Pomphrey Hill

It has been a long time since I have written about visiting a different parkrun, purely because I haven't visited any new to me parkruns for ages.  I love a bit of parkrun tourism but I try to resist the temptation to travel miles and miles on a Saturday morning just to visit a parkrun I haven't been to before.  I try to save tourism for if I happen to be somewhere new on a Saturday morning.

Today was such a morning.  Husbando had to be in Bath for a book fair so I looked for a nearby parkrun that I hadn't yet visited.  I'd done Bath Sky Line a couple of times in the past (back in 2014)- it has fantastic views, so plumped for a short drive over to Bristol to visit Pomphrey Hill parkrun.  I was somewhat concerned about the word 'Hill' in the name, more concerned about having to get up at 4.30am at the weekend, but decided to give it a go.

What a great parkrun it is!  I don't normally like three lap courses, but this one is so varied and is twisty turny enough to maintain interest.  The hill is short and sharp, but compensated for by plenty of gentle downhills.  The finish is on an uphill slope - which makes a sprint finish that bit more challenging.  The start and finish area is right next to a sports pavilion - so loos are really convenient. Teas, coffees, flap jacks and bacon rolls are available at the pavilion too.  This meant that there were loads of people hanging around after they had finished their run to support the other runners.

I was very grateful of the support today.  About three quarters of a mile into the run my calf really started to hurt.  Not the sort of dull ache I've had over the last few days but a really painful, tear inducing type of hurt!  I walked for a bit, I considered not finishing the run - but when was I going to get back down to Bristol to run here again?  I shuffled around the second two laps.  The marshals were very supportive - mostly with lovely west country accents.  I managed to put on a bit of pace as I approached the finish - and then could barely walk through the finish funnel!  I got my barcode scanned and chatted with a few people, bought a drink, signed the visitor book (what a lovely idea - I had a leaf through it and saw messages from people I know) before heading back to Bath.

Huge thanks to all the volunteers and the regular runners who made me feel so welcome.

I am going to have to get my legs sorted out.  Luckily it is half term, so hopefully I can get to see my wonderful chiropracter and sports physiotherapist.  So pain and marking is what I have to look forward to this week!  Happy half term everyone!

Royal Parks Half

This race defies my law of threes.  In general I have found that revisiting any race for a third time greatly reduces my enjoyment of the event.  This has happened at several races - I won't name them here as it isn't the race organisers' fault it is just one of those things.  But the Royal Parks Half defies this rule.  I've run it every year since it was my first half marathon back in 2011 and have loved it every year.

This year I was approaching it with trepidation.  I have something wrong with my leg.  I'm not sure what.  It just fails to work properly sometimes, normally after I have been sitting down for a while.  The other evening I stood up and could not walk across the sitting room - I think it may be a trapped nerve and I will need to get it sorted at some point soon.  This, added to my general lack of fitness, meant that I didn't hold out much hope for this race.  But deferrals aren't possible and the ballot is quite hard to get into so I thought that I might as well pitch up.  And it was the 10th anniversary of this race.

So, up early to get a lift into London with Husbando.  We left the house at 4.45am, which left plenty of time for a second breakfast when we got into London, plenty of time for pre race faffing around before heading to Hyde Park.  This race has grown a lot since I first ran it and there were long queues for loos and the baggage drop, but I had loads of time.  I had enough time to buy a packet of Shot Blocks to replace the ones I'd left on the kitchen table.  I was looking around for familiar faces.  I didn't see anyone I knew - which is quite unusual!  I didn't even spot the one person I knew who was running the race.

I made my way to my starting pen with a target of 2hrs in my mind.  Scarily near the front.  Just the super fast runners in the tiny pen in front of us.  This may not have been the wisest idea in terms of race strategy - but there wasn't much I could really do about that!  We set off a couple of minutes after 9am - just as the Sun decided to poke out from the clouds.

About 30 seconds later I needed the loo!  I tried to convince myself that it was psychological - because I never need to pee during races - and ran past the first set of loos.  By the time I got to Buckingham Palace I knew that I really did need a wee, thankfully there were loos at the Horseguards end of Birdcage walk!  It was a double blessing, because that minute meant I was with slightly slower runners and was not quite so tempted to try to keep pace with them.

The route took us down Whitehall, as we drew level with Downing Street there was a sign saying 'U-turn ahead.'  It is a measure of the youth of all those around me that I had to explain the irony of this! It was a very much younger crowd than I encounter at most races!   And it was a crowd!  It was always busy but most of the runners were good natured and there was very little jostling.   After a quick jog around the Alwych, Trafalgar Square and up Pall Mall we were back in Hyde Park.  The wall of noise here was phenomenal!  This is always a well supported section of the race, but it was even louder than normal, and the support in the park was much better than in previous years where there has been a dead zone around the 11 mile point.  The support more than mitigated the aggravation caused by people trying to cross the path of the runners with toddlers, buggies, dogs etc.

If I wanted to hit my 2hr target I had to run 9 minute miles.  I was doing that. In fact I was doing a bit better than that, but my goodness it was really hard work.  I haven't run many races entirely on 'road' for a long time, and my undertrained legs really felt the impact.  I think I worked harder for this race than I have in any race in a very long time.  The course is pretty flat, but there were a few welcome downhills, which means there must have been corresponding uphills but I didn't notice those!  Unusually for me I ran pretty consistently - and was overtaking people in the second half who had over taken me in the early stages.  Nevertheless,  I was really glad to turn the final corner and run past the Albert Memorial towards the finish line.

My finish time is over 10 minutes slower than my PB, but I don't think my legs could have taken me any faster today.  My Garmin tells me that my recovery time is 67hours!  I started this recovery after I had collected my bag from the bag tent... I was waiting for a friend who had started in a later pen, so I took advantage of the sunny weather, plonked my back pack on the ground to use as a pillow and had a snooze in the sunshine before we met up for a well earned lunch and a glass of wine.   The lovely waiter gave us free coffees!

I've already registered my interest for next year's race....

Too much trail for road shoes, too much road for trail shoes!

We had nothing booked this weekend.  I'd like to say it was because I am taking the taper for the Royal Parks Half seriously but in reality it is because I just hadn't got around to thinking about races for the autumn!  Part way through last week a friend told me that Basingstoke Half Marathon was on today and that it was possible to sign up on the day.  I was tempted.  But, getting there and back again would be a pain (they close the road from our house to Basingstoke) and the route is reputed to be very hilly (853ft of elevation in 13.1 miles).  I also know that the minute you stick a race number on my shirt I tend to get a bit competitive - especially if it is a road race.   I could happily run my 1hr 31 min training run on my own.

And then... I saw on Facebook that the Alton 10k Downland Challenge was on today.   Again, we could enter on the day and the start line was a 10 minute drive from our front door.  OK, so it was only 10k, and I needed to run for an hour and a half, but that meant I could just carry on after the finish.  Husbando was up for it too, as were several people we know from the children's school.

We left the house at 9.40am for a race that started at 10.30am - bliss!  Parking was easy and well signposted, signing up for the race was hassle free and we got to watch the children's races while we were waiting to start our race.  The Mayor blew the horn to start the race on the dot of 10.30 and we were off, across the park and then onto the pavement for the first 2k through Holybourne before turning off onto tracks across the Bonham Estate.  A lot of these tracks were tarmac - which was hard going in trail shoes, a steady drag up to 2 miles followed by a brief respite of gentle downhill slopes.  We were then off the roads and onto the trails, the muddy trails!

I do love a bit of trail running, and was just thinking 'It has been a long time since I've fallen over while running down muddy hills!' when I did just that!  No serious damage was done - just rather a lot of mud and a rather more cautious approach for the rest of the race, which was probably just as well - I'd gone off a bit faster than I'd wanted to at the start and needed to be a bit mindful of the extra time I'd need to run after the race.

At about 8km we were back on the road again, I had no goal for this race because I hadn't done any research into how hilly/muddy it would be, but at this point I realised that I'd have to get my skates on if I wanted to finish in under an hour.  I picked up my pace a little and started picking off runners.  The last section of the race was one of those soul destroying circuits of a park (Anstey Park) where you can see the finish line but you have to run all the way around the park, past all the children playing rugby, over long, muddy grass (and I am always watchful for doggy land mines!) until, eventually, you get to the finish.  I overtook 5 or 6 people in the park, I was on a mission for my sub 60!  I made it, just, crossing the line in 59:56!

A brief stop to drink some water, collect my medal and goodie bag (a lovely 'Alton Runners' buff and some vouchers that are actually useful!) and then I was off for another 30 minutes of running around Alton.  You can see the video of the run here - I quite like these 'Relive' videos as it helps me to work out where I have actually been!

The race was well organised, low key and enjoyable.  A lovely opportunity to run on land that is normally not open to the public.  The hills were challenging - I may have found the Basingstoke Half less taxing as at least they were on roads!  In 6.2 miles we clocked up 538 ft of elevation gain, that's 94ft for every mile as opposed to 65ft for every mile at Basingstoke - which makes a bit of a nonsense of me choosing to do an 'easier' route!  Still I am glad to have supported a local race and it was great to bump into some friends I haven't seen for a wee while.

Next Sunday is the Royal Parks Half Marathon.  The only race I have done repeatedly and still enjoyed it as much each time as the first time.  It is where I have my half marathon PB (1hr 43mins), that PB is not under threat this year!  I've been lucky enough to get a ballot place for the last 2 years, the race is massively oversubscribed, not quite on a London Marathon scale but not far off and, while charity places are always available, it is lovely to be able to just turn up and run without having to struggle to get sponsorship.