September 2008 Archives

FIFTEEN portions of chips, five McDonalds, a chinese take-away, eight bottles of wine, 30 pints of lager, seven ice creams and very little water.

That is just a selection of the food I have consumed while I have been away on holiday for two weeks.

I make that around 150 units of alcohol and more than 50,000 calories.

Add to that the fact I have not done any exercise in the last two weeks and you can understand why I am dreading going running tonight.

Have I undone all my hard work in one foul holiday?
Will my trainers still provide enough support for my ankles not to give way under the weight of my bulbous belly?

And what about passers by? Will they turn their heads' in disgust as I waddle past them with my stomach wobbling over my shorts?

Cries of "run fatboy run" are what I'm expecting along with small children asking their mums why a man who looks like a teletubby is gasping for air like a beached whale.

I hope to survive my run tonight. But if the worst does come to the worst, Hannah has vowed to continue this blog in my absence.

You may think me melodramatic - but you haven't seen me run yet.

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last two weeks. Paul and I have been on holiday in Mallorca for the last eight days, and only just got back this afternoon.

Before that, we both had an utterly manic week. Paul was doing hostile environment training in Germany to prepare himself for reporting from Iraq in October (I'll let him tell you all about that), while I was running around like a headless chicken sorting out all our travel arrangements for the day he got back. A little more than 18 hours after Paul touched down at 11.30pm on September 19, we were jetting off to Mallorca. And in the gap, we had to drive from Stansted up to Brum to drop of his camera equipment at the Mail office, and get as much sleep as we could before driving back down the Gatwick to catch the plane. It doesn't sound like it needs much organising but it does.

So, after all that, I have not run a single step for a week and a half. Shameful I know, but I decided I needed a holiday more than I wanted to achieve my target time, and I refused to run myself down more than I was feeling already by that point. We both took what we felt were well-deserved rests for the week.

But I will be back into it from Tuesday. It will be interesting to see what a week and a half off has done to my speed. Three weeks left before the race, so I hope not too much damage!

Birmingham Mail reporter and triathlete extrordinaire, Jane Tyler, reveals how her half marathon training is progressing.
And it isn't without a bit of rough and tumble!

MY half marathon training has come to a sudden and very painful halt when I fell off my bike during a triathlon on Sunday.

Up until that point I was feeling quite smug as my fellow half marathoners were dropping like flies, due to aches and pains brought on by over-training.
Not me, I thought, triathlon is the way to do it. I figured that by cross-training in three disciplines I'd be spreading the risk of injury.

But as I sit here with an extremely painful and bruised knee, arm and shoulder, I am questioning my wisdom.

It doesn't help that my injured colleagues are now recovered and sending me daily emails, bragging about their 10-mile runs, PBs and just generally succeeding and reaching all their training targets.

But I figure that a week or two off at this stage with six weeks to go isn't the end of the world and won't do me any harm.

Despite my tumble, I would recommend triathlon to anyone. Not only do you achieve an extremely high level of fitness, you also never get bored as you're constantly switching between running, swimming and cycling.

I joined BRAT - Birmingham Running and Triathlon Club - a year ago and the coaching I receive there has been superb.

I did the Wombourne Sprint Triathlon on Sunday which involves a 400 metre (16 lengths of a 25m pool), 20k bike and 5k run. With just over a mile to go on the bike I skidded on the rain-sodden slippery road and was catapulted off my bike, landing on a grass verge with the bike on top of me.

Worse still, because one of my feet was still clipped into the pedal I couldn't up end myself without help from a marshall and policeman. Amazingly despite being covered in mud and grass, and with a bleeding aching knee, I got back on my bike and carried on to finish the race - even doing a PB in the run.

So give triathlon a go - it isn't that dangerous, honest!

After much whinging about injuries (much of which was on this blog) we both ran the Lichfield 10k race on Sunday.

I left it until the eleventh hour to make the decision if I was going to race or not as I had a painful shin injury that had been playing up all week.

In the end the temptation of racing against 1,000 other runners was too much and both Hannah and I were on the start line at 10.30am.

And it was all worth it as we both recorded personal best times. Hannah knocked a startling 4 mins and 51 seconds off her pb finishing in a time of 57min 14 sec.

I finished in 51 min 10 sec - 2 minutes and 11 seconds faster than my last pb.

Full results can be found here

But I'm now finding out that there is a lot more to running then going as fast as you can. I was aiming for a negative split this time round whcih meant I would run the second half of the race slightly faster than the first.

This sounds easy but I found it tough. I was running too quickly for the first 3km and had to concentrate on slowing myself down to my planned target time of 26 minutes for 5km.

My plan was then to do a 24 minute second 5km and finish in under 50 minutes. But I didn't take into account the big hills at 5km and 7km which left me needing to do my last 3km in 14 minutes - much quicker than I am capable at the moment.

But it was a real test of what I had left in the tank near the end of the race. I picked the pace up considerably for the last 3km, over-taking about a dozen runners as I closed in on my 50 minute target time. At one stage I even thought i was going to make it.

Then my heart sank. "Just 400m to go" the sign read. And the rest was up hill all the way to the finish line. Gutted.

So, a few tips for anyone wanting to learn from the experience of someone whose career running totals two races.

1. In the weeks leading up to the race, time how quickly you are running and work out a race-pace for the big day. This will really help keep you going during the tough middle section of the race.
2. Try planning a negative split where your second half of the race is slightly faster than the first.
3. Don't be put off by people over-taking you at the start of the race - chances are you will catch them up later if you stick to your own rhythm.
4. Set yourself personal goals in the race. Try picking someone out who is in front of you and aim to catch them up within the next 1,000 metres/ 5 minutes.
5. Relax and enjoy it

Paul has decided his shin injury is too painful to risk running a race on it, and is gutted that he can't take part in the Lichfield 10K. So I will be running the race alone.

I say that, but as you can imagine with two people as different in height and stature as Paul and I, I am used to him racing off ahead so it won't be too different from usual.

I haven't done any running since Wednesday, purely because I have been so busy, but now I actually have some time on my hands, it is bucketing down with rain as I speak. Probably everyone who is reading this will know what I mean, as yesterday and today have been totally miserable weather-wise.

Having said that, I am not rain-shy, I have been out running in the rain several times - I actually prefer it to running in the heat. But I can't and won't go out when it is raining so much that I would be squelching rather than running. I can't see how going out with every piece of clothing on me waterlogged would really do me any good, so I will be sitting today out as well, and hoping that not running for three days will not put me at a disadvantage for tomorrow's race.

My aim is to do the course in under one hour, which I am pretty confident of doing, but I'll see what the weather is like before I make any outlandish predictions...

... for me to recover from an injury I picked up so I can race in the Lichfield 10k on Sunday.

I've had shin pains for about 10 weeks but they have been going away after a day of rest - until now.

My right shin gives me eye-watering gyp if I walk for more than 30 seconds. I'm really worried I've actually done something slightly serious and its not just my normal aches and pains.

So now the clock is ticking and I've got until Sunday at 10.30am for my leg to feel better.
I'm on pain killers, I'm icing my leg like crazy and walking as little as possible. I'd say my chances of running on Sunday are now 50-50.

I know I can do a personal best if I'm fit. If only I could make my body recover more quickly. Any tips anyone?
Watch this space to find out if I recover in time.

I finally managed to do nine miles in ninety minutes! I have been having a go at it every Sunday for the last three weeks and went from 10.4 minutes a mile to 10.3...and then up to 10.4. Very frustrating.

But this week I mapped out my exact nine-mile route on walkjogrun.co.uk and figured out exactly what time targets I had at various points on my route before I went out. I managed to beat all of them by a minute to a minute and a half, a lead I demolished in the last 20 minutes because I was so shattered, rolling in at 89 minutes and 50 seconds. Get in!!

The only problem, like Paul, was the effect the wet weather had on my clothing, which it turn had a very painful effect on my skin. I started running in shorts a few weeks ago, which did wonders for the flexibility of my legs, not to mention keeping me cool. But in the rain doing a long run, it felt like a tiny person was trying to saw my right leg off from the inside of my thigh.

It hurt. A lot. And the pain only got worse as the chafing broke the skin and the nasty little person kept sawing away at my raw flesh. It didn't start bleeding though, thankfully, but it sure as hell felt like it was about to. Now my leg looks like someone has attacked it with sandpaper. Lovely.

After I had recovered I went straight down to the shop and bought a big tub of Vaseline. My next mission is to try to find a way of carrying the tub with me, just in case, because I absolutely refuse to suffer that again.