Month: March 2010

I did my level best to get up on time this morning, but failed miserably.  I knew this because it was still dark when the alarm went off.  Worse still, when I finally did make it downstairs some time later, it was 5.40am… though I still have no idea whether this was in new money or old money!

Still, it was a beautiful bright morning so I took up residence in the reading chair and continued in my current amazing tour through the French waterways with Damian & Shiv Horner’s wonderful book For Better For Worse.  They each wrote their own thoughts which are then juxtaposed, so it is sharply insightful in a ‘Men are from Mars’ way.  Really a most highly recommended read!

I was totally engrossed so time swept by and despite rising so early I ended up eating breakfast late and was consequently late out the door.  No matter… I wasn’t really looking forward to the task ahead anyway.

I guess that you could say that I picked up an injury last weekend (left ankle pain), which is what Kurt from Run predicted if I tried to mix speed work with my training programme… I think the culprit was my fast five miler on the 19th March.  I have given my ankle and lower leg a lot of massage attention this last week and I even dropped the Friday run from my tight schedule, but today was my last chance to run a long distance before I start to taper ahead of the marathon… which is now in three weeks time… so I had to at least try.

My ankle lasted roughly three miles, down from Woodingdean to Rottingdean and along to St Dunstans, before it demonstrated that it had an electric prod and was not afraid to use it.  I stopped to comprehensively stretch and massage the affected area and plodded forward to see what effect I had achieved.  It was pretty good, insofar as the pain abated completely for another two miles, whereupon I repeated the exercise.

My mind became focussed on a new pain, this time coming from my bladder, so I fixed my metaphorical gaze on the toilets along towards King Alfreds, around the 7.5 mile mark and hastened thither.  Having greatly relieved myself there, I then spent a few minutes stretching my legs for good order before continuing.

At Hove Lagoon is the turn point for 18 miles, but since I really wanted to do 20 I continued onward.  However, a combination of not having a fixed turn point for 20 miles and the lure of running just a bit further saw me continue on to the end of the Shoreham Harbour groyne, around the 11.5-mile mark, which I reached in 1.45.

Once again I carefully stretched my tired legs for a few minutes before turning and setting off for home.

I reached the Peace Memorial around 16 miles before I stopped to stretch again, then again outside Martlet Kayak Club at 18 miles and then I made it all the way along the top of the cliffs to Rottingdean around the 21-mile mark before my ankle got painful yet again and I had to stop to stretch.  Each time I managed to resolve the pain before I ran on, but it obviously needs more work over the next few weeks to overcome it completely.

Interestingly, as I dropped down into Rottingdean I had a significant realisation… I wasn’t breathing properly.  Despite wearing a BreatheRight strip on my nose, I was not filling my lungs to any real extent at all.  It took me a while to open my lungs up fully, but the effect was dramatic.  Compared to the last few long runs, I fairly flew up the hills from Rottingdean.

One other point of note… Spring is not yet fully with us!  I wore only one long-sleeve top under my Gore jacket, but my hat and gloves only came off after the turn point when the wind was behind me and though I took my jacket off for the last two miles up the hill from Rottingdean, I got a real ice-cream head in the more exposed section around Longhill School.  It was not warm out there!

With my six stretching stops, each of more than a couple of minutes, I took longer than my last run along this route on March 14th… but since the time was only 9 minutes more I would guess that I was actually running a little faster.

The time: 3.48

The distance: 22.95

The average speed, stops included: 6.04mph

Now let the tapering begin!

PS. The run and the rather early morning resulted in my spending most of the afternoon asleep on the sofa!  Bless!

It was the Spring Equinox on Saturday evening and despite a rainy start to Sunday, by the afternoon it was glorious.

This meant that, despite feeling pretty knackered, I spent the afternoon moving pots and furniture back into the garden, edging the grass and generally titivating.

Which is partially why I’m writing this post a day late: the other reason being that the TV feed has gone and having spent a fruitless while trying to fix it, I have given up to do something less frustrating.

My schedule for yesterday said 14 miles, but I thought I would add on a couple for good order by running up the Ovingdean valley as far as the top of the narrow road… for those who know it.  So I ran down to Rottingdean, once again shedding layers as I went, along the coast and up to my designated turn point… where my testosterone pushed me on up to the very top of the steep hill before I actually turned around.

Once back at the coast I didn’t fancy shattering the Ovingdean peace by running along the roadside, so instead I dropped down onto the undercliff walk.

The chalk cliff has really fallen away over the winter, but I suspect that the council has used this as a bit of an excuse to drive walking traffic through the marina, as they have closed both the part of the undercliff walk behind the marina and also the path that ascends to Roedean.  This didn’t bother me as it was a good excuse to have a look at the boats, flats, people etc in the marina.

Sport Relief was omnipresent in Madeira Drive, although the marshal I asked at the marina end actually had no idea what event it was… her friend thought it might be running and when I had run down to the other end I saw that she was correct.

I must have got used to the seafront being cold and empty as it seemed to be thronging with people as I made my way down past the piers to the Peace Memorial.  Here I paused to stretch, my legs being unusually stiff, before I headed back past the piers again and along Marine Parade to avoid the worst of the throng below.

There were still a plethora of runners coming steadily towards me and as I neared the top of Dukes Mound, one of them stopped in front of me and bowed in a lavish way.  It was Mark Johnson and rather than run on past, or stand and get cold while we chatted, I turned around and ran back to the Palace Pier with him.

At the pier I turned once again and headed for home, noting that my left ankle was now quite painful, as if I had twisted it.  I found myself running alongside another runner, neither gaining nor losing and after a while I asked if he minded me tagging along.

His name turned out to be Gary and he was running to Telscombe, so we ran together as far as my turn off at Rottingdean.  The simultaneous upside and downside of this was that I had to keep running, despite my ankle slowly becoming more and more painful.

As he ran on, I paused to stretch and for a short while thereafter it was a lot better.  But as I really got stuck into the final two-mile uphill section, my legs and ankles began to stiffen and by the time I reached the Downs Hotel I was moving like a 95-year-old.  I couldn’t even manage a jog back down the hill, instead waddling gently like I had a beach-ball between my legs.

Despite this photo being taken after only five miles, it accurately portrays how I felt at the end!  It also serves to remind me to mention the anti-snoring device I’m wearing… although I’ve temporarily forgotten the brand name, it works really very well indeed (for running) by increasing air-flow and I highly recommend trying it at least a couple of times to see if it works for you too.

Time: 3.03

Distance 18.8 miles (remember, I had intended to do 14)

Average speed: 6.16mph, which reflects the stoppages as much as the snail-pace of the final climb.

The results of my afternoon recovery in the garden:

This has been a really sociable weekend, at least by our recent standards!

Friday night we met Dai, Kath, Daren and Claire at Noori’s in Brighton for great conversation and delicious curry.

Last night we were treated to an adventurous dinner party by Grant & Karen… the food from all three courses was amazing, the portions generous and the Chateauneuf-du-Pape as rewarding as I remember when I could still afford it!  And with 9 of us to cater for, Grant did a genuinely superb job, cocktails and all!

Of course, as with all good dinner parties, we ate late and when I finally made it to bed towards one o’clock, for the second night running, I rolled in rather like a barrel.  And continued to roll around for some time on account of the diverse tastes and sheer quantity eaten.

Fortunately the food digested into weird dreams overnight and seven o’clock dawned bright and sunny, making it easy to arise, though it took a quadspresso to render me more fully awake.

I started my run just after nine, easing into the initial downhill section from Woodingdean with a view to a potentially huge training run.  As I neared Rottingdean I stowed my gloves and almost stripped off a layer or two, but my decision to wait until I had felt the seafront temperature was validated when it was decidedly chilly.  Spring is en-route, but had clearly not yet arrived.

Ahead I could see the distant chimney that was my halfway target…

… whilst the day was visually stunning.

At 54 minutes, I was a little slower than normal to the Palace Pier and it was 1.01 when I passed the Peace Memorial and continued Westwards.

1.20 saw me passing the point where I had turned round by Hove Lagoon on Valentine’s Day and then I was in to virgin territory, heading out onto the lower spit of Shoreham Harbour.

It’s quite a way along that last bit and when the road ahead was finally barred, it seemed rude not to join the back of another group of runners in running to the very end of the tiny breakwater.  If for no other reason than to see how far I had to run back again!

The runners turned out to be really lovely and also in training for the Brighton Marathon.

I gently pulled ahead of the group coming back along the spit and was once more running on my own as I came back East…

… reaching the Peace Memorial at the 2.20 mark.

Further East I ran along Madeira Drive past the pre-1940’s motorcycle rally and then on past a vast collection of more modern bikes in the car-park, many probably capitalising on a fine and dry, Spring-like day.  I stopped for five minutes at Martlet Kayak Club to chat to Graham, drink water and then briefly chat to Pete Graves on the phone about Table B’hote.  This latter comes with a ‘highly recommended’ tag from me… they’re delicious and now you can even order them online for home delivery, all the way from gorgeous Cornwall!

My legs were starting to feel the distance by now, but I pressed on past the Marina along the top of the cliffs even as the clouds started to roll in.

At Rottingdean, with less than 3 miles to go, the power in my legs really was starting to fade and the cloud cover had dropped the temperature by a noticeable amount.  This is where the mental muscle really carries you onward, in this case up the long hill of Falmer Road, placing one foot in front of the other, each step one nearer to the end.

As I rounded the last corner before the Downs Hotel the traffic was stationary to my left, backed up from the lights at the crossroad ahead and racing a Jenson Interceptor and a Police Car gave me a final goal to focus on.  I beat both to the lights and jogged back lightly to my parents house.

The time: 3.39

The distance: 22.95 miles

The average speed, which felt terminally slow, was actually a respectable 6.29mph.  Although this doesn’t quite get me to my marathon goal, it’s the same average speed as the Valentine Day run, which was only 18.35 miles long.  And whilst my effort at the moment is in building muscle, on the big day I will have no qualms about being swept along with the flow and using every ounce of muscle available!

One final thing, courtesy of two young boys along by Hove Lagoon… they say a picture says a thousand words!