7th vets race and Reindeer Romp 3

Wednesday 29Th July 2009.
I trooped off to Knavesmire to do race7/10 of the Yorkshire vets monthly GP.
A half past seven start, the heavens opened, it was the most torrential down pour.
As this is an off road run from the race course, through fields, tracks and paths it was muddy to say the least.
Of course being around in York it is fairly flat. Even though the weather was horrid 186 runners turned up. The pressure was on..to gain points to take me further up the rankins. Weather it was up to the weather or to just having a good run I don't know!
But I just set of as fast as I could and just kept going. I finished 12Th lady over all in a time of 44:58. Which was faster than my previous time. I was the second vet over 45 which has brought me up to 4Th in the rankins.

Thursday 30th July 2009.
At least it wasn't raining.
Turned up for this race feeling tired, legs like led.
But the pressure was on yet again. Also, to make the pressure worse, my son Oliver was up for beating me after the Helen Windsor race. As Oliver has been training well I was in no doubt it was going to be tonight. The only advantage I had over him was knowing the course. But no good it brought me.
He passed me at the bottom of the hill, although I could still see him through the field my tired legs gave way and he gained around 40 seconds on the uphill back to the finish.
I'm pleased with my time concidering racing the previous day.Not happy with Oliver beating me, must try harder next time.

Jackie Carter

Pudsey 10k

Not one for a PB

After success at Ingleborough, my colleagues at work persuaded me to do this one. Never done it before so hey, why not?

I know the course well due to early years of horses, then MTB combined with training over this area with the great Jamie Warburton. Therefore I knew what to expect. I was surprised that I was the only spen runner at the start (where were the ever present race machines??).

Anyway I did OK with 43.53 which got me 41st out of 400 and only a minute or so behind Karen Pickles.

The results are here

http://www.ukresults.net/2009/pudsey10k.html


Oh and I got stung by a wasp in the face. My face is now numb down one half and apparently I can do a really good Geoff Boycott impression!

Ingleborough 2009

Then there were 4

After the magnificent Spen turnout in 2008 is was a surprise that there were only 4 out this year. I wasn't feeling very fit but it's become a yearly ritual now. Weather was ideal although I was mindful of the heavy rain that we had had.

I started steady and as usual tried to run as far as possible before breaking into the walk, I was amazed that I was still running at the 'Les's rivine'. At this point I was right with Frank and was careful not to pass him. As we reached the walking point (the first steep and Frank's tradition best bit) he started to pull away. I tried to keep a high cadence but Franks strength began to tell.

At the top though (which is always further away than you remember) Frank was only 45s ahead so I knew he was in my pocket! As the descent started it was at least as treacherous as usual. Wet and slippy at the top. I passed Frank as soon as we got onto the rocky track and had a fast run down. Finished in 1.03 which was pleasing. Frank was 2 mins back. Skip Donahue has finised a minute or so before me and Chris King came in with a PB of 1.10

http://www.fellrunner.org.uk/results/race09/09_ingleborough.html

Bring on 2010

A lesson in training stupidity from a master!

I'm a real advocate of training smart, and paying close attention to what my body is telling me. but sometimes I have a lapse, and do the exact opposite. Often this short period of reckless stupidity is in response to some guilt feeling brought upon by the fact that I've missed several training sessions, and this particular stretch of madness was just a case in point.

The background, was that due to one thing or another, my only running training during the last 3 weeks was a couple of sessions on the track. On top of that, I'd been shirking a bit on the bike training too. Basically, the problem is mental rather than physical, as my head has just not been in it. So at the end of last week, I decided it was time to put things straight (first mistake)

It started on Saturday afternoon when I put in a mammoth 60-miler on the turbo-trainer (anyone who thinks 60 mile on a turbo-trainer is not far needs to try it themselves).

Sunday morning, I decided to go out on the bike, and do an all-out 10-mile time-trial sandwiched between two steady 10 mile there & back rides. That left me pretty exhausted for the rest of the day.

Monday, I'd been invited on a club "social ride" with some of the cycling team. I should add at this point that although I ride for a team, I don't really know anyone else in it. But I turned out, and there was very little social about it, it seemed they were just testing me out to see if I could take the pace. or not! Well, I did manage to take the pace, but it was 40 miles at what could not be described as "leisurely" and following on from the weekends activities, it was a little bit on the frantic side.

Tuesday. I had to get out for a run, because I've been slacking so much, and added to which the Ingleborough fell race was looming at the weekend. I thought I'd do a hilly 10 miler that I'd not done for some years. Still feeling it in the legs from the previous nights cycling I set off at a steady trot. After 3 miles I was ready to quit, and the worst was yet to come, my lousy memory had forgotten that the 10-miler was actually a 12.5-miler. And as if the unintended distance was not enough to contend with, the lack of running meant my calves were as tight as drums. That night I was in so much pain with a nerve which I could feel all the way from my lower-back down my left leg and into my foot, that I hardly slept.

Wednesday, apart from some muscle aches, the pain had mostly gone away, but (sigh) I had tentatively pencilled in a cyclo-cross race at Elland. I tried to get out of it by asking Matthew which he'd prefer to do, the aforementioned cyclo-cross race, or a circuit race (no adults) at Wombwell, which would give me just the excuse I needed for a well-needed rest. Guess which he chose? yes - you guessed it - it was off to the cyclo-cross. OK, I could have just watched him I suppose, but (a) it helps to motivate him if I set an example, and (b) if I turn up to watch, I always wish I had a punt myself. If you are unfamiliar with cyclo-cross, it's 45 minutes of lung-busting torture. The only thing running-wise l can compare it to, is a hard cross country run in heavy conditions. Anyway I performed reasonably well considering, and got stronger as the race went on.

Thursday (here we are) today I can hardly walk! I think it's the run from Tuesday rather than the cycling, but the way it's looking I can't see me running round the track at the club tonight, and unless things improve greatly, then Ingleborough will probably fall by the wayside this year too.

I think there might be some lessons to be learned here!

Spen Road Records - Draft #10

Just a couple of updates, which are verifications of Graham Walsh's V50 10K and 10M records. This means if we can get verification of Graham's 20M records (which is somewhat embarrassingly the Spen 20) then apart from the 5K record which belongs to Steven Moss, Graham will have a clean sweep of the entire distances in the V50 category. So pound for pound (or year for year) it could be argued that he is our best ever road runner!

Spen Road Records Draft 10

The Trunce

With Ingleborough just days away I decided to start training. I thought a race would be a good way of getting in a good session and since my colleagues at work have been dying to have a go at beating me this seemed like a good adventure (its also on my way home). I consulted the Richard Lee book of "Races where you can be sure no one will know you" (note not the recently released "When will I realise no one cares!") and it was rated thus;

1) Distance away (2*) - only 40mins away. High risk of someone being there
2) Obscurity (2*) - some people have heard of it
3) Terrain (1*) - only one short section of road.

Oh well, decided to do it anyway. Its quite a tough 4 miles. Undulating and some narrow trails. 3 river crossings too. Quite please with my 30.50 time. Try for sub 30 next time. Bring on Ingleborough

http://undeadmonkey.org.uk/trunce/index.php

PS - Chris King did it too. Richard was right.

Reindeer romp 2

This race was actually on Thursday 25Th June and the weather was hot that week and i was in two minds weather or not to do it due to the fact i had raced Tuesday night at mean wood in the Yorkshire vets race and not sleeping too well due to the hot weather , as I'm sure was the same for everyone, i just felt so tired and running was the last thing i wanted to do , a bit of sunbathing was more like it but as i had cajoled a few more ladies into having a go i thought perhaps i should go and do the race, another dilemma was what footwear should i use (fell or road shoes) even though it had been dry it can still be muddy in the wooded section (it wasn't) but it was overgrown in the farmers field , as per usual i set off far too fast down the hill and as we got to the lane before the field i was knackered , i can normally keep up the momentum but not tonight as we got to the wooded section I'd had enough and walked a few yards until i realised who was just behind me , i managed to muster up some strength to run up on the bit of road section with a left turn onto the track up the steep hill we came down at the start i knew i had to try and keep going , but oh no i was getting slower and slower so i gave it up and walked yet again (not like me) as we neared the top a friend from long wood shouted in a nice way to get a move on and that i could catch the lady in front of me , i don't know where it came from but i did as i was told and charged in ahead of that lady, finishing in 24.45 38 seconds slower than the previous race , perhaps if I'd not stopped twice i could have been quicker than last time.

Saunders 2009 - Coniston

It's only a month since the LAMM and I'm racing again in the Saunders Lakeland Mountain Marathon - Kirkfell Class, this time with Anthony. I've competed in this SLMM class twice before with different partners and finished 16th in 2007 and 20th in 2008. Another good finish was a possibility particularly as Anthony is fairly fast, a good navigator and is also tall and can see over the top of bracken. (I am only 5'2" and can vanish for hours amongst the bloody stuff).

The start point on day one was on the track up to the Coniston Copper Mines. It was drizzling and the clag was down over the mountain tops which suits me as the race becomes a navigators rather than a runners event. Dibbed the dibber thing to start the clock, collected our check point list and then we set off at a run up the hill. Once we were round the first bend and out of site of the other competitors at the start, we stopped showing off and adopted a more sensible brisk walk up to Levers Water. The first check point near a ruin was an easy find.

The next check point was further north beyond Wetherlam but we were soon over the coll and descending towards it. This is where I fell in my first bog. Anthony (did I mention he was tall?) leaped over a wide stream, another competitor (just as tall) followed him and me (not so tall) in hot pursuit didn't quite make it to the following side and toppled backwards into the muddy bit. Wet pants this early in the race is unpleasant. Oh well, I had to carry on.

Check points 3, 4 and 5 were fairly close together but a little tricky to find in the undulating terrain north of Wrynose Pass. Good navigation got us safely through and then there was a very long leg back south to find check point 6 at Blind Tarn below Brown Pike. We chose to roughly follow the main ridge towards Dow Crag and a bit of local knowledge of side tracks meant that we wouldn't need to actually climb to the summit of each peak on the way. This proved to be an excellent route as quite a bit of it is runnable and we made rapid progress. The final few check points were easy to find and we were soon crossing the finish point at the mid camp.

The weather had improved during the day and now the sun was out so the mid camp was really quite pleasant and there was just enough breeze to keep the midges off. Got the tent up. Met Steve Moss who was having a paddle in the stream and had a chat. Scoffed my pot noodle. Had a snooze. Ate my cous-cous (Ainsley's Spice Sensation - a fine meal! Actually anything would be considered a fine meal after a pot noodle). Anthony and I were a bit surprised to find out that we were in 9th position after the first day. We assumed that some other fast teams must have struggled to find check points and lost time. After few cups of tea and more chatting, I finally went to bed.

Woke up at 5am to the sound of heavy rain on the tent. This made me want a wee so I eventually had to get up. At least the rain kept the midges off. As we had had such a good race the previous day, we were in the chasing start about 40 minutes behind the leaders. Again, the grotty weather would favour the better navigators so we thought we hade a chance to maintain our race position. Five minutes after setting off however, we were overtaken by the next team behind us but we couldn't let that put us off so we just kept going at our careful, steady pace. This strategy certainly paid off because over the next two hours, we caught up and overtook a few teams who had made a couple of duff route choices and lost time hunting for the check points.

The day two route took us north past Hardknott Pass to a check point at the base of Eskdale Needle and then across the valley to the slopes up to Little Stand. From this the most northerly point on the route, we headed back south on the long way back to the finish at Coniston. The weather improved and we could now see behind us the faster teams we had overtaken begin to catch up again. However we managed to keep up a good pace and some more crafty route choices got us up quickly to the col between Swirl How and Black Sails. From here there were only 3 more check points and it was all down hill except for a deceptive little knoll near the end which nearly finished me off. We hung on though and sprinted (sort of) the last bit down the road to cross the finish line.

There were no times posted yet for our class so we sat down with some food and a brew to watch the other teams finish. Anthony inspected his feet for blisters while I found tick embeded in my leg. What a fine way to spend a Sunday afternoon. The finishing times were eventually put up on the wall and we wandered over hoping that we had done well. YES!!! - we were still 9th! That's it. I've finally got a top 10 finish. I don't need to compete in another race ever again. Hang on though, I've already posted my entry fee off to do the OMM in October. Oh well, one more mountain marathon shouldn't kill me.

Northern T & F League Match 3

Yesterday, in glorious sunny conditions at Leeds Carnegie, Spen finished a respectable joint second in the penultimate league match of the year. There was some good performances from many of the athletes who appeared. Top scorers of the day were yet again our throwers with Richard Martin & Carly Beanland scoring a hat trick of 1st "A" string wins. Richard had competed in Bournemouth only the day before and had travelled up from his new base in Bedfordshire to compete, so many thanks to him. Our sprinters too scored valuable points: Chris Ward winning both "B" string sprints & Steve McNamara easily winning the 200m "A"- he would give Josh a good run for his money in the 200 now! Good to see my (occasional) training partners Tony Bradford running well and winning the "B" 5000m but eclipsed by Kevin "the race machine" Ogden who ran under 17 minutes (for the first time on the track in sweltering conditions). Amy Sharrad too ran well, winning the "A" 800m after belting through the first lap in sub 64 seconds. In fact looking through the results there were many fine performances: Becky, Sheila, Ryan's P.B., Carl, Dave in the steeplchase, Stef & Sarah in the javelin, Sarah in the middle distance events, and I wasn't too bad either for an old-timer but only if I could have got the damn baton to Chris within the marked lines for the relay!! Easily won by Spen (in a time which would have been an Icelandic womens national record!) only to be disqualified at the end.

However despite all this positivity, we are once again not fielding a full team. Analysing the results show that Rossendale-the eventual winners, fielded athletes in EVERY event bar the "B" string 3000m for woman. Yet Spen beat them 35 events to 32 and that is with even relay disqualification. For the final event at Cleckheaton (Sunday 2 August) we must have every race, jump and throw covered in order to win the match. Without that, all the good efforts by the above, fall by the wayside.

Running and weight loss

As an experiment today I weighed myself before and after I went for my long run. It was an 11 mile run and the temperature was probably in the low 20s. I lost 5 lbs and 10 ozs. My first thought was that this was all due to sweating in which case it equates to 4.5 pints of water if my maths is correct.

I then thought that this might be a too simplistic way to look at this. I seem to remember reading somewhere that, on average, about 100 calories are burnt for every mile covered so I should have burnt about 1100 calories. Presumably most of this was glycogen. How much does 1100 calories of glycogen weigh? I lost some salt as well but surely this will only have been a few grams? Anything else?

If I did lose something like 4.5 pints of water I then wondered what was the maximum amount of water that I could feasibly or safely lose? I remember when I ran the London Marathon in 1981 I tried taking water on early on and ended up spilling most of it so didn't bother after that (bottled water hadn't been invented then, it all came in cups). It was a hot day so I ran 26 miles without taking any water on. But I was much younger (and dafter) in those days. I also wondered how much others lose. For example how much did Federer lose this afternoon (but he did continually drink between points)? What about Chris on his monster bike ride last week?

Its funny how advice on water intake changes over time. In 1981 I don't remember ever hearing about water even being mentioned. About 10 years ago the vogue seemed to be that you need to drink as much water as possible. A few years ago I think there was some tragedy at the Great North run that may have been caused by taking too much water on and now the advice seems to be not to drink too much?