funny how, when going through life, we always think we are young we are, 

1. "40? I feel like I am a 30 year old."
2. "30? I feel like I am a 20 year old."
3. "20? Shit, I feel like I am 40 this morning."

Age is all relative but I have to admit that as I approach my 50's I do feel that minor injuries and recovery from runs are just taking that little longer than they did a few years ago.

Regular readers will know that close friends call my healing powers as "Lazarushian" when I grumble of a pain that sounds like a show stopper and in a matter of days I am out running 10 miles, I feel like a fraud but I have been very luck for the past 8 years.

I am not going to harp on what has happened in my life over the past 6 months, regular readers will know and these life events have seen my running go from 50 miles a week to just 5 miles, sometimes no miles, for weeks at a time. Last weekend's run was horrible when it actually told me that I was really unfit and that I should take stock of my running.

This week I decided that I can no longer call myself an ultrarunner if I cannot even run 7 miles without stopping so for the time being my blog will have the header:

"The trials and tribulations of a [not so] long distance runner living in deepest, darkest Kent"

 Such that I am now starting from scratch and will start  

1. Run very slowly in the Hanover marathon (more about that this weekend)
2. A new marathon training program
3. Make real attempts to work on getting my heel injury better

Maybe not in that order but sometimes you do have to take stock.