New York secrets

You may have read, or heard, that Lindsay's blog will automatically keep you informed of her progress in the New York marathon on Sunday, since whenever she goes over a chip mat her details will be automatically emailed to the blog.

As much as I like technology, what a horrible idea!

It might just be my personality, but given the choice I'd rather nobody knew that I was doing a marathon at all (except perhaps until afterwards). It's bad enough that anyone can go to the marathon website and investigate my progress for themselves; I'm certainly not going to spoon-feed it to everyone! It just feels like it's piling on added unwanted pressure on my performance (I've got enough of that on my own!).

But, especially after last night's snow-curtailed training session, everyone knows where we're going this weekend and what we're up to. And thank you for all your good wishes! Thanks also for all the suggestions on what to do when we're there, and if only hope that it will involve a lot less shopping than you suggest. Anyway, with the pound not so strong against the dollar, that's another good excuse to give the shops a miss (although it's impossible to make financial predictions like that at the moment without them being proved wrong five minutes later). I'm just glad we paid for the flights and hotel in February...

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound: if you insist on tracking my progress, I'll let you know what to look out for.

I'll try to go at 6:30 pace, which should be enough to target 2:50 overall. Now, I already know that that's a bit ambitious, but you don't get many chances at these, do you? So if I consistently go any faster than that for the first... 20 miles, say, then I deserve to get my wrists slapped, because that'll only lead to trouble. After that, though, anything goes. Hopefully I can keep it up, but if not, then hopefully I won't lose so much time that I end up any slower that 2:55. Well, 2:55:57 at the very worst.

So now you can decide when you see me again if New York is a topic which is likely to be out of bounds!

Dunstable XC

Speaking of getting injured at the last minute, I've never really had that much patience for people who avoid cross-country purely on the basis that they think they're going to get injured. That's too long a phrase to keep using; I need a shorter one. I know: wimps.

Yes, I'm sure someone will be able to give an example of someone who got injured at the last minute by doing cross country. But Lindsay nearly got a career-ending injury just by chatting with Claire Messenger at the ball, when Claire's high heels got too close to Lindsay's toes. Over the weekend I had a sore back that I presumably developed in my sleep. So these things can happen at any time.

That was the rational part of my head talking. Halfway round the muddy, slippery, hilly Dunstable XC, I started to have some sympathy for the wimps, seeing that one extra slip could pull a muscle, or one concealed rut could twist my ankle. But I wasn't going at top speed, and I wouldn't have started if I felt I had any injuries beforehand. And anyway, half my training runs are off-road, so if something had happened during the race I would have been in a better position than training - at least have had someone to pick me up. Hmm, no, perhaps I'd have just had Sibbo step on me.

One other thing - for the first time in about 10 years at the club, I managed to forget my race number, and had to make do with a last-minute home-made one. Of course this was never going to last the morning, so I had to hold it in my hand after the first mile. Which one do you think I should use next time?

I enjoyed the event. I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so wet, and I'd have done even better if it was twice as long! It was obvious as I went round that the hills and the distance weren't bothering me much, but I simply couldn't go any faster. I'd already been to the HQ last month for the Dunstable 20 mile trail run, but what I hadn't noticed about the showers then was that there were only 4 of them - so queues developed quite fast. Speaking of queuing, the food queue didn't clear until after the announcement of the results - which meant the last people to eat missed out on the scores, but the people who heard the results missed out on the spare sandwiches on offer! Speaking of the results, they were better than I expected, especially considering three of our fastest ladies were unavailable.

One of those ladies was marathon-training-buddy Tash, of course, since she did the Basel marathon at the weekend. (Or Basle - I guess that's the problem with having two official languages.) Anyway, I hope she's happy with her PB of under 3:05, even though it wasn't the holy grail of under 3:00 (which, as far as our club is concerned, only Paula has managed so far).

It's time to get scared now - the New York marathon is my Next Thing.

Catching up and looking forward

I've not written here for a couple of weeks, so here's a quick catch-up: the holiday on the canal boat was very relaxing.  I only went running a couple of times that week, which was probably taking tapering a bit too far, but should certainly have served as a recovery.

Immediately after the holiday was the ball.  With our old venue being turned into a Travelodge, we'll hopefully use Letchworth Hall Hotel more in future.  It worked very well (the food especially!).

I tried going for a long(ish) run the day after the ball.  Then wished I hadn't.  Half way round I ran out of energy, so there was a lot of walking involved.  Not the best confidence boost for a couple of weeks before a marathon.  (But with a good excuse.)

I didn't have a good excuse to skip last week's Tuesday speed session.  It was 2 x 3 miles, and if left to my own devices I'd probably have done a 6-mile run anyway.  It made me look forward to the time - hopefully soon - when I'm recovered from the marathon and back to training with everyone else.  It was fun to try and keep up with Statto and Ollie, and now James is back from his mountaineering expedition he'll be back in the group too.  Although (for injury fans) I was a bit concerned that I was pushing my calf muscles a bit too hard... hopefully all this means is that my real injury has recovered now, and I'm just getting paranoid about anything else going wrong at the last minute.

Friction burns

Regular blog readers (bleeders?) will no doubt be waiting for news on my latest injury.  Well, you may be disappointed but I'm pleased to say that I've had a good week as far as training was concerned.  A bit interrupted by events - my 'proper' long Sunday run became a Saturday run because of Standalone, and my 'half' long Wednesday run became a solo effort from the club on Tuesday because I was away with work for a couple of days.  Finally, we're going on holiday today (yay! a week buzzing around on a canal near Birmingham!), so I had to squeeze in another long run on Friday night.  So now I'm very much bored of running around Hitchin, Letchworth and Baldock in the dark, but I'm sure my hips, knees and calves will stop aching if I only leave them alone for a little while.

And with 3 weeks to go until the New York marathon, I've passed the peak of my long training in any case.  Although, as my coach reminded me, that just means I've got to do 16 miles next weekend instead of 22.  Perhaps it'll feel like a short run.

Oh all right, injury-addicts, I have got a new one for you (and a new one on me):  When I came back from the run last night I had an unusual chafing pain.  No need to be squeamish, it was my knees.  It appears I'm getting so tired, and my running style getting so poor, that my knees are starting to rub together.  Rubbish.

You are not alone

And that's Standalone over for another year.  Despite the first rain in 21 years (and it seemed the weather was making up for that by dumping it all on us in one day), our spirits were not dampened and the whole event was a success.

I always think of the Saturday session at Standalone as being the goodie-bag production line, but this year I wasn't involved in that at all.  Instead, I helped put up the various gazebos we needed for the information desk, chip collection and goodie-bag pick-up.  Since I'm tall, I feel I added something useful to this process (I was going to say something unique, but Duncan was there too, and he can reach as far as I can!).  I'm also impressed at how much gazebo technology has advanced over the years - once you work out what all the telescopic poles do, and where all the velcro goes, it's really easy.  (Gazebo technology?  Of course such a thing exists!)

Unfortunately, it was too windy to risk putting all the canvas on the frames on Saturday (otherwise we might not know where to look for them the next day).  So my first Sunday task was to finish that job.  Then I spent an hour or two in one of the gazebos handing out numbers and chips, before going to the start line to stop the runners getting too close to the chip mats before the race started.  Then a bit of tidying up in the 'quiet' half-hour before the runners came back, then a spell (in the dry!) helping Karen Franklin give everyone their kit bags back.  And finally, when all that was over, I joined the general army of fluorescent yellow ants, working away at dismantling all the things we'd spent so long constructing!

I'm glad I didn't have to run.  At the moment I'm about Ollie-Statto-Northy speed*, and since they all ran well, I wouldn't have added anything useful there.  In fact, both the NHRR men's and ladies' teams won the overall event, which was a fantastic performance.  It's just a shame I didn't see any of it!

I'm also glad I wasn't marshalling - it was more fun to have lots of jobs to do rather than stay in the same place all morning.  And I was the trail cyclist one year and got very bored, so well done Sally for (dare I say) enjoying it this time round!

Looking at the feedback, the overwhelming response seems to be that everyone likes the enthusiasm, organisation and friendliness of Standalone, especially from the marshals.  I think as long as we can keep that side of things up to standard, runners will keep enjoying themselves and keep coming back.

There are things we can improve, of course.  The most immediate problem at number-collection was a lack of pins, and from what I understand, the race memento was a bag, but we also had some extra stuff to give out on behalf of the sponsors (not enough for every bag) so people were unhappy with the contents of their bags.  Funny, if we'd left them empty then people would probably have been happier!  During peak time at bag collection (10:50 to 11:00 maybe?) we could have done with a few extra bodies at the bag collection, too.

If you've got your own opinions about anything that went wrong, the NHRR committee in general and race committee in particular need to hear about them.  It'll help to make next year's race better, so don't keep your suggestions to yourself.

*I mean over 10k.  I hope I'd be able to out-run them over 26 miles.  Only 4 weeks before I have to find out... back to the normal marathon blogging soon!

Not worried about blisters

The Dunstable Downs 20 mile challenge is an off-road trail event, where you are given a route description and... basically left to your own devices.  Anyone who's done the Fairlands Valley Challenge will already have an idea what this event was all about - although the scenery was better here (well, certainly on the Downs themselves) and there was more help from road markings and signs.  Every 5 miles there was a checkpoint with water, sweets and chopped-up Mars bars - just the thing.

For the first few miles I ran with Tash and Mike Mello, and after a while Mike dropped behind.  We started in the mist, so I probably looked stupid in my sunglasses, but after a few minutes the sun came through and it was a lovely day.  The route went south from Dunstable, past Whipsnade animal park and on across lots of fields - some of them ploughed, and through a lot of woods (usually a good way to get me lost).  Fortunately there was a group of a similar speed running with us, including someone from Dunstable Runners who knew the course, so it wasn't essential to do too much navigating.  There were about 120 people at the start, all running together at first (of course), so I suppose if you didn't want to follow the route description you'd probably have found a way to avoid it.  However, following the route was half the fun, and I always wondered what might happen if I lost them and had to find my own way, so I made sure I always knew where I was.

Towards the end we reversed our earlier steps and went across the Downs again, now dry, sunny and full of families flying kites and watching gliders.  It looks like a fun place to go and visit, if only we didn't have to drive through Luton and Dunstable to get there.

Hopefully I can blame the terrain and the Mars bar stops for only managing 8-minute miling.  I wasn't really bothered about the time; this was more a good way of sneaking a 20 mile training run past my brain while it was distracted with route-finding.  Oh, and Tash won!  Well, she was the first lady back - it wasn't as if there were any prizes.

The showers at Dunstable Town Football Club were good, and there were cups of tea, sandwiches and cake available free after the run - which will probably be the case in a few weeks when the same venue will host our first cross-country race of the season.  It was still sunny after I'd eaten, so I got a folding chair out of the car, took it to the finish area and sat there reading a paper until Lindsay came back.  Very pleasant, actually!

Imaginary injury watch: just for fun, it was my left leg that decided to be overly sore today, but only for the first 5 miles or so, or when going down steep hills.  Otherwise it's just the marathon niggles I'm starting to get used to.  With all the mist on the Downs, my shoes and socks got wet early on, and by the end I had blisters on my feet.  But I'm not going to worry about blisters - at least I know how they're caused and I can see for myself how they're healing.  The morning after this race, I got a new pain in my ankle - probably some stabilising muscles complaining.  It wouldn't be the same if I didn't have anything to complain about.