Dulwich branch 020 8613 6060 dulwich@upandrunning.co.uk
Friday, July 16, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
A Belter of an Adventure....
Fancy something with a bit more muck and water?
GreenBelter
Saturday 4th September 2010
Check out the website for a picture of me competing in the previous race!!
Sadly we won't be going (still wedding season) but it comes highly recommended, especially as it's shorter than the one we did!
GreenBelter
Saturday 4th September 2010
Check out the website for a picture of me competing in the previous race!!
Sadly we won't be going (still wedding season) but it comes highly recommended, especially as it's shorter than the one we did!
The City Race - London Urban Orienteering
Fancy getting a different outlook on London with a bit of a mental challenge? This is the race for you:
http://www.cityrace.org/
Saturday 18th September 2010
Normally orienteering involves forests and moorland in remote areas of the UK. Not any more! "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed" and all that. This is a race in, out, up, down and through the streets and alleys of central London, finding places you never knew existed!
No experience necessary - I'll be there to give tips and advice (if it is your first go you may wish to pair up with someone else)! Give it a go - you'll enjoy it!
http://www.cityrace.org/
Saturday 18th September 2010
Normally orienteering involves forests and moorland in remote areas of the UK. Not any more! "If the mountain won't come to Mohammed" and all that. This is a race in, out, up, down and through the streets and alleys of central London, finding places you never knew existed!
No experience necessary - I'll be there to give tips and advice (if it is your first go you may wish to pair up with someone else)! Give it a go - you'll enjoy it!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Like Speed, but not.
I tend to pick the bigger races because they usually have a greater range of ability and I am scared of coming last in the smaller races. Lining up at the start at Hyde Park Corner, I realised that even by my strict standards, this race was big. In fact, I suspect that by the time that I reached the start, the elite racers had already finished.
When I finally got to it, I messed up my start a bit. I recently got one of those Garmin things. I wanted to see if this would help me to maintain some sort of pace in the race. It’s helped me a bit with this when I’ve gone out on my own. This might have worked if I had actually managed to hit the timer button at the start. I realised that I hadn’t about half a km in. It was on though and was telling me how fast I was going. Never mind, I thought, I’ll just try and maintain this thoughout. It’ll be a bit like the movie Speed, only ever so slightly less glam and without Keanu Reeves.....
It went quite well for the first few kms. Then we got to the river. The pace I’d set at the start was optimistic. I was disheartened when it dropped. The people coming the other way on the other side of the road who were further along than me weren’t helping my psyche either.
There were a few tunnels in the race. It is amazing how many people started walking in the tunnels where there were no spectators. Going at the pace that I do,I often end up with a lot of walkers in races and it is so tempting to join them when things aren’t going so well. In the half marathons I did earlier in the year, I managed to keep on slogging and jogging for the whole course. Today that didn’t happen and so I walked for a bit.
The other thing that seemed to slow people down was the water stations. I have seen water stations cause bottlenecks in races before. However, in this race each water station I reached had run out of water and this seemed to lead people to slow down, walk and sometime even (quite grimly) stop to see if any of the discarded bottles still had water in them. Having spent the first part of the race getting annoyed with my own water bottle, I suddenly became very grateful that I’d decided to carry it. I may not have been having the best of races, but I wasn’t at the back and so a lot of people won’t have got water.
The race was not my finest hour (and a bit). It involved walking and jogging and I was annoyed by the walking. However, I now have my chip time and, while slow, it actually isn’t as bad as I had thought while I was struggling. So onwards and upwards and next time I might even remember to switch the stopwatch on.
When I finally got to it, I messed up my start a bit. I recently got one of those Garmin things. I wanted to see if this would help me to maintain some sort of pace in the race. It’s helped me a bit with this when I’ve gone out on my own. This might have worked if I had actually managed to hit the timer button at the start. I realised that I hadn’t about half a km in. It was on though and was telling me how fast I was going. Never mind, I thought, I’ll just try and maintain this thoughout. It’ll be a bit like the movie Speed, only ever so slightly less glam and without Keanu Reeves.....
It went quite well for the first few kms. Then we got to the river. The pace I’d set at the start was optimistic. I was disheartened when it dropped. The people coming the other way on the other side of the road who were further along than me weren’t helping my psyche either.
There were a few tunnels in the race. It is amazing how many people started walking in the tunnels where there were no spectators. Going at the pace that I do,I often end up with a lot of walkers in races and it is so tempting to join them when things aren’t going so well. In the half marathons I did earlier in the year, I managed to keep on slogging and jogging for the whole course. Today that didn’t happen and so I walked for a bit.
The other thing that seemed to slow people down was the water stations. I have seen water stations cause bottlenecks in races before. However, in this race each water station I reached had run out of water and this seemed to lead people to slow down, walk and sometime even (quite grimly) stop to see if any of the discarded bottles still had water in them. Having spent the first part of the race getting annoyed with my own water bottle, I suddenly became very grateful that I’d decided to carry it. I may not have been having the best of races, but I wasn’t at the back and so a lot of people won’t have got water.
The race was not my finest hour (and a bit). It involved walking and jogging and I was annoyed by the walking. However, I now have my chip time and, while slow, it actually isn’t as bad as I had thought while I was struggling. So onwards and upwards and next time I might even remember to switch the stopwatch on.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Injury frustration
I'm feeling frustrated, the weather is glorious and rather than being able to make the most of it and partake in sunny evening training sessions, I'm struggling to walk the 200m to the bus stop. I got knocked off my bike a few days ago and had to have stitches in my knee, I'm ok and it could have been a lot worse. I keep hoping each morning when I wake up my leg will miracously feel better!
The injury does mean I will miss out on competing against colleagues and trying to defend my title as the fastest runner in my company! Oh well, I'll just have to try even harder next year.
So if you don't see me for a while you now know why. Good luck to anyone who is competing in the next few weeks.
Krysia
The injury does mean I will miss out on competing against colleagues and trying to defend my title as the fastest runner in my company! Oh well, I'll just have to try even harder next year.
So if you don't see me for a while you now know why. Good luck to anyone who is competing in the next few weeks.
Krysia
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Krysia kills Martin at the Green Belter!
I have just regained the use of my fingers - the rest of my body is still to recover from yesterdays "Green Belter".
4hr10mins of running, biking and kayaking - oh and some "challenges" thrown in for good measure.
Sold to me as practice for the Rat Race in September I perhaps underestimated the adventures ahead of us....
3k run, 8k bike, 11k run, 22k bike (including kayaking) followed by an inflatable obstacle (think "it's a knockout" or "total wipeout")
It was my style of running - being back in the muddy forests reminded me of Orienteering. However, the biking was lots of twisting single-track mayhem - not necessarily my cup of tea and not really suited to Krysia's hybrid bike!
Never-the-less the day of new challenges (wading through waist-high muddy water - 2nd time round carrying the bikes!), finding out how (un)fit I am, getting over jet lag (in Krysia's case) and getting covered in mud was good fun!
4hr10mins of running, biking and kayaking - oh and some "challenges" thrown in for good measure.
Sold to me as practice for the Rat Race in September I perhaps underestimated the adventures ahead of us....
3k run, 8k bike, 11k run, 22k bike (including kayaking) followed by an inflatable obstacle (think "it's a knockout" or "total wipeout")
It was my style of running - being back in the muddy forests reminded me of Orienteering. However, the biking was lots of twisting single-track mayhem - not necessarily my cup of tea and not really suited to Krysia's hybrid bike!
Never-the-less the day of new challenges (wading through waist-high muddy water - 2nd time round carrying the bikes!), finding out how (un)fit I am, getting over jet lag (in Krysia's case) and getting covered in mud was good fun!
Southend Half Marathon 2010
Funny old game, this running.
My expectations for this race were very low, having had a sluggish few weeks after the VLM, and falling prone to niggles various. Also, I did it last year and wasn't looking forward to the repetitive "up and down the front four times" course.
Still, as a relative new boy to the club, I find that races keep me training, so I had my day at the seaside.
The course is very flat and very boring (up and down, up and down) but it's well managed, with friendly marshals, plenty of water and sponges (ah! the sponges!) as well as the lure of a fine Rossi '99 ice cream at the finish. Lots of club running vests, but also plenty of locals running for the Havens Hospices, who organise the event.
I set off hoping to cling to an 8 minute/mile pace, and was surprised to find it wasn't as tough as I thought it might be. Those speed sessions on a Thursday night really do work, it seems, because I was clocking up enough 7:30s and 7:40s to begin to give me ideas above my station. Maybe I could have a go at my PB, after all (1:40:27 at Hastings in March).
One thing I've learned from the club is that I run faster by training with people who run faster with me. I've spent enough evenings staring at Franks's back, or Krysia's or Fiona's (Mrs Incredible) to have some kind of muscle memory for chasing folk down. And when I run, I count backwards from a hundred.
I know.
Over and over again.
"One hundred, Ninety-nine," etc etc over and over ad infinitum. I'm a great conversationalist, though, honestly.
Anyway, today I put the two together and imagined a digital clock on the back of the runner in front of me. It cut out the negative thinking - Can we just stop please? Isn't this a bit silly? - and helped me forget about worrying injuries into being where none existed.
It worked, because the boring 8,9,10 miles, back along the front for the fourth time, kept me in with a chance of sub 1:45.
I can probably thank England goalie Robert Green for my result, as there must have been plenty of unused adrenaline in my system after watching his USA whoopsy last night. The field was about 1500 and I came in 350th, at 1:41:37; only a minute outside my PB. Not too shabby, as this morning, I'd have been happy with anything under two hours.
As I say, a funny old game.
My expectations for this race were very low, having had a sluggish few weeks after the VLM, and falling prone to niggles various. Also, I did it last year and wasn't looking forward to the repetitive "up and down the front four times" course.
Still, as a relative new boy to the club, I find that races keep me training, so I had my day at the seaside.
The course is very flat and very boring (up and down, up and down) but it's well managed, with friendly marshals, plenty of water and sponges (ah! the sponges!) as well as the lure of a fine Rossi '99 ice cream at the finish. Lots of club running vests, but also plenty of locals running for the Havens Hospices, who organise the event.
I set off hoping to cling to an 8 minute/mile pace, and was surprised to find it wasn't as tough as I thought it might be. Those speed sessions on a Thursday night really do work, it seems, because I was clocking up enough 7:30s and 7:40s to begin to give me ideas above my station. Maybe I could have a go at my PB, after all (1:40:27 at Hastings in March).
One thing I've learned from the club is that I run faster by training with people who run faster with me. I've spent enough evenings staring at Franks's back, or Krysia's or Fiona's (Mrs Incredible) to have some kind of muscle memory for chasing folk down. And when I run, I count backwards from a hundred.
I know.
Over and over again.
"One hundred, Ninety-nine," etc etc over and over ad infinitum. I'm a great conversationalist, though, honestly.
Anyway, today I put the two together and imagined a digital clock on the back of the runner in front of me. It cut out the negative thinking - Can we just stop please? Isn't this a bit silly? - and helped me forget about worrying injuries into being where none existed.
It worked, because the boring 8,9,10 miles, back along the front for the fourth time, kept me in with a chance of sub 1:45.
I can probably thank England goalie Robert Green for my result, as there must have been plenty of unused adrenaline in my system after watching his USA whoopsy last night. The field was about 1500 and I came in 350th, at 1:41:37; only a minute outside my PB. Not too shabby, as this morning, I'd have been happy with anything under two hours.
As I say, a funny old game.
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