Thoughts for 2016

I was once told by a competitor of the Grand Union Canal Race that it is a race that gets under your skin and itches away until you have completed it. Never has a truer word been spoken and so with 2015 nearly at the end I can only claim one trail marathon in my Monkey Feet I look towards 2016.

You will have seen my recent post that I have entered the GUCR 2016 and now to top it all I have also entered the Liverpool to Leeds 130 mile foot race to be held on Saturday 27^th August starting at the Eldonian Village Hall, Liverpool.

I am totally up for these two and are my main athletic targets for the year with anything else incidental.

Roll on 2016

Shine on You Crazy Monkey

If there is one thing I have learnt this week it is about patience and that came from the most unusual places, my cat.

Mark Twain wrote:

"A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way."

This blog's image today is my cat ,Oliver, who can sit and watch a bird or anything food related for hours on end without moving a muscle. Here he is watching our beef stew cooking and he sat there for over 20 minutes looking through the oven door waiting for the meal to cook so that he could get some of it.

This is now my approach to running after my return a few weeks ago, nice and gently and not rushing things and already it is showing its dividends. As I am overweight at present, last week at the track I did a Pyramid Run which can benefit if the following three areas:

• Strengthening my heart
• Improve overall fitness levels
• Burn off fat 

and this week I decided to do repetitions, run 400 metres at tempo, walk 100 metres, run 400 metres at tempo, walk 100 metres, and so on until I reached my goal of 8000 metres for the session. I usually chat with people when I run around but that run was important to me and I did something I have never done in running, listened to music!!!

So with Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here playing in my head at volume 11 I traipsed off plodding out my laps in my Monkey Feet and jumping into lane 2 when I was aware the other guys zoomed passed doing 800 metre reps caring not a jot as my focus was distracted from my legs but still aware of my heart rate. I hadn't realised until I was told, much to their amusement,  afterwards that I was singing very loudly on the back straight at one point so it does seem I was not feeling bad! 

I am amazed after just 3 weeks how much I have improved in my stamina (still a long way to go), I am losing some weight (My shirts are not so tight) and a general positive attitude towards running/fitness. I still have to battle my demons on a daily basis but that is the norm these days and just have to push them aside and try to live with the here and now

Leadership in Running Fitness

So the training continues with some workouts and runs this week. On Thursday at the track I was determined to get a proper training session in and to refrain from walking. The difficulty I am facing is that I have the mindset of an Ultrarunner but not necessarily the physical conditioning and so when I run I think I can go faster than my body lets me. My strategy to prevent myself from losing breath is a pretty obvious one and is simply to come off the pace which is harder than it seems. So with me taking great effort to slow down I did a 1600, 1200,800,400, 400,800,1200,1600 metre pyramid run with a 60 second recovery in between each set, tough as it seems I cam e away from the track in a real high.

Leadership in Running Fitness

I have not mentioned this on my blog as of today as I was unsure whether I was going to be fit to do it but I undermine myself as the fitness is returning. I am normally critical of some courses but this one was brilliant. I turned up at my normal running track and was guided to the club house where I met the other 19 candidates ready to learn for 9.00 am.

The day involved learning: 

1. The Role of a Leader, 
2. How to Plan a Session
3. Practicals
4. Flexibility and Warm Up Drills
5. Planning and Delivering a Session as a Team

It did not particularly help with the winds whipping off the park, the flurry of snow and quite cold temperatures but our boundless energy and comradery kept us going whilst jumping in and out to learn new techniques. I think the funniest part of the day was when we took over the men's changing rooms to do drills in the warmth and some lad walked in to see 20 people, 5 of them women, standing in rows smiling at him as he grabbed his dry kit and disappeared as quickly as he appeared.

Next question is to wonder whether to go for the Coaching course as I really enjoyed the day.

Hopefully I can take a group some time from now until Christmas.

Like two peas in a pod

No heel strike picture

As usual the arrangement for a muddy run with Duncan was its usual vagueness:

Me: "Sounds good, should we meet at Hangman's Corner?"

Duncan: "I will see you there...don't leave me hanging."

The last comment was a friendly nudge saying "Don't be late and don't blow out at the last moment" which I know I have been guilty of a few times in the past but these days I feel happier in myself and I am a bit more positive so made it my goal to be there on time.

Let's turn the clock back 4 hours when the following list was  dropped into my lap by the Delightful Mrs S as I took my first sip of morning coffee, it read:

1. Mow BOTH lawns (I think the capital letters and underlining were a little rude but she knows me too well)
2. Take rubbish down to the dump
3. Take tiles back for a refund

Mine personal list was:

1. Mow lawns
2. Extend door by 7 cms and prepare it for painting
3. Go for a run with Duncan

The final list was:

1. Mow front lawn
2. Go to dump
3. Extend door by 7cms
4. Mow back lawn
5. Go for a run with Duncan

So this was my excuse when I saw Duncan running down the hill from Hangman's Corner pretending to be an aeroplane as to why I was walking up it feeling knackered already. Duncan and I were both dressed in red shirts and back shorts which was unusual as the steely eyed Zimbabwean is often dressed in leggings, two shirts and a hat if the temperature is below 25 C or it is November and December.

If you asked me what route we took I don't know whether I could actually tell you as we ducked and darted up this path then another path with no perception of direction chatting away or grumbling about dog walkers who could not control their yapping charges and questioned how far a dachshund would fly if we dropped kicked it (I jest).

So with Autumn mud in my Monkey Feet, the obligatory flesh wound from blackthorn and blood pumping I peeled away and took the scenic route home to discover my usual cut through was closed  for road resurfacing making me run that extra kilometre past the usual carload of dope smoking teenagers who smiled and waved as I passed (It must have been good dope!) to get me back to my house feeling pretty good. It appears the training is beginning to kick in.

A Pilgrimage - The journey starts here.

Today was a special day when the Delightful Mrs S, my eldest daughter and I went to Birmingham to visit my youngest daughter who is studying mathematics in the University of Birmingham. It appears she had organised a "Grand Tour" of the city centre which involved the Christmas Market (a Germanic affair with beer, street food and local sellers), to a viewing tower above the famous library, shops and what I was waiting for, the Grand Union Canal by the Gas Street Basin.

"It main take the pain away but it won't take the killer"

The weather in Birmingham was grey cloud, wind and rain, so nothing new there then! By the time we had got to the canal my family were looking for lunch but I was not going to be swayed away from stepping on the start line of the infamous GUCR so my daughter and I were seen to shuffle off to get some photographs. I was also quite pleased to hear that she was also interested to see this hallowed ground and to see what all the fuss was about.

In the picture on the left I am looking a little wet but strangely excited to be there, as I looked down towards the bridge under Broad Street I could almost see Dick Kearne, the ex-Race Director and "God" of trail runs in my opinion, standing to one side welcoming us to the start with his lecture on the dangers of pain killers still ringing in my ears, "It main take the pain away but it won't take the killer", Dick is a wise man.

So for the first time in 6 years the Delightful Mrs S now knows with 6 months warning that it is my intention to run the race again which is going to be a tough job now that I am 50 but maybe I should put this challenge to rest in 2016.

GUCR 2016

So after a year in the wilderness I have returned to the bosom of that lovely band of eccentrics that compete in the Grand Union Canal Race.

Yes, Dear Reader, you have heard me right, after proclaiming to the few people who listen to me that I was never going to attempt it again I entered the entry ballot at 22:37 hours on Wednesday 4^th November 2015 by sending an entry form to the new Race Director, Keith Godden. 

The ballot was held at 19:00 hrs in:

The Woolpack, 
Well Street,
Buckingham, 

MK18 1EP

Which is a beautiful pub and sells Tribute brewed by the St Austell Brewery whom my Grandfather was the Master Brewer in the first part of the 20^th Century....I digress.

In a moment of excitement when I discovered I was in I punched the air followed by the next hour scurrying through my old training plans.

Time to focus my training methinks

Even the worms mocked me.

As we approached the track it became obvious that we were going be very wet by the end of our run that evening as drizzle floated pass the floodlights. 

The track sparkled as through its beautiful new surface and it was good to see a good crowd of my fellow runners met at the 3,000 metre line to chat about upcoming races and the latest sporting "must have."

I bid my farewells to start a few gentle warm up laps and noticed the number of worms that had crawled off the infield and for some reason had joined me on my laps. As I went on I began to realise that this was not going to be a good session for me as I was pretty well whacked from a very busy week at work and not enough hours sleep. 

As I trudged I began to realise that the reason I was feeling out of breath was because I was just running too fast. In my head I have the mentality of an ultrarunner but my body has one of a slightly overweight middle-aged man who hasn't trained for a few months. Even the worms mocked me as they lapped me on a number of occasions but I had decided to run 300 metres and walk 100 metres to keep my breathing settled and my run consistent, during the running sections I calculated that I was running 8:30 minute/miles and was probably the reason I was breathing hard but by the end I was running evenly and unlaboured.  

These are the first two weeks of my training and I am going to keep going as I know it will become easier as time goes on.

Next time I will ignore the mocking worms and concentrate on lapping them.

A flurry of activity

My newly found zest has seen me feeling pretty good at the moment, my legs felt pretty well after my 21 km run through Saffron Walden at the weekend but work life got in the way a little on Tuesday so I was unable to get to the club on time but that is not a bad thing. I realise I have a long way to go before I can comfortably run at pace whilst my body adapts to my running again.

This hasn't stopped me entering a few Long Distance Walking Association challenges so to have something to aim for and to toughen me up again. I always mention "toughen up" but that is the best way I can describe it when preparing for longer races, you have to feel the tiredness in your legs, you have to feel out of your comfort zone in training sometimes because that is what it will be like in the main event. I have entered two winter events and will leave it until the day of the runs to decide if I should drop down a distance, after all it is for fun and not about damaging myself.

I have entered a third event which I will talk about at a later date.....I shall leave you hanging and come back soon on it

The Monkey is Back

Imagine the scene, since the death of my Father at the end of November 2014 my life turned on its head abruptly and found that at that time I had other priorities and turned to my family for mutual guidance and support. My thirst for running dwindled and I soon fell out of the habit running but still yearned for the chance but never quite made it to the door.

Now some of the pain has gone away and the fifth rude bastard told me that I was getting fat to my face I used it as a spur to my bloating flanks that the time was the time to start but knowing the first run was not going to be great. So two weeks ago I went to my usual track run and amazingly pulled off a 5 mile (8 km) run sounding like  wheezing old dog during it was happy that I got it out of the way.

Probably in the quickest turn around in history I ran 10 km last Thursday and then 2 days later on Saturday I got up at 5.00am and drove to Bishop Stortford and ran 21 km doing course checking for a big race that day. You can see by the accompanying picture I didn't seem too tired but I have to say I loved every minute of it which underpinned my need to get out there with a map and compass, my Monkey Feet and a litre of water more often.

The Monkey is Back