Prostate Charity Update

I have received my last donation for the Prostate Cancer Charity today and have made the final manual update to my Just Giving account.

I made an amazing £1,157, thank you to everyone who made a donation or gave time to help on the day of my Crawley 12 hour Challenge.

There is still time to donate if you want to.

Great run

Had a great trail run with a bunch of people from my club this morning, I have had a very busy three weeks of training (170 miles to be exact) and my plan told me this was a cycle down week, so no long stuff.

Today's run was perfect as it was a nice steady pace, lots of hills, some very steep and great company with lots of chatting and laughter on one of my favourite trails, the North Downs Way and a reasonable 11.2 miles. I think I got a few strange looks as I was wearing my backpack with 1000 mls of water and packed up with "Skinny kit", map and compass but it was good resistance training...so happy with that.

Big news to report tomorrow!

Nettles

EEEKKK, I forget how much these pesky things sting!!! Yes, dear reader, I know they are called Stinging Nettles but, boy, when you run along a 200 yard path with these either side it is "gonna hurt".

I came back this morning, had a shower in hope that the soap would counteract the stings to no avail, so I am now sitting here with my legs tingling and tiggling.....ggrrrr

Cravings

I went for a cracker of a run tonight what was supposed to be a 20 km out and back soon turned into 24 km pacey, non-stop slog over some quite undulating trail made worse by the high humidity and heat.

I was out with Duncan, my barefoot running mate, who I am in awe of and forget that he is keeping and pushing the pace in some quite rough trail with no shoes on!!!

As we said our farewells my mind wandered off to the shopping list I was to get and all I could think of was grapefruit juice, lovely cold, fresh from the freezer cabinet, grapefruit juice. After the shopping I have guzzled down about 500 mls of the stuff and it has really hit the spot, now I have to work out exactly what is in it that my body craved!

In the news

I feel rather embarrassed again when I received the latest running club newsletter labelled "Marathon Special 2010 FINAL" via email and upon opening it found I was front page news with the headline Jerry's 100k slog...with a write up of my exploits back in April...

In the letter were some people who had run the London , the Brighton and the Edinburgh Marathons whose endeavours were impressive for one reason or the other...I just wish I could talk a few into going ultra, even if it is a 50 km.

Surreal

I had one one of those runs that just seemed surreal tonight!

Tonight, unusually, I wore my Ipod Shuffle which has a really weird set of playlists:

1. Heavy Metal
2. Opera
3. Philosophy Podcasts

One minute I am listening to Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills then Puccini's Nessum Dorma and then it slipped to Philosophy allowing me to listen to muses of the Infinity and then Descartes' Cogito!

A GREAT 10 mile and I have forgotten how soothing it is to have "conversation" to listen to. Whilst not a great lover of the Ipod, tonight it was totally acceptable and got me through.

Auto Pilot

I had a fantastic run with the club tonight where the plan was to run about 7 miles through the woods and nature reserve at a steady 9 min/mile pace. It soon transpired that the group had a little bit of a spring in its tail as it was soon cracking out a steady 8:15 min/mile pace.

I felt particularly strong tonight and if I say so may have been the culprit that raised the pace but my defence was that I went into auto pilot on two occasions where all my surroundings were lost and all I was aware was my quad muscles working and this mental state of refusing to stop on the ups. I was snapped out of my dreaming to pull back to the group.

Really pleased with tonight, I felt really strong considering my recent mileage, I think it may be beginning to work.

One for the trail:

Smoke on the Water...play it loud

Slowworm

Anguis fragilis, or slow worm, slow-worm, slowworm, blindworm or blind worm, is a limbless reptile.

Out in Otford early this morning I was called back by George who spotted a slowworm on the path, I was oblivious to it but was really pleased to have a close look up of this weird creature. Of course this is not our first meeting with the snakes and worms whilst running but I was surprised to feel an initial fear of the creature until we identified it as a slowworm and fear was replaced by fascination and a welcome excuse to have a break in the 24 degree heat.

Trail word of the week

Coruscate

1. to emit vivid flashes of light; sparkle; scintillate; gleam.

Running through some of the wealds and woods today it was quite tricky seeing the roots and path we were running on due the strong sunshine flicking through the leaves on the trees onto the pathway. The light coruscated through the leaves.

When to run?

This is a difficult one...should I run early in the morning or late in the evening on Sunday?

If I can believe the forecasts it is going to be 13 C at 0700hrs rising 23 C by 1300 hrs, about 1-2 C per hour so by the end of my run tomorrow it could be about 18 C.

However I could wait to the early evening and run as the sun sets when it is cooler, either way it is going to be hot...yuck

The postman always rings twice

...and then almost immediately after my race number arrives then the doorbell rings again and there stood another postman, this time with a BIG grey parcel with the Likeys logo. Yippee, my Inov 8 back pack and bottles....I have already 12 miles wearing it, boy was it hot tonight.

Postman Cometh

Great news, I have been accepted for the 50 Mile Challenge on Sunday 18th July 2010.

It looks like I am race number 142 so looks like it will be quite a busy course but looking at previous years a lot of runners and walkers don't do the full distance.

More news to come over the next few weeks as I build my mileage up again.

Stop being personal

Time for a rant and I apologise now but it just MAKES ME SO ANGRY...first let's look at some facts.

1. Age - 44 years
2. Resting heart rate 44 beats per minute
3. Weekly current mileage ~58 miles
4. Miles run this year ~900 miles
5. Longest distance run in one go - 62.45 miles

I could go on, in a nutshell, I am one hell of a fit 44 year old man who is in a very small group of elite sports people (0.001%) in Britain who has run more than 100km. I accept that I have a small [beer] gut caused solely from my love of cider, I am surrounded by friends and colleagues, who if I can be frank, look at my life style in either disbelief, awe or for some people absolute jealousy.

So why oh why oh why do people feel as though it is their "right" to point out the fact I have a beer gut (be it a small one)? Why should it only be men who feel the need to do this?

I know I should ignore it but it just grinds you down and I am just weary of it...

I pointed this out to a colleague who mentioned my tummy this morning and asked why? He, in a rather flustered manner stated that "I suppose you could point out my bald head Jerry" to which I replied that "Why?" He had no answer

Zzooomm

Tonight was a bit of a shock to the old body for tonight was an organised speedwork and core strength training session!

I took an easy run to the recreation ground and then met up with 14 others from the club, my sole purpose was to just get some crunches in, a good sprint session and then leave for another 5 miles of woodland running.

Great session of parlaufs, sprints, sit ups, press ups and stretches; It became apparent that I am in dire need of upper body training as things are a little flabby up there so hopefully a few more of the sessions with tone me up nicely. A good evening of training, still on for mileage and looking forward to a steady 13 miles on Friday.

New bag

At last I have made up my mind and bought my new backpack the Inov-8 12 litre shown here on the right. I hunted around the internet and eventually decided that although I had £50 burning in my pocket, other well known companies were up to £15 cheaper.

These are great packs and have also chucked in two x 500 mls water bottle holders as well. I reckon these will come in handy over the next year or so for the Ridgeway 85 all they do is attach to the shoulder straps and are nicely set to near my centre of gravity.

I was really worried about the size but I reckon 12 litres is fine for most kit requirements and will also be useful for travelling abroad.

Trail word

Pantheist

1. the doctrine that god is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations: it involves a denial of God's personality and expresses a tendency to identify God and nature.
2. any religious belief or philosophical doctrine that identifies God with the universe.

Not my cup of tea dear reader just a subject that was brought up whilst on the trail last night. I was chatting to David from my club last night whilst running and challenged him to a little run out on the last mile when I said to him after he whimped out "The only thing that stops you is your ego"

Then without prior warning one of the guys went on to tell us all about Eastern doctrine and belief, very interesting but wwwoooooohhh heavy stuff for a trail run...I'll race David next time.

50 Mile Challenge

It is done, even after my cunning plan was scuppered, I have managed to put together my own collection of stamps and envelopes so that I can enter unhindered.

I have now officially entered the 50 Mile Challenge on 18^th July 2010, a nice little run that is traffic free, flat and across field tracks and pathways...in fact it is 52.4 miles or 8 laps of 6.55 miles. This will be a nice interim run in preparation the Ridgeway 85 in August and even considering wearing a backpack....just considering for now.

Zzzz

Boy was I tired today! I hadn't realised how tired I was until I got on the train this evening when I sat down and I reckoned I was asleep before the train left the station waking just as I pulled into my destination. I then walked home, ate my tea and then fell asleep on the sofa for another hour.

Weird thing is that I feel alright physically, if a little sore from yesterday, but I just have this nagging tiredness.

Tough Run

It has been a tough week running, one which saw me return from injury at the beginning, one which saw me run just short of 58 miles!

It was an early start today, 6.30 am pick, running by 6.50 am, the weather at that time was glorious and it promised that it was going to be a hot one with the sky blue and cloudless. This was soon to change as about 3 hours intothe run the wind picked up and the clouds rolled in with a few splatters of rain.

It appears George and I had no plans as to where to run but we did want to go for about 24-25 miles. The whole run can best be described as a tough, gritty and hilly run as we ventured to the West of Biggin Hill and Keston to explore new roads and paths.

I can safely say we achieved all of these targets falling just short of 25 miles, but I have to add we ran those 24+ miles on one banana and one carb gel... a massive success, great run George.