Linlithgow bike ride

29th April 2011

Route on Garmin Connect

To avoid the royal wedding, Ellie and I went on a 40-mile bike ride from Glasgow to Linlithgow. Unfortunately there was a relentless headwind the whole way. We passed through places I'd never heard of before, like Slamannan and Avonbridge.

Glenalmond bike ride

25th April 2011

Route on Garmin Connect

Our first proper bike ride of the Spring, and a chance for Ellie to test out her new bike. Unfortunately Ellie was not feeling well, so we couldn't go that far or fast, but managed a scenic 33 mile circuit through lush green Perthshire landscapes.

London Marathon

Result Splits | Route | Activity on Garmin Connect

Well that was a bit of a nightmare, but pretty much as expected. This was my first attempt at running after 3 weeks with a virus. And I'd been off work during the week with viral fatigue and painful sinuses.

The day before I'd managed a slow walk around Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens that wiped me out, so I wasn't really planning 100% on running the marathon. Or at least I couldn't see how I could possibly run 26 miles, when I was shattered after walking round a park.

But anyhow, I got up early on Sunday morning and walked up to Shepherd's Bush tube only to find that the station was helpfully shut. I thought this might an omen that I wasn't meant to go, but I spotted a No.49 bus pulling away onto Holland Park Roundabout and reckoned I could intercept it on Holland Road. The 50 metre dash across the road was my first run in 3 weeks and sent my heart into palpitations and left me in pools of sweat. I then felt quite ill on the bus and tube and train approaching Blackheath, feeling alienated from the buzz and excitement around me, and hoping I wouldn't see anyone I knew.

I arrived around 8.30am, in plenty of time to see the elite women's start and to generally mooch around, but finding the idea of running unthinkable.

At 9.20am I finally wandered into the Good for Age area at the Red Start where I bumped into Dave Henderson from my work. I told Dave that I felt awful and wasn't sure whether to run. He said he'd been off work with flu for 2 weeks, but was planning to run. I then saw Ellie who immediately assumed I was running, and the next thing I knew I was jammed into the starting area with my bag on the bus, and feeling slightly committed.

It didn't feel like a good idea to be starting the race, but I trundled off and used my Garmin to try to hold a pace around 4:00/km for as long as possible.

This worked fine up until about 20km, but once I hit Tower Bridge at mile 12 I suddenly felt dreadful and all I could think about was pulling out. I realised at this point there was no way I could run for another 14 miles.

The only saving grace was that I'd caught Dave Henderson and I thought perhaps we could pool resources and keep each other going. But it was getting so hot by this stage, neither of us were very chatty. I told Dave I felt awful and was thinking of dropping out. Dave seemed to be suffering just the same, so I felt I should carry on.

Normally from Mile 15 to 22 I have absolutely no idea where the race is heading, but this year I'd taken the trouble to plot the route in Gmap Pedometer, so I had a vague notion which direction we were heading as the route snakes through Canary Wharf.

I reached 20 miles in 2:15, and immediately knew I'd blown 3 hours, since none of my kilometre splits were now under 4:30, and I'd need to run a sub 45 minute 10k from here to the end which was not going to happen. I was more concerned with getting to the end before I collapsed with heat exhaustion and overwhelming fatigue.

Mile 21 to the end was a blur. I tried to taken water, lucozade and gels at every drinks station, but each time got closer and closer to stopping altogether, and then had to work harder to get going again. At Mile 22 I went for water and got clobbered from behind sending my right hamstring into excruciating cramp. I hobbled across to the other side of the road and stretched my hamstring until I could get running again.

Any thoughts of striding out along Thames Embankment were abandoned. By now it was just a waiting game for it all to be over. I assumed Ellie would be overtaking at any moment, so kept glancing each shoulder as the runners streamed past.

With less than a mile to go, as we turned onto Parliament Square the familiar figure of Kate Jenkins came beasting past. I made a half-baked effort to track her up Birdcage Walk, but didn't want to collapse or pull up with cramp at this stage. Passing in front of Buckingham Palace I heard the loud speakers announce the arrival of James Cracknell who I'd been running beside for a while, but he must have pulled away.

I also spotted a Metro Aberdeen vest of the guy I'd been chatting to at the start directly in front aiming for the far lefthand finishing gate, so I followed him as the clock was counting up from 3:04.

The end result was I finished in 3:04:20, but I found this race far, far tougher than any of my previous marathons completed 10 minutes faster.

Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

This was my 4th attempt at the Balloch to Clydebank Half, having previously run 1:18:17, 1:20:04 and 1:19:30 in 2007 to 2009. I missed out last year through injury, and took these photos of the race instead. For 2011, I felt in reasonable shape, having run every day for the past 103 days.

I started fairly slowly and tried to resist running a ridiculously fast opening kilometre, which I managed with a 3:36 opener. I kept this pace going for the first 8km, running in a pack of 8 down the Renton backroad to Dumbarton, sitting right behind the Henderson brothers David and Alan.

As we dropped down the hill over the River Leven to Mile 5, the group was getting bunched so I jumped into the road to overtake. However this proved to be a mistake, since as soon as we went under the railway arch on to Bank End Road, I found myself dropped and struggling to catch any of this pack which was suddenly scattered.

I chased in vain, but never caught any of these 7 runners, however I did pass Toby Messenger (Garscube), Christopher Macdonald (Motherwell) and Scott Martin (Kilmarnock), who had all started too fast. As I reached Mile 11, I could hear heavy breathing and Damian McAuley appeared on my shoulder. This woke me up, and I realised I'd need to start making an effort. I realised I'd been coasting along for most of the route, and only now did it suddenly feel like a race.

I was fairly confident that I had enough left to hold off Damian, but I didn't want to blow up by hammering off too fast with 2 miles to go, so I slowly starting ramping the pace up, digging in for the little climb up Duntocher Road, before hitting the long almost final straight along Singer Road and North Avenue in the Clydebank Business Park. I realised I was now closing fairly quickly on Craig Ross and Bruce Carse of Bellahouston RR, but I couldn't quite find the impetus to close the gap fast enough.

Having gone through 10 miles in 59:33, I was thinking I must be close to going sub 1:18, and despite putting in a last ditch sprint down Seaforth Road I went just over, and clocked 1:18:15. However this was a course PB by 2 seconds, so I was reasonably pleased.

101 Not Out

I've just managed my 101st day of running on the trot.

In other words, I've now run every day since 30th November 2010. Perhaps not an enormous achievement, however this forms my longest unbroken stint of running since 2007, when I set most of my road running PBs. So I'm hoping that in the coming weeks I might start seeing some benefit, not least at the impending London Marathon on 17th April, if the body holds together until then.

I had a bit of a nasty fright last night on my 100th day, when my left ankle decided to start spontaneously collapsing whilst I was running. This became quite annoying, especially seeing as it was freezing cold and pouring with rain, meaning I could only manage a slow hobble whilst battling with the onset of hypothermia.

Tonight with some trepidation I went for a ridiculously slow pootly run up to Loch 27 and back, just to test out the ankle, which seemed OK but I'll need to take it easy for the next few days to be in any sort of shape for Balloch to Clydebank Half Marathon, which has been a significant target in my mind over the past few weeks. I'm hoping to clock a half decent time if the body decides to behave itself, although of course it depends how windy it is on the day, etc. etc., but I'm thinking that 1:17 shouldn't be totally out of the question, if I play my cards right.

Lasswade 10-mile Road Race

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

My 3rd race of the weekend.

By racing twice yesterday, I essentially blew my chance at getting under the hour since I was running with sore legs from the start. However, I thought it would still be useful marathon training by trying to maintain a constant level of effort when already tired.

I made a deliberate effort to start as slowly as possible, hoping that I might warm up during the race and catch a few folk later on.

From about 4 miles onwards I was closing down on Michael McGovern of Moorfoots, but it took until Mile 6 before I finally caught him, however he didn't give up, and we ran more or less together until Mile 8 when we were caught by the Portobello duo of Douglas Carstairs and Michael Fullarton. By Mile 9 things were hotting up as we all passed Darin Dougal of Moorfoots, and turned into the grounds of Whitehill House. With 800 metres to go, I managed to dig out enough of a finish to go past Michael McGovern (again) and Michael Fullarton, and opened out 15 seconds of gap, but not enough to close down Douglas Carstairs.

I finished in 61:07, which wasn't too bad and was still a PB on this course having previously run 61:39 and 61:41.

Nigel Barge 10k

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

Having run the Glasgow Parkrun 5k a few hours earlier, I wasn't really planning on running the Nigel Barge 10k. My original plan had been to take a few photos, however seeing as the light was pretty dull and there didn't seem to be that many folk about, I thought I might as well run the 10k as a bit of extra marathon training, and figured I could jog round in 37 minutes or so.

I tried to start slowly, but went through the first kilometre in 3:23, which was a bit too fast. I dropped 7 or 8 places during the first lap, and coming into Lap 2 I was caught and passed by Michael Diver. I then followed Michael until the return into Garscube where I just caught him again before the line. I finished the race in 36:28.

Glasgow Parkrun #112

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

I worked my way up to 5th place after the opening stampede, then spent the rest of the race chasing Bryan McLelland, but not quite managing to close him down at all, so I finished 5th in 17:41.

I ran kilometre 2 in 3:34, and kilometre 4 in 3:38, so not a huge falling off in pace, although if I ever wanted to run sub 17 minutes, I'd need to be averaging 3:24 pace for the whole race. So I'm well off that at the moment.

Scottish National Cross Country

Results | Startlist | Activity on Garmin Connect

There is something quite disconcerting about standing on a startline with 450+ runners, and knowing what on earth sort of pace you should start with.

I tried to ease gently and not get too excited on the first lap. My pre-race plan had been to try for laps of just under 15 minutes each, and in fact the first lap was pretty much bang on 15:00. This seemed OK given that the course was pretty muddy and heavy. I don't remember much about the 2nd lap other than getting passed by Mark Johnston and trying to follow him around the golf course, but the gap getting bigger and bigger.

I think I must have been slowing up badly towards the end of the 2nd lap, since I suddenly had company at the start of the 3rd lap from David Wright and Greig Glendinning, shortly followed by Marco Consani. I tried to go with Marco but he was too strong, and instead I tagged along with Dave Eiser for the middle chunk of the final lap. I was probably running too slowly since I suddenly became aware of Paul Thompson right on my heels, which gave me enough of a fright to dash up the grassy slope 3/4 of the way around the loop, and then really start running the final kilometre.

I thought that once I started pressing the final 3.5 minutes, I could hold off any challenges, but I could sense attacks from behind, so had to keep surging and re-surging until the desperately slippery corner into the final straight and with shoes caked in mud you have to give it all you have left for the final 200 metres. This involved 32 seconds of acceleration with the fibres in my hamstrings popping one by one. I knew that Paul was right on my tail and would be doing everything to pip me on the line, so I couldn't be taking any chances, but my right hamstring was really not happy about this. With 20 metres to go I passed Sean Gaffney of Inverclyde and was barreling down on Ben Mitchell of Lasswade, but just pulled out of the challenge with my hamstring about to explode, which was enough to allow Will Hensman to edge me on the line by less than the width of a vest.

Looking at the results afterwards, I couldn't quite understand how Mark and Marco had ended up in positions 86 and 90 respectively. They must have torn through 20 places in the final lap.

I was a little disappointed to finish 111th and miss out on a Top 100 spot, but with Jeff Farqhuar 101st and Allan Fotheringham 102nd, this shows just how tough it is to make the top 100 at the Scottish Nationals.

Carnethy 5 Hill Race

Results | Route on Garmin Connect

Not one of my better runs. My past 2 Carnethys had both been 56 minutes something, so I was kind of assuming I would get under the hour without trying too hard. However I think the routes up the first hill and off the last hill went through more heather than previously, plus the ground was pretty soft, plus I've done no hill running in ages, so in fact I missed the hour and did 1:00:57.

It probably didn't help much that I'd done a 14 mile tempo run the previous afternoon, and that I ran the 5km to the start of the race.

I started as slowly as possible and immediately found myself way down the field as folk sprinted off through the bog. I picked my way around the edge of the field over the opening 600 metres to the gate, and was probably in about 15th position as I went through the gate with Mark Harris and Al Hart. The pace seemed incredibly pedestrian compared with cross country, until I hit the climb up Scald Law, and suddenly remembered I hadn't done any hill racing in ages.

The climb was therefore a constant procession of people overtaking, until I topped out at the summit of Scald Law one place ahead of Steven Fallon. Steven promptly overtook me, and then I re-overtook on the way to South Black. On the way to West Kip I was caught by Des Crowe. And then coming off West Kip I was caught by Clare Whitehead. I rallied a bit on the descent to The Howe and caught and passed Steven Fallon and Clare before the climb to the gully.

I made my last effort to run into the gully before my legs gave up altogther. I then lost around 10 or 15 places on the climb to Carnethy as I realised my legs were powerless at running uphill.

By the time the descent arrived, I'd lost interest in the race, and just stumbled slowly through the rough unrunnable heather arriving back at the gate just as Adrian Davis and Adam Ward hurtled past. I looked at my watch knowing that a bare minute of 2 minutes would be needed to get to the end, and saw the time was 58:40, so I knew there was no possibility of breaking the hour.

I managed to nip back in front of Adam and Adrian before the finish, who both ran as badly as myself. It was a bit of a shock to the system to realise that my legs don't work on hills, but a useful reminder that I might need to incorporate some hill running into my training.

Greenock 5-mile Road Race

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

I thought this Greenock 5-mile Road Race looked like the ideal opportunity to set a 5-mile PB and finally get under 28 minutes. The route is flat as a pancake, and there was virtually no trace of wind. The only the problem was my legs were still pretty sore from yesterday's cross country, so I wasn't sure if I could last the distance.

I tried to set out reasonably conservatively around the initial laps of Battery Park, and sat in behind the Bellahouston trio of Russell Whittington, Greig Glendinning and Nick Reid as we left the park for the esplanade. Once we hit the promenade I could never quite get back up to Russell and Greig, but still tried to keep pace with Nick. This worked until the halfway point, but on the run back I could see the Bella guys were winding it up, or else I was fading.

Just before returning to the park I caught up with an Inverclyde guy and 2 young runners from Giffnock, but once in the park they all took off and I had no response. I could sense my target time was slipping away and put in a good effort on the final half lap of the park, but it was too little too late and I clocked 28:07 for 20th position.

Fairly annoying to miss my PB by 4 seconds, but I guess I shouldn't have expected much more after racing yesterday.

Scottish Masters Cross Country

Results | Activity on Garmin Connect

A quite different type of course compared with Irvine Moor and Callendar Park. This was more like what you might call "real cross country", ie. seriously muddy and quite hilly.

My primary goal was to see if I could finish 3rd in the M45 category. I noticed before the race that Robert Quinn and Andy Little were both in attendance who are both M45, and way faster than me, so my only chance was to try to track the 3rd M45 whoever that might be.

I set off fast but not too fast and found myself in about 10th position on the first smaller lap. At this point I knew I was in 3rd place, and was also ahead of Jeff Farquhar, but wasn't sure how long I could keep this going. On the 2nd lap climbing the stony track I got passed by Raymond Jaffray of Teviotdale sporting a number "45" on his back, so I knew I had to start working now. But I also got caught by Alan Derrick, Jeff Farquhar, and as soon as we were into the muddy field John Bell went past as well, so I felt like I was going backwards. I tried to rally and go after John, but the footing was so slippery and muddy it was hard to generate any pace.

There was a tussocky field to cross, and short section of tree roots before hitting a dis-used railway line where at last you could start running properly. I made the mistake of glimpsing behind me and realised there were runners right on my heels, so I tried to keep pressing. Ian Johnston of Shettleston had several attempts at getting past before finally pulling ahead, but as soon as we hit as small descent dropping off the railway embankment I released the brakes and flew past Ian and also caught John Bell.

I couldn't believe it but John actually had enough breath to start chatting to me about what a good course it was, whilst I was struggling to breathe, and focussing on the possibility of catching Jeff Farqhar who was one place ahead.

I couldn't quite get back ahead of John despite him walking up the steep banking before the tussocky field. I felt a bit sick after running up the steep hill, and then had to keep surging again and again to stop Ian Johnston from getting past.

There was a confusing junction coming up, where I wasn't quite sure if we had to run down the field or blast down the road. I maybe hesitated a fraction waiting for some instruction, and at this point an unknown Perth Road Runner (David Knight) suddenly appeared on my shoulder and nipped in front. I managed to batter down the road slightly faster, but once we turned into the field for the final run in I felt wrecked, and David got back in front.

I didn't actually have any idea how far it was to the finish, but there was still a full 1.1km to go down a really soggy muddy track. I just about managed 3:30/km but it was hard work all the way, and I felt sure I would drop more places if anyone was chasing me down.

With about 200 metres to go Andrew Ronald of Falkirk eventually passed and I pretty much gave up, but suddenly with about 80 metres to go I thought I might as well muster a sprint finish through a complete quagmire. My right hamstring was getting tighter and tighter, but I just managed to jump back in front of Andrew before my hamstring packed up.

So the end result was 5th M45 and 17th place overall. I didn't manage to beat Jeff this time, but I was a good bit nearer to John Bell than I've been before, plus I managed to stay ahead of Ian Johnston for the first time.

Angela Mudge won the women's race after a close battle with Melissa Whyte.