Race after race after race ....

I’m currently in an interesting period of the year.

World Cup 2006 is over, Fulham’s relegation season yet to start.
Maths project handed in, results (if I haven’t got a *:* I’ll be puzzled and annoyed in equal measures) not out for a couple of weeks
Maths teaching nicely fizzled out
Holidays (three weeks in August) very soon

AND

No more races until October but it’s a biggie (8.2 miles or 13.1k) so I’ll have to start training properly and soon

As Becky pointed out I’ve done a lot more races than actual training recently for one reason or another which probably isn’t good for a slightly overweight 5th decader like myself. Let me rewind quickly to approximately 9 days ago:

The British 10k

If it was cheaper, chipped and there was more water both en route and at the end I’d definitely do it again. The route was excellent taking in Piccadilly, Pall Mall, Embankment, Blackfriars, Westminster Bridge and Whitehall. Due to sheer number of runners it took me about 35 minutes to get through the start line (next to Hard Rock Café) on a very hot day, at least as hot as the Capital run, so some of the promised water stations were empty. Luckily I carried water with me or else it could have been dangerous, especially the complete absence of fluids at the end of the race.

From a personal point of view I finished in a slightly quicker time than the last run (1.18.20 rather than 1.19.00 from memory) although still way slower than what I think I can do. This was achieved without walking (although plodding incredibly slowly for large portions of the race) and being extremely sensible about running in the heat as I knew some were worried about me keeling over.

For a large portion of the race I had a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. The angel sounded a lot like Becky and was saying “Don’t run, there’s no need, take it easy, it’s hot and no-one will think the worse of you if you walk” whilst the devil was saying “Don’t stop, don’t walk, keep running, remember how annoyed you were last time when you walked 2k.”

I think I reached a decent compromise and had there been water waiting at the end it would have been a good, enjoyable race. Actually, no, that wasn’t the only thing – they posted a “400m to go” sign near the finish line. I say near, it was almost a kilometre away. Very annoying for those who like to put in a bit of a spring towards the finish line. Luckily it didn’t affect me in any way whatsoever!

Two other slightly disconcerting things were
– lack of ipod. It’s ok when there’s a crowd geeing you on but on the many quiet bits of the race I could have definitely used some stirring music
– people calling me ‘fatman’. OK so most people shouted “come on John” as I had my name on my t-shirt but because I was wearing my fatmanwalking.com t-shirt (for the very last time I might add) people were shouting “Come on fatman”. Not an ideal situation.

4 days rest later and due to my over eager planning, Thursday was the day for the 4 man GSK team to run the JP Morgan Chase corporate challenge or something similar. Except it wasn’t. Due to half-year end it was only Tim and I who set foot towards Battersea Park.

Apart from someone ‘accidentally’ knocking over my half-pint of Pimms ir was an immensely enjoyable evening. OK, we could have done with some of the corporate hospitality being handed out by some of the bigger teams being diverted our way but I managed to make do with about 6 bottles of water, a banana and 3 t-shirts. Easily pleased, that’s me.

The race itself was very, very crowded so unless you were right at the start you were unlikely to get anywhere near your personal best. It was 5.6km (3.5 miles) which was a very pleasant, doable distance although I’m beginning to get a bit of an issue with walkers. Not only do they get in your way (can’t they go to one side) but also, as I may have mentioned a couple of hundred times before, put the following thought in your head – “Go on, you can walk, they are”. The only other gripe with this run is that the route snaked by (and practically caressed) the finish line whilst still being about a kilometre from the actual finish. You could hear people being congratulated over the tannoy AND EVERYTHING. Cruel.

I wanted to do the race in under 40 minutes (did it by 5 seconds) and Tim completed in well under 30 minutes.

Next run is this 8.2mile Kingston October race – EEEEK – so I’m going to take a step back and train specifically for this race and no other. I’ve got 3 months to do it in so I should be ok. I think. This week consists of outdoor runs, treadmill sessions, weight training session and a work footy session.

Onwards and upwards