The Bear

I've noticed a phenomenon when I'm running a longer distance. The Bear comes out. Let me explain after the jump.

12th of April: Sheffield Half-Marathon

The Place: Sheffield,South Yorkshire  12th April 2015 9.30am,

The Organisers: Jane Tomlinson's Run For All

Distance: Half Marathon

Beforehand: This is my home race, having been a proud resident of Sheffield for nearly 7 years.  As you'd expect for any race in Sheffield, its going to be hilly, as can be seen from the race profile below.

However it looks like it'll get easier after the 5 mile mark, so that's something at least. Being my home race and running past  my workplace you'd think that I'd have checked out the route by now. Au contraire, mes amis. In fact my training has gone belly up recently, as witnessed by the dearth of updates on this blog. Add in was laid up in bed with a bad back on Monday,Tuesday and Wednesday, and this is not looking like the triumphant homecoming I was hoping for.

You may have heard of last year's water debacle so let's hope the same doesn't happen again.  I'm sure it won't and that lessons have been learnt (Its also new organisers this year).

And yes as per usual  I have a social engagement the night before, An Anniversary Party. Truly I am the worst athlete ever.

Prediction:  2hr 20 Minutes - due to training laxity and possible Spinal issues.

The Day: For once, I didn't have to drive anywhere, I just had to make it to the centre of town a quick bus ride away. I didn't have to drive but I did due to oversleeping after some cats had a knockdown brawl outside my window last night. I think it got so epic they knocked a potted tree down.. So I parked up in town and headed for the bag drop buses. Tag attached, I handed it over and started wandering towards the start. At this point I saw the 135 minute pace setter, so I thought I'll stick with this guy, and then I should make my predicted time.

After some warm ups by the Sheffield International Venues team, with some backing (CD) music from Ms. Taylor Swift and an introduction via PA to the celebs who'd be in the first batch of runners sent off. Obviously I'm not quite a local here yet as the only person I recognised was the legendary fundraiser John Burkhill, who you'll often see around Sheffield with his Green McMillan Pram.

The race started a bit late as there were still some cars on the route, which brings me to Thanks. Thank you Sheffield for letting us gum up so many of your roads today and for being out in force to cheer people on. That was one of the great thing about having your name printed on your number, people would cheer you on by name, even if you'd never seen them before. It certainly helps with a bit of motivation.

Its started out fairly gentle down Arundel Gate and we were soon at Eccleshall rd. This was proving a doddle so far, maybe I'd even get a PB. Now many of you are probably familiar with Eccy Rd but you've probably never realised that its all a hill. In the car, I'd never noticed, running up it, oh dear. From there it just got hillier,up until the 5 Mile mark, as can be seen by the break down of my pace. 

1st Five Miles: 11 mins 14 seconds a Mile
Last 8.1 Miles: 9 mins  55 Seconds a Mile
Average Pace: 10 mins 25 seconds a Mile

And the Wind. So much Wind. At one point it blew my foot into my other leg, almost toppling me. And it was blowing me all over the road. But hills with the wind in your face is not conducive to a fast time. 

Still the second part of the race was much faster and I was having to hold myself back from pelting it down the hills on the return into town. Got to conserve that energy.

Strangely enough whilst I'd been in peaks, someone had flattened out Eccy rd and it no longer seemed to be on a slope. Why couldn't they have done that earlier?

Coming up the final hill towards the roundabout by the Moor/John Lewis I was flagging, I was trudging, I was walking. Thank you to the guy at the 400 metre mark who said "Rhys, You can stop when your done, Pick it up Lad". See Peer Pressure even from strangers worked, I ran the rest of the way in. No Sprint finish but I was happy with myself. And look at the swag I got, plus a Mars Bar but I snaffled that fairly quickly.

Finishing Time: 2 hrs 16 Minutes 33 Seconds - So Not a PB but a tough course and did I mention the Wind?

Pros: 
Easy to get too, 
Well Organised Start, 
The Chicken Man I was chasing for most of the race (He beat me), 
The Warm Up, 
Plenty of Water

Cons: 
If you've driven on Sheffield's roads let me tell you they are no better to run on. I'm sure some runners were lost in the potholes along the way. 

The Bag situation after. They appeared to just have emptied the contents of the bus onto the floor outside and it turned into a cross between Bingo and a Jumble Sale. I only found my bag by luck as the tag had come off, one guy had been waiting for his bag for an hour and all that time at the front of the queue. It needs rethinking for next year.

Blisters: Not Many

Do it again? Yeah I would, although I will do much more hill work.

MEA CULPA!

Apologies all round, We've let you down at Tinpot towers recently, with our lack of updates. Its entirely our fault.No real excuses except some of us have been to Disney and some of us have playing more xbox than is good for a lad. However that is the past and we've bout 520 days to go till the big day so coming up we've got some great posts on The Sheffield Half Marathon, Dan's New Bike Review and after Sunday a more focussed ...uh..focus on Triathlon from myself. Let us know what you'd like to see in the comments.

Swimming -Finally

I finally went swimming last night as I had managed to load the Mp3 player with music and bought a new swim bag and some new trunks. However things did not go entirely to plan.

I did a quick 40 minutes on the treadmill beforehand as I'd failed to check when the pool opened.  This was a great chance to try out the Mp3 player and after some rammage into the ears, it was affixed perfectly and giving some good sounds. It was a shame to have to take it off to change for the swim, especially when I saw what else came out of my lugholes.

Here's when the 1st issue arose, I may have over estimated the amount of weight my stomach has lost or the increase in thigh size recently. I was unable to get my new trunks on. I was already concerned they may be a bit skimpy to start with but these bad boys would not be experiencing the chlorinated embrace of the pool for a good while yet. Fortunately I'd brought some board shorts with me, which still fit nicely.

Now I've expressed my worries about the massed start of the Ironman before and yesterday was great practice for that. The pool was heaving and everyone was staying in lanes about as well as a drunken toddler behind the wheel. I was no different, dodgine and ducking to avoid swimming into anyone and having to dive underneath at times to avoid collisons. I think a child hit me in the head at one point but I thought it best not to look back.

The player worked great and gave good sound, until it fell out my ears, I'd not managed to get such a tight fit as when I was running and within 3 metres was diving to the floor to retrieve it. After a few more false starts, it seemed to be firmly attached. However after a pretty good kick off, it was floating again. Deciding to cut my loses, I made a beeline for the exit and a night on Improv fun.

It was great getting back in the water again and I think with a bit more moulding and maybe smaller buds the player will work out a treat.Also some day I will go swimming before work.

Off The Wagon!

I have a confession to make ladies and gentlemen. I fell spectacularly off the wagon. Not the booze wagon, which I've factored into this thing but the doing anything else wagon.

I took a week off to allow my blisters after Liversedge to heal and now have a couple of nice calluses to show for it. Never mind, you need to rest and recuperate at times. This then stretched into another week, and I was ill. Nevermind, Microbes happen.

There was however no excuse for the 4 or maybe 5 McDonalds (I lost count) or 2 pizzas I ate over the last weekend of February. Now everything in moderation, but that diet in the previous sentence is not moderation.

This has the wonderful knock on effect that I felt sluggish and a wee bit depressed (Blog Post for another time) and that doesn't help get you back out on the training. So I'm going to start looking into food for Ironman over the next few weeks and hopefully get more of a balance. I'm not cutting out the junk entirely yet, as cold turkey may not be the best idea ever.

Anyway after some very sluggish times I finally made it back to the Gym yesterday for a quick run and some weight work. Nice and gentle back into the fray. The weekend holds doing some more, as I've wasted nearly 3 weeks of training time. That counter to the right is ever smaller every day. 

The Last Two Weeks

As Rhys said in his last post, It's been quiet on the old blog front lately. My last entry spoke of my high hopes of getting plenty of training in during the half term holiday. It didn't quite work out like that. Ironically, the week I returned to work I managed to get a lot more done. So here goes, the last two weeks in review:

Monday 16th February - As mentioned in my last post, I did manage to complete a 7 mile run which felt good. What was really frustrating was, on return from said run I realised my Garmin GPS watch had been in swim setting which meant my timings were all over the place. So, according to my stats, I swam 7 miles around the streets of Gloucester in less than an hour. Brilliant.

Tuesday 17th February - Lucie and I decided to take Madoc fossil hunting along the Jurassic coast and it was brilliant. We hired a chisel and goggles for the boy and when digging. Charmouth was a great beach to find fossils. Just wish I realised that at some areas I was chiselling away at, it was actually an offence to do so. We'll say no more about that and pretend it never happened! Although I didn't train on this day, we did walk a lot of miles and it was great.

Wednesday 18th February - Today was meant to be a scheduled return to swim coaching but I missed another session. This time for good reason. Today was the day I picked up my new bike from the shop. Oh yes! I was ridiculously excited about this. We spent a little longer in the shop than planned as they made sure the bike was fitted correctly to suit me. To add to the excitement, Lucie bought me some new clip-in pedals and cycling shoes with cleats (something I have never used before) and I can't thank her enough for all this new kit. She's awesome!

Thursday 19th February - The maiden bike voyage. I was very nervous but very excited about embarking on the cycling element of my training. Not only had I never used clip-in pedals before, I had never actually ridden a road bike before (jumping straight in the deep end a little doing an Ironman). The weather today was shocking; bloody freezing, windy and wetter than an otter's pocket. Not ideal for a road bike virgin. I'll admit, I was bordering on scared during the ride. The difference between road and mountain bike is massive. I was wobbly, on the brakes every five seconds and slow. In the end I only went 10 miles, but for a first time and with the weather as bad as it was I was fairly happy with that.

Friday 20th February - Swim? No.

Saturday 21st February - Lucie's parents came to visit in the morning, so although I didn't get out to do the 8 mile run I had hoped, I did have a hell of a sweat on from all the vacuum cleaning! In the afternoon me and some friends went to watch Gloucester play rugby. It was a good game with a few cheeky beers thrown in so inevitably not training was done today.

Sunday 22nd February - Nout!

As you can see, half term didn't entirely go to plan from a training perspective.

Moving on to week two. A much better week despite a slow start.

Monday 23rd February - Today was my birthday and doing no training because it's your birthday is as good an excuse as any not to do any training. So I didn't! Despite it being the first day back at work after the holiday, I had a really nice day and an even better evening with my family. Watching Madoc street dance to my new CD was classic!

Tuesday 24th February - Back to the gym today for a good hour of high intensity cardio and sprints. This felt really good.

Wednesday 25th February - An overdue and very much welcome return to swim coaching today. I hate missing weeks as it feels like starting from the beginning again when I go back. However, today wasn't too bad, despite missing three weeks. It was just great to get back in the pool and focus on the discipline which is worrying me the most.

Thursday 26th February - Back to running today. With my GPS set back to run I was raring to go. I set out at a good pace and covered 10k in a respectable 46 minutes. I was pleased with this seeing as I hadn't run for a while.

Friday 27th February - Another opportunity to swim today. No drills or exercises, just a chance to swim. I covered 1.1km but with only one stop which is real progress for me. Happy days!

Saturday 28th February - No training today. Although I did burn a lot of calories through the stress of driving through Shepard's Bush, London on a busy Saturday morning, as we were collecting a new Buggy Lucie had found online. Road rage was tested to the max!

Sunday 29th February - Bike ride number two. The conditions today were much better. No rain, dry roads and blue skies. However, it was still chilly and blowing a hooley (or hoolie there is some debate on the spelling, I looked it up haha). Even on only my second time out, I felt so much more comfortable, confident and stable on the bike. I absolutely loved it. I had better speed on the down hills and straights, and at the moment taking on the hills is brilliant. I'm feeling a lot more positive about road cycling after this. Today's distance was 12.1 miles in a time less than that of the 10 miles I covered in bike ride one.

Well there we are; up to date on the last two weeks training and as you can see, week two was definitely the more productive. I hope to keep this up for the week ahead, but the best laid plans and all that......we'll see.

Healing and Lazing

It has been a quiet few days here at Tinpot towers. After the Half Marathon I intentionally took the week off to allow for my huge blister to heal. Its all fixed now, so there is no reason for why training hasn't begun again.

Apart from it been a week of illness and busyness, so training has taken a back seat. However next week, back in action.