I am an Ultrarunner - Looking forward to 2012

Hello all,

It has been a very long time since my last post...and therefore a lot to catch up on. It has been a very busy period in my personal and work life...and a moderate period in my athletic career.

Well in my personal life the major changes are that I am now a married man. Not sure that it has actually changed too much.  Not sure what I was expecting, that my wife would turn into some kind of wonder woman who supported my running activities even more than she already does, prepares me more meals and ironed all my shirts for work...I should be so lucky. But being married is cool and I've kind of got used to the ring on my finger now!

On the work front I am no longer stuck in Bristol, staying in a hotel three nights a week (I was doing this for 14 months...looking back not sure how I lasted quite so long). This means I am now working back in London which should help with my running. However, since returning from honeymoon I seem to have taken on a bit more responsibility and have also been working on one crazy busy project (one week the earliest I was home was midnight...). This period of time really hampered my running and also made me re-assess my running goals and ambitions. A rash decision and I temporarily retired from ultrarunning as I decided I could not handle the pressure of work, study, ultrarunning and being a husband.

The retirement was fairly similiar to the boxer David Haye's recent retirement, shortlived but the difference being I bought myself out of retirement for the passion of ultrarunning and David Haye will be bringing himself out of retirement for a huge pay day and another beating by the Klitschkos! I recieved an email from the England and UK utlrarunning representative Norman Wilson which prompted my 'comeback'. The email detailed the ultrarunning fixture list for the season, including provisional dates for the UK championsips and the Anglo Celtic Plate. I thought I would fancy a piece of this again this year. However, my brother will be competing in a half ironman event in Belgium this year and I really must go out and watch him, which means I will miss the Anglo Celtic Plate and my next opportunity for an England vest. But as the wife says there will be a number of other opportunities over the year. My brother has  always been very supportive of my sporting events and always comes to cheer me on, so I must repay the favour in his biggest event yet!

On the running front training is going reasonably well and I've managed to re-introduce interval training back into the schedule. Interval training seemed to drop out of my schedule when training for the Anglo Celtic Plate last year, but I feel it is an essential part of my schedule and a strangely enjoyable piece. I've run in a few shorter races with a reasonable amount of success. These are detailed below. I only have the garmin output for the Denmead 10km, should be useful for anyone wanting to see the course profile.

Black Park ParkRun: 1st / 16m35 (very pleased and suprised by this one...maybe I shouldn't bother with the ultras)
Henley Half Marathon: 3rd / 1h17m24
Denmead 10km: 3rd / 34m22

9kms into the Denmead 10km

Kingston 10km: 3rd / 34m24

I do quite enjoy doing the shorter races as does the wife. It is very easy to get up, romp around a 10km race, go grab some lunch afterwards and then still have the afternoon to do as the wife pleases ;-) Not so easily for races longer than 6 hours...

So what are my plans for 2012. Well 2011 was quite a stable year in the my running career. I maybe had a bit of a breakthrough with my 50km performance earlier on in the year (3h13 on a hilly course, all the way back in January) and obviously running for England at the Anglo Celtic Plate was a very proud moment, but other than that I did not see too much improvement or have many great successes..well I was quite happy with that 16m35 at the ParkRun. So I plan for 2012 to have some breakthroughs. I would love to improve my PBs over the shorter distances and am sure this can be done, however I will not get too hung up on these to be honest. My currently planned races are below, with the Barry 40 Miler and Biel being my A races. My aim towards 2013 is to get selected to get the GB vest and go to the world championships for the 100km distance. Although there is some work to be done to get there first.

4th February 2012: Thames Trot 50 Miler
I will be returning to the Thames Trot. I had my first ultra victory here back in 2010. This year I will be running the whole way with my friend visiting from Switzerland. I assume we will be aiming for a sub 7 finish, but I am taking this as a 'training' event. Looking forward to the mud!

4th March 2012: Barry 40 Miler
My first ever track race, 161 laps on a 400m loop...perfect for pacing and nutrition. People seem to think this will be overly dull and boring. I'm not going to pretend it will be the most interesting course I've ever run but in my opinion this is a race, not a scenic tour of Wales. I do a lot of my training at the running track for example I recently ran 1h20 @ 6m13 pace down at my local running track. It is very easy to zone into the pace as I just set the garmin to autolap and every 1m30 or so I get a little reminder of what pace I am running and this is enough to keep me entertained...I lead a simple life. I am awaiting for my cheque to be cashed to know I'm officially in the race.

7th June 2012: Biel 100km
I am long overdue a trip to Switzerland and have had Biel on the radar for a few years. Comes highly recommended from my Swiss ultrarunning friends. I will be looking for a sub 7h30 here.

So that's my fill for now, lots to look forward to in 2012 and lots of running to do.

Looking forward to keeping you more informed in the new year.

Edinburgh Marathon

Wow, so where did those two weeks go! I was meaning to write this report a little sooner, but things always seem to manage to get in the way.
I had a really busy week at work two weeks before the marathon, and at one stage was even contemplating just dropping out of the race. I had been really stressed and wasn't sure if I was mentally capable of running the marathon and I was mentally and physical very tired from the stress at work. Anyway, I decided that we would see how I was feeling and if needs be I could just "trot round" in sub 3 hours and enjoy the whole experience. As if that was ever going to happen!

The Tuesday before the race I entered a two mile race in Bristol to blow the cobwebs out from the previous week's lack of training (yes work really did get in the way!). I had a good run, 10m28 on an undulating 2 lap course. First lap I ran a 5m09 and the second 5m19. Not perfect pacing, but as I seem to find so often in these kind of races, the pacing relative to others doesn't seem that bad.

Mincing around at the start

For the race in Edinburgh I decided to pace off the watch, leave the GPS. As I was aiming for a pace just over 6 min/mile the maths was fairly easy. Its strange that I thought that the Edinburgh marathon would feel like a pretty big event. But standing on the start line it didn't feel like anything special, not a huge amount of excitement about the event from me. The gun went off, and the journey began.

and they're off!

I was trying to find my pace, but I seemed to keep missing the mile markers. Around what I thought was 5km I asked one of the other runners in the group if he'd seen any mile markers. No. Oh great, no mile markers...I hadn't even thought to check if there would be mile markers, I just assumed for a race of this magnitude that there would be some. No.

Somewhere between here and the 10km marker I had a bit of an incident with a marshall. The marshall had been opening and closing a piece of road to allow cars / runners to pass through a piece of road. This involved him opening and closing the road with a piece of tape. For some reason he had kind of fallen asleep and didn't know if the road was open or closed but he then decided to come alive and start moving as runners were charging at him. I absolutely clattered him. Bloody idiot! I know the guys was probably just a volunteer, but I've done my share of volunteering at races, you do still have to do a job, even if it is out of the goodness of your own heart!

ah yes, we are in Scotland, Iron-Bru anyone?

We got some feedback at the 10km point. It was not officially marked as the 10km point, but we went over a timing mat with a chalk marking on the side of the road. Time of 36m28 for the first 10km was a bit too fast, however I couldn't risk slowing down. I thought if I consciously slowed down and there were no mile markers I might slow down too much. So I just kept with the pace. Besides, I was running in a good group, including the leading females. This meant I spent a lot of time with the cameras on me, I think there is going to be some coverage on Sky Sports at some stage. I'll hopefully be able to post this up on the blog.

At mile 12, the mile markers surprisingly materialised, and at last I could start trying to pace myself. However, by this time I think the damage was done. I didn't end up going ridiculously hard, but probably 1 minute to quick for the first half marathon which is enough to do the damage over the marathon. I struggled from mile 15 - 18 and really had to dig not to lose the group. They pulled away a little but I kept the group in sight and pulled them back in. However at the 17 mile mark we reached the turning point. I was kind of dreading this and we had to turn and face the wind...boom...30seconds per mile lost immediately. If BBC news is to be led the wind was 20mph, it certainly felt strong. Luckily we didn't run into the wind all the way home, but from 20 miles onwards we were running into a headwind all the way home. To give you an idea of the kind of time we as a group lost, we hit 15 miles at 1h29m30, and then 20 miles at 2h00m30 which is a fairly significant slow down...but not at bad as what was going to come!

I hit mile 22 and then I was in all sorts of trouble and I knew it was going to be a struggle to get home. I really slowed down (unfortunately I don't know how slow...but 43 minutes for the final 10km isn't the best!). I had the strangest thing happen in the last few miles, I felt very tight in the chest and when I tried to push on it felt even tighter. Not the nicest feeling and a little bit worrying....but I guess my body was in a stressed state and these things happen. One to monitor though. Interestingly in this period I overtook someone who had been running in Vibram Fivefingers. On the road, his legs must've taken at absolute battering, I whizzed by him and given the state I was in that meant he wasn't almost going backwards!

The wind was killing me at this stage, really digging in.

On finishing the race I didn't feel too bad, I think the body has a knack of looking after itself when its in a bad way. Because I probably pushed too hard too early in the race, the body just shuts down towards the end to protect itself. However if I'd run a little easier at the beginning and been in a position to push hard at the end I'm sure I would have come away feeling slightly more battered. No real science behind this theory, just a kind of gut feeling of how the body reacts to these situations.

I don't like to slag off races, and usually I don't. It takes a lot for me to be disappointed. However, I have to say I was very disappointed with the Edinburgh marathon and you should consider taking it off your wish list. I list my reasons below:

1) The race doesn't really make the most of Edinburgh, it'd would've been nice to have seen a bit more of Edinburgh in the route.
2) No mile markers...disgraceful.
3) The organisation at the end was terrible. In particular a very long walk to the buses. The out of town finish meant my missus only just had enough time to make it to the finish to see me at the end. She was then told that she was in the wrong place to see the finish, when she actually wasn't. Marshalls should be briefed on these things.
4) The organisers run many races over the weekend as past of the Edinburgh running festival, therefore maybe they take the eye off the ball in what I think is the main event, the marathon
4) Given the above 3 points, it makes the event look very expensive.

Oh well, one to tick of the list. Might head back to Barcelona in March, definitely the best city marathon I have run so far!

Posing for the cameras at the finish. I'd just been beaten by a girl!

I'm in a period of rest and recuperation now. I've already raced three times above the marathon distance this year and I need a mental recuperation. I do have a marathon planned in July but I will be using this "for training" opposed to battering myself.

Oh, interesting fact. Twice I've been in Scotland this year and both times I've been sunburnt, who'd have thought!

Maidenhead Easter 10

This is my third time running in my local ten mile race. It is run good Friday every year and it only 10 minutes down the road so it's a bit of a "must do" race. I really like the course, well apart from the first three miles where you are running around a business park. But once you get this piece out of the way you are out on a nice cycle way through yellow fields of rape and down some nice country lanes. I use the course (apart from the business park piece) as part of some of my training runs so know the course very well.

I've run pretty well here the past two years and again would try for a PB. I would aim to run a pace to give me a time of 56m59 and see how I faired up. I hit the first mile a little quick (around 55 minutes pace) and kind of struggled from there on in. I was running in a group of about 4 runners, including one local runner I see down the gym and out running quite regularly. We are a fairly similar standard, but he probably has a bit more pedigree over the shorter distances. So I was just trying to hang on with these guys. I did a few stints at the front of the group to push the pace but in hindsight I should have just sat in behind.

The group of 4, and I'm struggling already!

We reached halfway in around 28m50 which if I could hang on it, would just give me a PB. However, I never anticipated holding on and by this stage the race was already just turning into a tough training run. Around mile 7 I was feeling quite strong so I again hit the front of the group of 4. This was a bad move, I was in front of the group for all of about 2 minutes, then we emerged from the shade of the trees and were exposed to the sun.

I kind of melted...my legs stopped working...and the group I was with started to move away. I didn't say but it was a pretty hot day. In the 9th mile there is a bit of a climb and in the previous years running this event I have been really strong here and taken over a few people. This year I had nothing, and even clocked a 6m39 mile...ouch.

I struggled home in 59m28, so another sub 1h 10miler. Can't really complain. Interestingly in the second half of the race, other than losing the group I was with, no other runner overtook me and from speaking to the other runners, a lot struggled today. The finish was great though, as I ran into the finishers chute two lads starting cheering "C'mon Harry!!" It took me a second of two to figure out who they were, partly it was the oxygen debt and partly I really wasn't expecting these people here. My good friend Alain, from Switzerland was visiting London with a friend and decided to do some sightseeing by coming to the Maidenhead Office Park!! Great to see him, probably be his last weekend relaxing now as he builds up to race Ironman Switzerland.

The Swiss invasion...but seriously you made a trip to Maidenhead as part of your holiday..why?

The result wasn't great, but in heavy training for Edinburgh marathon, I am not too worried. It does point to the fact that I probably don't have the speed endurance I maybe had this time last year. But I guess that's what happens when you train for 100km races...Two runs on the bounce where I have been totally off my target. I think the speedwork I have been doing recently should help me refamiliarise myself with the correct paces to run.

Black Park parkrun - 5km Time Trial

Ok so it has taken me a while to get round to this one.

Having only run the 100km two weeks before, I wasn't really sure what to expect from a 5km run. I wanted to use it as a bit of training and just to see where I was at.

I was aiming for 16m40 but am obviously not in that kind of shape at the moment. I came in around 17m03. I raced it fairly sensibly, well at least relative to the others at the front.

Two young kids went off like a shot as did two older guys. One of the older boys was dropped at 1k (we hit around 3m21 which is 16m45 pace). One of the younger lads had gained a 10-15 meter lead and it looked like that would continue so I didn't think I'd worry too much about him.

The two other runners I found myself with at that time seemed to be breathing very heavily since even before the 2km marker, they were dropped somewhere between 2 and 2.5km. The guy who had gone off the front hadn't increased his lead so I just focused on keeping with him. Hit 3km around 10m08 (which is just under 17m00 minute pace). So I had faded a little but felt strong (again it's all relative). Somehow around 3.5km I reeled in the leader and at this stage I wasn't breathing too heavily so I thought it was the right time to start pushing. Bring on 6 minutes of pain, and a half decent performance for a Saturday morning.

Quite nice to work my way through the field in this little run, and felt pretty in control of the race. Still pushed a bit too fast at the start, but so rarely do I run this distance that I just do not know my threshold for the distance and I think your performance on this distance is so sensitive to this. I look forward to the next one, but maybe I will aim for 16m55 and if I'm strong in the final km I might be abe to get closer to 16m50. Still not bad considering the over-distance work I've been doing.

Anglo Celtic Plate 2011 100km

Ok guys, this is long... But there are a lot of miles and hence a lot to talk about! 

The Course:
42 laps on a 2.38km loop in North Inch Park, Perth. Basically flat, with a tiny ramp on one part of the loop. You notice these things after 25+ laps. This may sound boring, but I can truly say, that is wasn't at all. When you are suffering badly/concentrating hard, you don't really have time to take in the scenery!

No Garmins/GPS allowed on the course, which meant I needed to use a bit of the old mental arithmetic.

I also had a handler to look after to me, an experience runner called Chris Finill (worth a google), who was also looking after Paul Fernandez. He would be there each lap to help me out. Chris was helped out by Andy Smith, who was looking after England's other runners (George Dayantis and Allen Smalls). As there was no chip timing, at the end of each lap a designated lap counter would acknowledge the fact you finished the lap (no one really wants to run 43 laps do they)

The Plan:
Pacing: I thought I was capable of somewhere around the 7h20-7h30 marker. So after a number of conversions with the various other runners I put the plan in place. I would run 10m30 per lap (7m06 per mile pace) which would give me 7h21 finished. I thought I could probably get to 70km at this pace and then just accept that the split times would slow, but hopefully not too much.

Nutrition: I planned to take 1 gel every two laps, and powerade as and when it was needed. This is where the handler was vital. Getting all my stuff ready (he had details of my plans) and feeding me as the plan required.

The Start:
It was cold and misty at the start. Probably an appropriate way to start the day. The race started at 7am and this was fairly relaxed. Just like a Sunday morning run. I thought some of the runners might go off a bit faster but everyone was pretty relaxed.I let most of the men in the International race go off in front of me. I kept them in sight, but didn’t want to let myself get dragged into something silly.

Lap         Lap Time             Lap Pace

1              00:10:40               00:07:13

2              00:10:40               00:07:13

3              00:10:20               00:06:59

4              00:10:40               00:07:13

5              00:10:20               00:06:59

6              00:10:30               00:07:06

7              00:10:30               00:07:06

8              00:10:30               00:07:06

Ave           00:10:31              00:07:07 

These lap times are unofficial (in general to the nearest 10secs). But from the first 8 laps (11.8miles) you can see I was bang on target. Nutritional plan was going well, getting a gel every 2 laps and powerade every 4. I had also started to develop a ‘rapport’ this my lap counter. Every time I ran completed the lap I would point at my counter, and say “You’re my boy”, which made most of the lap counters laugh! All volunteers out there for over 10 hours, I have massive respect for.

The Push:
I’ve called this section ‘The Push’, at the time it didn’t feel like I was pushing hard but looking at the lap times, maybe I just increased the pace a little bit. During this stage I got lapped for the first time, Allen Smalls the eventual second place runner was going strong. Looked like he might be on for sub 7 hours (i.e. sub 6m45 per mile). Nice guy we said hello, briefly, he was running a too quickly for me to keep up for a chat.  I got lapped by a few others here.  Irishman Dan Doherty asked how I was feeling as he lapped me, I said “Great, just not as fast as you boys”

Lap         Lap Time             Lap Pace

 9            00:10:20               00:06:59

10           00:10:20               00:06:59

11           00:10:10               00:06:53

12           00:10:40               00:07:13

13           00:10:20               00:06:59

14           00:10:30               00:07:06

15           00:10:50               00:07:20

16           00:10:17               00:06:57

17           00:10:28               00:07:05

18           00:10:15               00:06:56

19           00:10:20               00:06:59

20           00:10:25               00:07:03

21           00:10:15               00:06:56
Ave         00:10:24              00:07:02

The Struggle:
My demise was soon to come and I would start to get lapped multiple times by the top runners and overtaken by some runners that really shouldn’t have been overtaking me. The 50km race had just started so we started to see some new runners on the course.

I hit this bad patch (well 2 hours 30 mins of suffering) around 10-15km earlier than I had expected.  This really made me question whether or not I had the ability to finish at all. All I could about was that at the pace I was running I would have at least 4h30 of suffering. I didn’t know if I had the mental capacity to do it. I was running very very slow. This was a very tough time for me. All I wanted to do was take a walking break, compose myself and get running again. However, when you have the England vest on, its very difficult to stop running. It’s the last thing you want to do and you feel like you are a total failure and disgrace (in hindsight its not really that bad, but that is how it feels at the time when you are already a little fragile).

The race was a team event with the top three runners scoring for the country (the aggregate time taken to work out who wins the Anglo Celtic Plate). I was sitting in third for our team, which meant even more pressure to keep on going.

In the end I succumbed and took a couple of walking breaks. Probably lap 28 was where I took the most prolonged break…lots of talking to myself out loud here. “Compose yourself, compose yourself” Didn’t really help!!! Sorry if you heard me muttering to myself as you went by.

Lap         Lap Time             Lap Pace

22           00:10:30               00:07:06

23           00:10:40               00:07:13

24           00:10:45               00:07:16

25           00:11:14               00:07:36

26           00:11:46               00:07:57

27           00:12:05               00:08:10

28           00:14:10               00:09:35

29           00:13:10               00:08:54

30           00:12:25               00:08:24

31           00:12:45               00:08:37

32           00:12:30               00:08:27

33           00:12:40               00:08:34

34           00:12:55               00:08:44

35           00:13:30               00:09:08

Ave         00:12:13              00:08:16

My banter with the lap counters was starting to reduce. I was generally grunting as the other runners went pace.

The Finish:
With about 7 laps to go, some miraculous happened. I “ran through the wall”. I took on around 300ml of flat coke, and literally went mental. I just started running again. My stride length returned and I was running with at least some kind of form.  I now started to retake all those people and even lap some of my other main competitors. This felt amazing. Looking at the splits I wasn’t really going that fast (7m40 pace) but geez after 7h00 of running, to turn the legs at all is special. I was pushing hard to the finish, but I was still scared, I still thought the wheels might come off again. Even when I reached two laps to go, I was still worried. With 1 to go, I was still worried and just wanted to get round to the end. But Chris said, “Harry, I want a fast lap” and I couldn’t really argue with that and opened up (well that's what it felt like)! Unfortunately I don’t have the official split for the lap and because the lap times are only to the nearest 10secs it works out my last lap was over 13minutes. But it was definitely faster.

About 15meters to go, I grabbed the England flag and burst across the line finishing in 7h51m21. Less emotional than I thought I would be after all that suffering. But I gave Chris a big hug, it was touching…but I couldn’t have done it without him to help me out.

Lap         Lap Time             Lap Pace

36           00:11:35               00:07:50

37           00:11:30               00:07:47

38           00:11:20               00:07:40

39           00:11:20               00:07:40

40           00:11:20               00:07:40

41           00:11:30               00:07:47

Ave         00:11:26              00:07:44

All in all a great weekend, and to be honest I feel I could write a lot more about the race and the weekend, travelling up to Scotland with the team. But I figure this is long enough for now. A great experience and I look forward to the next time I get a have a go at the distance. 7h52 isn’t disgraceful and I am happy with this as a benchmark to work upon. But I think I could have run maybe 7h30-7h35 yesterday had I run the race different and done a few things differently with the nutrition. But for a first go there is a lot of uncertainty, and this was a great learning experience.

Finally big congratulations to all the other runners, 100km is a long way to run whatever speed you do it in. The volunteers as well, I expect they just as tired at the end of the day so massive thanks to them!

He's struggling...

THE END - Sorry that was long...

Race Your Pace Half Marathon

Bit of a strange first blog post from me. This is quite possibly the first race that I have used exclusively for training. Admittedly there have been races where I have not been operating at my best, but even those races I always thought I would go and give it a good shot.

Having run 40km the day before I knew producing anything fast over the half marathon would be tricky, and also slightly dangerous! Racing the day after this kind of session is asking for injury. So I ended up saying in my head I would aim for sub 1h20 and knew that this would represent a tough workout.

The course for the 'Race Your Pace Half Marathon' isn't particularly interesting. It is 4 and a bit laps of Dorney Lake, the venue for the 2012 Olympic rowing. There are a number of Triathlons and other running races races held here throughout the year, which means over the past few years I have clocked up a number of laps down at the Lake (it's also part of a few of my training loops). I started the first lap at a brisk pace, but was clocking above the pace required for 1h20. I was planning on speeding up as I went along and to negative split the run. Laps 2 and 3, went as planned with a very noticeable speed up, however it wasn't coming easy.  With 3 and a bit laps done (i.e. one lap to go) I was just over an hour, and this was a hour of good quality running. I wasn't suffering majorly but I was definately working. I decided at this stage to 'jog in', I knew the next 5km at this pace would hurt me and I decided today was not a day to suffer, I would save the suffering for another day (i.e. the 100km I've got coming up). I accepted that the 1 hour of running represented a good workout and proceeded with my warm down, which was finishing the race and added an extra 30mins jogging on the end.

When I slowed down, it felt like I was running around a 7min/mile pace, however the fact I was in a race meant even though I was trying to go slow there was something holding me back as I comfortably hit 6m40 per mile. It seems as soon as I finished the race I settled easily into 7m15 per mile pace for the reminder of my warm down!!! I guess I'm a little competitive...

My finishing time was 1:22:25, not fast, but for training and with 40km in the legs the day before. I was happy. Next major race the Anglo-Celtic Plate 100km, but I might throw in a 10km for good measure.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog on Ultra running (and well normal running). I plan to share my stories of races, dragging my young body around races against middle aged men (sorry, its true, and you beat me most of the time!)

Enjoy.