Endure24 2018 - A Festival for Runners! (Including Highlights Video)

Endure24 is a running event which until a month or so ago I’d heard only the odd comment about or seen on someone’s Strava feed. I had little idea of what the event was about. When I joined the Alton Sports Ambassadors program recently I was invited to an Alton Sports/Mizuno preview day at Wasing Park, near Reading, the site of the Southern leg of Endure24 (there’s a Northern edition at Bramham Park in Leeds at the end of June). We got to try out some Mizuno trail shoes and take them for a run around the race course, guided by Graham Johnson, Marketing Manager for Mizuno UK. During the course of the day Graham introduced us to the overall layout and format of Endure24. The event is a 24-hour team (or solo) race on an 8k off-road loop, with the aim to complete as many laps as possible between 12pm Saturday and 12pm Sunday on the race weekend. Teams range in size from 2 up to 8, either male, female or mixed. The course is a mixture of (a bit) tarmac, forest tracks and single-track (some a bit twisty and technical through the woods). The whole event is structured a bit like a music festival, in fact it touts itself as a ‘Glastonbury for Runners’, with fields full of runners tents surrounding the central race village. The race village has food, drink, entertainment and shops, as well as a giant fire pit for keeping warm at night! During the trip up to Wasing Park, Graham very kindly offered me a place on one of Mizuno’s three teams at this year’s event, so I got to give it a go myself…

The original plan had been to go with the whole family up to Wasing Park and camp together overnight on the Friday, but due to my youngest daughter have a suspected chicken pox outbreak it ended up just being me and my son Cameron who went. This turned out to probably not be bad thing as our campsite for the weekend was right next to the race village which was very noisy with the Friday night party in full swing. However, this being a running event, the DJ shut-down at 11pm prompt so that everyone could get the chance of a decent night’s sleep ahead of the race the next day. The upside of our camping location was that the race course went right past the front of the tent so we were immersed in the race for the whole weekend! 

Team Mizuno camp for the weekend

On arrival on Friday a couple of hours was spent putting our ridiculously big tent up (a mission on your own!) and getting all the kit stashed inside. I picked up some nice running kit from Mizuno for the race, including a pair of Wave Hayate 4 trail shoes which according to Mizuno are “Designed and built to give you both performance and explosive pace. The low-slung, aggressive lightweight trail shoe doesn’t compromise on grip or protection. The Michelin outsole gives you incredible grip uphill and swift movement for technical downhill runs” I’d never run in these shoes before, but had got on well with the Wave Mujin 4 shoes at the course preview day. Putting them on and wearing for a few hours told me that they would be fine for at least my first lap. As it turned out they were excellent and I wore them for all of my time out on the course with zero problems and plenty of grip on the loose surfaces. 

The race village (Friday evening)

Saturday morning dawned and it was time to start prepping for the race. You need to be a bit careful about what you eat and when over the weekend. It’s very important to keep fuelled up, but care is required to make sure you don’t end up going out for a lap shortly after consuming a bacon roll or the like! I made up porridge at our tent a good 3-4hours pre-race to ensure it was well digested by the time the race kicked off. Our teams were still in a slight state of flux up to an hour before things kicked off and we held a team briefing at 11am to confirm who was running with who and it what order! I had been given the lead-out position in team ‘Hayate’ running with Toby, Scott, Simon (all from Alton Sports), Tim, Rhys (both from Silva UK), Rob and Hannah (both from Mizuno UK). By this point the sun was out and warming things up rapidly so I opted for a light weight vest for lap number 1. Lining up on the start line, the DJ was pumping out Fat Boy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now” and it was amping the field up nicely! Following the pre-run brief by the RD the gun was fired on the stroke of noon and we were off. 

The start line

Ready to go on the line!

The golden rule of Endure is to not run your first lap like a race, but it felt like one for the first 400m or so, the spectators (50/50 runners and supporters) were great and they carried the field down the finish straight and left up the road towards the trees. The course has 2 decent length hills, the first being less than ½ mile from the start, it soon brought the pace down. After only a mile or so I was joined by City of Salisbury runner (and Salisbury 10 Race Director) Stuart Holloway and we fell into a similar pace. Stuart was running in a team of 5, so definitely didn’t want to over-cook his opener. We ran round the rest of the lap together having a natter which kept the lid on our pace. Coming back into the race village we looped around the back of the solo/pairs camping area and our own camp site before closing the finish line and spotting the next team mate (Toby) to hand over the red wristband to. Lap 1 came in at 31:12 (6:25/M), given the amount of effort required for this I was hopeful that I’d be able to do the rest of my laps at a similar sort of pace.

As I was part of a team of 8 I then had around 4 ½ hours before my next lap was due, so I got some food and chilled out with Milly and the kids (Chickenpox scare turned out to be false so she came up with Isabelle before the start on Saturday morning). There was a nice kid’s activity area hosted by ‘Living Paintings’ a charity which published ‘touch to see’ books for blind children. There was also a couple of story time reading sessions in the big Mizuno marquee, so there was plenty for little ones to do. 

The family heading home mid-afternoon and I got ready for lap 2. At 4:30 I picked up the team wristband from Simon and set off on the course. My legs were a little cranky to start with but soon got going, it was still very warm, with the trees blocking any of the cooling breeze felt out in the open of the race village. Lap 2 was straight forward as I started to learn the terrain, although the second big hill of the loop (aka ‘Heartbreak’) was a lot tougher this time round and really sapped my pace. Lap 2 was pretty much the same as lap 1 time-wise in 31:07 and I finished feeling like I could manage a few more! 



Back at Alton Sports base camp in the Race Village I grabbed a pasta and bolognaise for dinner and hatched an over-night plan. We swapped Toby’s c.1:30am lap for my c.5:30am one, so I would do a double in the middle of the night but could then get to bed, have a longer rest and not have to lever myself out of bed quite so early Sunday morning.

Start/finish straight & wirstband handover area

By the time my 3^rd lap came around at around 9:00pm it was well on the way to getting dark and runner lights were mandatory after 8pm. I’d brought a variety of head torches (and the odd MTB light) with me, all of which I’ve run with at some point in the past and hadn’t made up my mind which one to take out for my first dark lap. As it turns out I didn’t need to worry about choosing as Tim Young from Silva UK kindly offered me the use of one of their Trail Speed 3 headlights, which, at a maximum output of 800 lumens, massively outstripped the power of any of my lights! The only downside of the light was the chunky battery on the back, but the addition of an over-top strap and a back to front running cap made it secure enough to run with at speed. 

To start with I didn’t need the light on anything other than LOW mode as I ran up the tarmac of the first hill, but once on the dirt track and under trees I needed a bit more light so flicked it on to the twin LED FLOOD mode. The track lit up like I was driving in a rally car! This was a serious light…I alternated the power setting from LOW to FLOOD/MAX depending on the technicality of the terrain, the brightest setting was also handy to let slower runners I was coming up behind them, it was definitely more polite than shouting! By the end of the lap I was convinced this was the light I’d need later on when it got really dark…. Lap 3 wasn’t quite my fastest (31:3x), but it was definitely the best feeling so far, probably helped by the dropping temperature now the sun had set.



 Despite everyone’s natural assumption that their lap times would slow down as the event went on, we actually kept quite close to the predicted timings. The trick was to go find the next runner after you’d come in from a lap and handed over so that they had the heads up that they would need to be ready to get out on the course in the next 30-40mins. Between lap 3 and starting 4+5 I kept the food intake simple with a pot of instant noodles and a banana back in my tent. I also donned a couple of layers as it was starting to feel chilly (the noodles helped warm me up too). Despite it now been dark the temperature was still muggy for my third lap and I came back in really damp with sweat, so the big fire bowl in the middle of the race village came in very handy to dry my vest out! With most of the course being in dense woodland the temperature while running was still very reasonable, so I wanted to stick with my Mizuno vest which had been very comfortable and cool for the laps so far.

 At 1:28am Simon came back in to hand over for my ‘graveyard shift’ double lap. Now the Silva Trail Speed 3 light really came into its own, giving me the confidence to keep the pace up. Lap 4 was ok but slower than the previous three, Heartbreak Hill was definitely tough going this time round and it was tricky picking out the tree roots through the twisty single-track of the ‘Fairy Woods’. If lap 4 was an effort, lap 5 was a borderline slog, my legs were starting to go and I stumbled a few times on the looser sections. Two lots of ‘HB Hill’ in short order really sapped my legs and I struggled to rally them for the last mile and a half back to the finish. I got round the two laps in just under 1hr 6mins and was very glad to get back in to the finish and hand over to Tim. 



I rewarded myself for the late night efforts with a large slices of Rocky Road & Carrot Cake from the 24hour catering tent. A quick check of the live results table showed us as 5^th large mixed team and then I bid Scott from Alton Sports goodnight (he was due out after Tim) and headed back to our camp. I gave Hannah (who was due out after Scott) a shout to make sure she was awake, made her a coffee to keep awake while running(!) and then got my head down just after 3:30am to the gentle sound of feet running on grass past the tent with the first glimmers of dawn on the horizon.

I was awake again just after seven, I’ve never been much good at lie-ins in tents! It was a greyish morning with a little mist in the air. Although I was not down to run until later in the morning (having skipped my early am lap in the rota) I was cautious with eating in case I had to get out earlier than expected. So I just had a couple of bananas and a good strong coffee while simultaneously watching runners finishing their laps and the Comrades Ultra marathon streaming live from South Africa. 

Breakfast+Comrades+Runner Spectating!

After doing as much kit/tent packing as possible (I had brought far too much stuff and a very big tent!) I got back over into the race village to check out how things were going. By and large our team was still running to schedule, with only one slight hiccup in the small hours with one runner finishing a lap and having to go hunting for the team member to handover to… A spot of lap schedule tweaking and I was down to run out last and 40^th lap starting about 15mins before the finishing gun at 12pm. We were still in 5^th place and, saving any major slow down/issue, looking likely to stay there. I took over the team armband from Toby at 11:43 and set off to see what my legs were now capable of. It took a few hundred metres for them to get into gear but then they felt pretty good, even going up the first hill! I ticked off a sub 6min mile three (nice stretch just before you hit Heartbreaker) and managed to get the next mile in 6:35, despite the hill. I ran in the last 0.8 of a mile at 6:06/M to clock my fastest lap of the weekend in 30:20.

Overall it was an amazing weekend, the whole event has a wonderful atmosphere. It’s really great for families too, whether just visiting for the day or camping over the weekend. The good weather definitely helped, but even if it hadn’t been I think it would still be a lot of fun (just need to bring lots of running kit). Many thanks to the awesome guys at Alton Sports and Mizuno UK for giving me the opportunity to experience Endure24, we had a great time as a team! Also thank you to Tim Young from Silva for the loan of the rally car like head torch! I’ll definitely be looking to come back for another go next year, I’m tempted by the idea of doing it ‘solo’ and aiming to get into the 100mile (20 lap) club…. 

To finish up on Endure24 2018, here's a little compalation of video clips from the weekend, including an attempt at an 'on-the-run' interview with Stuart Holloway of CoSARC & some of our first lap chit-chat!

May, a Busy Month Post Marathon!....and a Special Annoucement

I've had a busy 6 or so weeks since the fun in the blistering (!) heat of the London Marathon.

Only 10 days after the marathon I was lining up in the New Forest for round #2 of the summer RR10  Hampshire running clubs XC series at Stoney Cross. Usually this is just to chalk up one of the 6 required races to get an overall position in the series, as my legs are still trashed from London. However this year having not gone through the marathon at anything like 100% effort the recovery was a lot swifter. That said I was fully expecting a quickish start (the first mile is all downhill!) followed by a rapid decceleration and hang on for the majority of the 4.5ish miles. My first mile was quick in 5:21 but so were quite a few others, leaving me in around 7-8th place at the bottom of the first of the two big climbs. Miraculously my legs were better going up hill and I had got passed around 3-4 people by the time the top was reached. I think I was in 4th place by this point. I was running with Mike Gregory from Stubbington Green and we had Tom Cully from Southampton in our sights. Mike had the edge over me coming down the hill again through the 3rd mile and we both got past Tom. I thought Mike was away at this point (plus I was still expecting my legs to give up, especially with the slog up the second hill in the last mile!), but I managed to keep reasonably close to him and coming up the final climb I wound him in and got past. I was sure he would reciprocate the move once we got on the flat(ish) section into the finish, but I'd got a big enough gap to keep 3rd place all the way to the line, despite some tricky boggy bits that needed negotiating. 1st & 2nd place, both from Romsey Roadrunners, were well away in front, but I was really pleased with my best ever RR10 finish position so soon after the marathon!



10 days later on Sunday13th May it was time for my traditional London recovery guaging run, the Lymington RNLI 10k. The normal style is to run a fast first 5km to Keyhaven and then have to slow down as my legs remind me that I ran a hard marathon only a few weeks before. In previous years I've done quie well in the race despite the proximity to London, with a win in 2014, 3rd in 2013 and 5th in 2012. Finish position tends to rely very much on who turns up though... The course is lovely, being multi-terrain including a couple of miles along the Keyhaven & Pennington Marshes seawall.

At the start there wasn't anyone massively quicker than me visible with local runner Adam Jundi and Totton Runner James Dean being the likely competition....

We got through the first 2 miles are a clippy 5:29 pace with myself Adam and James at the front by the time we hit the gravel track on the seawall at Keyhaven harbour. At that point Adam decided to push ahead and my legs couldn't respond, James went after Adam, leaving me in 3rd.

1-2-3 running on the Seawall in the Lymington 10k

Which is how it stayed until we got into the last half mile, then I realised I was slowly creeping up on James and by the time we turned back into Woodside park with around 400m to go I was getting close. After a couple of hundred metres across grass the course pops through a gap in a hedge and into the finishing area. You then have to run up to an oak tree, do a near on 180 degree turn around said tree and then it's less than 100m straight to the finish. Approaching the tree I was really close to James and by taking the 'racing line' (wide in-hit the apex-wide out) I nipped past and into 2nd place. Unfortunately I didn't have enough sprint left in my legs and James squeezed back past to beat me by a second. Still a 34:30 clocking was great for the course and Adam was only 10 seconds in front at the line, so it was a good close race in the end.



Over the first May bank holiday we went on the first of two family camping trips in May, heading down to The Purbecks for a long weekend camping at Norden Farm (great farm based campsite close to Corfe). I got the oppotunity to get in a great 16 mile mostly trail run trhough Corfe to Chapman's Pool on the coast, along the South West Coast Footpath to Kimmeridge Bay and then back inland via corfe again. It wa a stunning day, but fairly warm and with some fun hills to climb, especially on the coast path! I took some video along the way and will hopefully get it uploaded to YouTube soon....

May had another very important event.... Some time in late 2017 Penny Malcolm called a semi-secret meeting of like minded people one evening in The House Martin pub in New Milton. The agenda? How to satisfy the thirst of various small children to run 2km quite early on a Sunday morning! Our children love doing junior parkrun on Sunday mornings, but the closest to us are either at Moors Valley Country Park or Riverside Park in Southampton, both at least a half hour drive away (which makes it an early start, especially with multiple children!). So a plan was hatched to bring junior parkrun to the local area. A proposal document was drawn up suggesting using the Trim Trail at Fawcetts Field recreational ground and send off to New Milton Town Council for consideration. We had more meetings in The House Martin and got in contact with our local parkrun Ambassadors, Malcolm White & Tamsyn Smith, who provided masses of help and guidence. A list of core volunteers and potential Run Directors was put together. We got in contact with New Forest District Council's Jamie Burton (Physical Activity & Partner Manager) who quickly offered for the Council to cover the start up costs, so we had one major hundle cleared early on 😁

At a meeting of the Town Council Amenities committee in January we got the seal of approval to use Fawcetts Field. From then on the parkrun UK HQ new event delivery system swung into action. Fast forward to 12th May and we were stood in Fawcetts Field running a dress rehersal event to check all the plans were good. All went well, so on Sunday 20th May we started the first official New Milton junior parkrun with 62 children completing the 2km 2.5lap course around the Trim Trail. It was a hugely satisfying moment and quite emotional, definitely the best running event I've helped organise and better than breaking the 2:30 marathon mark in 2017!

My son Cameron (in pink) and mate Ollie finishing New Milton junor parkrun #1

By the end of the month I was ready for camping trip number 2! Before that though I had a 3 night work trip to Cologne, Germany. Staying in the city centre there was plenty of miles of Rhine River paths to explore on the run (run tour video coming soon!).

Our second camping trip was for the half-term week staying at Treyarnon Bay Campsite in North Cornwall near Padstow. Weather was pretty good and I got some nice runs in, no focus on mileage/training, just getting out when the chance arose. I did do another nice SW Coast Path run with 12 miles from Treyarnon Bay to Padstow via Constantine Bay, Trevose Head, Harlyn Bay, Trevone Bay and Stepper Point. I video'd bits of the run again but this time in more of a "vlog" style with a bit more talking and reviewing of the Inov8 Parkclaw 275 GTX shoes I was waering as well as a Salomon Advanced Skin 3 ultra vest. Look out for a post with this soon too!

...and one last thing....

I'm really stoked to announce that I'm being invited to join the Alton Sports Ambassador program 😎 The program is designed to celebate local runners and their achievements, For me it means getting to try out bits of new kit, taking part in some interesting events and generally help promote running in the local area. Alton Sports have stores in Alton, Four Marks, Farnham and Eastleigh (very close to my work, so I'm in there a fair bit!), I can highly recommend popping in to see them if you're in the market for any running kit, especially for shoe advice. They are a lovely bunch of people, really enthusiastic and friendly!

As an Ambassador I've already been up to the site of this year's Reading Endure24 event (Alton Sports Blog Post all about it) with Mizuno to preview the course and try out some trail shoes. I'll be running at Endure24 on 9-10th June as part of a Mizuno/Alton Sports team. I’ve heard great things about this event, which is described as the ‘Glastonbury for runners’. The aim is to complete as many 8km laps in 24 hours in teams of 1(!) to 8. With be very tiring I'm sure, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Going for a Run with Alton Sports & Graham from Mizuno UK on the the Endure24 Course at Wasing Park, Reading

Practical testing of the Mizuno Wave Mujin 4 GTX shoe!

After Endure I'll  be running the Serpent Trail 50k race on the South Downs in early July and also have the Salisbury 5-4-3-2-1 50k trail race on the radar. I plan to run both of these events competitively, which means I’ll need to start getting some more time on my feet on the trails of the New Forest and up some decent hills! I'll be planning in an ultra run-to-work (c.27miles) as some point, since the New Forest is so dry at the moment and the mornings are very light.

Of course I'll be continuing to don my New Forest Runners vest and taking part in more of the excellent RR10 club cross country series on Wednesday nights through the summer. However, the focus of the summer is to relax more before potentially building for an autumn marathon, with either the  York or Bournemouth Marathons being options in October....

London Marathon 2018 - Race Day!

Race day started customarily early, in fact thanks to the dawn chorus in the woodland backing on to my brother's house in High Wcombe, it was just before my alarm went off at 5:25am! I'd slept well so was soon awake and up. Everything was laid out and ready to go, so after an early morinng pit stop I was dressed and munch on a couple of pre-made white pitta breads with sliced banana and raspberry jam, a bit more handy than my usual porridge as it didn't require going upstairs to the kitchen and potentially waking up my 9 month niece! Also meant I could continue eating breakfast in the car. It was damp and misty in the early light after a night of heavy thundery rain as I set off in the car for central London.

The well used routine of parking close to the race finish for an easy get away post-race was in use again. The car park is in the shadow of Westminster, a short walk along The Embankment to get the train from Charing Cross to the race start on Blackheath and within a mile of the finish area.

Driving into London Early on Race Morning

I was parked up in plenty of time, before 7am and soon on my way passing the Houses of Parliment and a Big Ben completely shrouded in scaffolding (that's going to spoil a few race photos this year!). The roads were already shut around Westminster for the race, with crews of workers unloading piles of crowd barriers from trucks and fixing on advertising banners. It's quite a surreal experience walking along a realtively quiet road which will be a buzzing marathon course swarming with spectators only a few hours later!

Strolling Along The Embankment to Charing Cross (Mile 25)

I got to Charing Cross Station in time to grab a double expresso and hop on the 07:25, destination Blackheath. The early trains are also a quiet experience, with only a moderate number of other runners getting on there and the intermediate stations. Arriving at Blackheath it was only 10-15min walk to the entrance to the blue start entrance and on to the UKA Club Championships enclosure down near the race start line.

The Train to Blackheath & Walking to the Blue Start Area

By now the sun was well up and with not a cloud in the sky it was already feeling warm. There was not much need for the tights and long sleeve long and jacket I had on. I would have been perfectly ok to be walking round in race kit only at 8am! I headed into the men's changing tent in the Champs start area (upgraded this year with the addition of a thin carpetted floor to sit on instead of just grass!) where I found Bournemouth AC's Ant Clark already reclined on the floor, so settled down for a catch up chat while waiting for others to turn up and fiddling with my race kit (shoe laces, gel belt, gels etc,,,,). 

Before long the tent was filling up with many familar faces to say hi to and swap notes on raining progress and targets for the race. It was now clear that this was likely going to be the hottest London on record, with the temperature nudging towards 20DegC before we'd even got to the start line. This did make pre-race prep easy, not need to stay wrapped up until the last minute or wear old t-shirts or bin bags to try and stay a bit warm! Instead we were standing around in race kit, caps, shades and dowsing water on bare skin to keep as cool as possible. I dropped my bag at the kit truck and got in the toilet queue for a last pit-stop while waiting for the marshalls to let us out on to Shooters Hill Road to loosen up (no need to 'warm up'!). The elite men were out jogging already so it was fun running celebrity spotting, including some all time greats, Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and of course Mo Farah.

We were let out on to the road at about 9:40 and I easy jogged up the 200-300m stretch we had available and picked up to speed coming back the other way twice and that was it, didn't want to get too hot before the start. Then it was a case of lining up behind the wall of marshalls who would lead us around the roundabout on the road and up to the start. I got myself nicely to the front so by the time we were up to the start I was standing just behind Bekele in the elite line-up (you can see my hands up in the air on the BBC coverage when they are doing the elite introductions 😃) During the wait to start I was already damping myself down with water to maximise pre-race cooling.

The start is pretty tense, there's loud music playing, helicopters circling overhead, the public address system going and the general chatter of a pack of keen runners. So knowing we weren't moving anywhere for a few minutes I just shut my eyes and focused on my breathing for 10-20 breath cycles. Despite the hubbub I still found this settled me down and cleared my head ready for the task ahead....

For the last few weeks I had had my sights firmly set on another shot at going under 2hr30 and possibly even sub 2:29/28 for a new PB. If the weather had been more like last year I would have followed a similar plan of just running to the target pace and seeing what happened (without looking at my heart rate). But given the more challenging conditions I opted to keep the heart rate data visible on my Garmin watch and decided to give 2:30 pace a chance up to at least the Cutty Sark at 10km. At that point I'd make a decision on what to do for the rest of the race. My minimum target was to get round in under 2:45 so at least keep my London sub 2:45 streak going (6 years and counting!)

The elite intros over with for the TV cameras, we had an impromptu rendition of the National Anthem from the Coldstream Guards (or similar!) band, due to the Queen starting the race (via video link from Windsor castle), and suddenly we were off. The start is a bit of stampede up the road and despite being right up near the front I was soon running in a big crowd with a lot of people streaming past. I just went with it and after a mile or so things had settled down. I didn't have sight of anyone I knew so just stuck with the effort feeling a bit above reasonably comfortable. I wanted to get going at target pace and not start building up a time deficit on such a warm day, so I made sure I pushed on. Also I tend to find the first couple of miles harder than they should feel (in 2017 that feeling lasted until 11-12 miles!), so I wasn't worried.

I'd set my Garmin up so the automatic mile laps were turned off and the main screen just displayed 'Average Lap Time' and the overall timer. By hitting the lap button each time I passed a mile marker the average lap time figure would give me an accurate reading of my average pace up to and including the last mile completed. I also had a pace band on my other wrist with the timings for each mile for a 2:30 marathon (you can make your own custom band here) which I could use to check against the timing clock displayed at each mile marker or the timer on my GPS watch.

Passing Cutty Sark - Adopted the reverse cap look!

Mile 1 was more or less on target in 5:46 (2:30 pace is 5:44/M). The next few miles sped up as the road got less crowded & we headed down to the river at Woolwich, with the 3rd & 4th in 5:26 & 5:33 respectively. From there to Cutty Sark at 10km things felt ok, wih the pace hovering in the low 5:40s but I could just detect the sensatation of needing to raise the effort to keep on pace, especially on any slight upward gradient. The crowd support was fantastic, with the great weather bringing a lot of people out onto the streets which caused a few enthusiastic pace surges! By mile 9 I could definitely tell that the effort required to maintain 2:30 pace was creeping up already, my heart rate was rising close to overall race average levels (c. 167-168bpm) whenever I tried to push on a bit to maintain the speed. I had been soaking myself with water from the 1st water station at mile 3 and every station since (one a mile or so), but the heat was still having it's effect! It probably didn't help that there wasn't any water stations for the first 3 miles, so my body temperature got a headstart in the battle to keep it down....

Dowsing with water trying to cool down!  (Photo-Manol Dmitrov)

At around 10 miles I was still just about on target for 2:30 but made the decision to back off the effort and get my heart rate down to a more race-long manageable level. It was too early in the race, given the temperatures, to be pushing on in the hope of being able to maintain the pace to the finish. There was a strong possibility that it could go very wrong and end badly! I had two thoughts in my head, one was that having already bagged the sub 2:30 time last year I didn't have huge personal pressure to do it again  and the other was the wise words of TR from the Runners World forum Sub 3 thread that "You can only control the controllables". I decided that in the balance of things I was better off controlling my pace, cooling as much as possible, getting to the pub in a reasonable time and able to still stand and drink a beer!

High-fiving Pickburn Family Support Team

From there on it was a case of moderating the effort and keeping as cool as possible to the finish. Miles 12, 13 and 14 were actually a lot of fun. With the pressure off I could enjoy the athmosphere, passing my loudly cheering family (Wife Milly, son Cameron & my parents, Jill & George) near Bermondsey station, the ever breath-taking crossing of Tower Bridge and along The Highway. I went through halfway in 75:30, which banished any thoughts that a sub 2:30 might still be on the cards and confirmed the plan to get to the finish in one piece.

It was clear that the weather was great for spectators, there was a lot of them and making plenty of noise! There were several moments during the race where it was literally quite overwhleming, Tower Bridge is the obvious place.

Crossing Tower Bridge - Mind Blowing!

I'm still to better the experience of running pretty much solo down the centre of the road, crowds 4 or 5 deep on both sides with a clear view up the River Thames to St Pauls Cathedral and other famous landmarks. It makes me weil up just thinking about it.... Another section with great athmosphere is after you turn off The Highway and onto Narrow Street in Limehouse. The road goes from a broad 4 lane dual carriageway to a narrow(!) street lined with tall waterfront buildings, the crowds aren't as dense as in other places, but the buidlings do seem to amplify the sound they make!

Coming out of Limehouse we hit the start of the Isle of Dogs section. Historically this is my (and many others) least favourite part of the marathon. More more sparse crowds, until you reach Canary Wharf, coupled with the building fatigue in your legs and the thought of over 10 miles left to go, makes it mentally challenging. Although I had backing my effort off I was unsure just how much the temperature was going to effect me, so the mental fight was just a prominate as before. By this point I'd largely stopped paying attention to my mile split times, I had missed pressing the lap split button at a couple mile markers and had to double press at the next marker to keep the Average Lap Time data correct. So I wasn't really sure what kind of pace I was managing to sustain, looking back at the data I was around about 5:50-6:00/mile, but I did know my heart rate in the low 160's. My marathon heart rate from the 2017 race had averaged 168/169, so I was happy that I was keeping the lid on the effort. The next few miles were just a case of keeping going as we headed south through miles 16 & 17, there was a bit of headwind which which was quite nice as it helped manage the temperature a bit more. Mile 18 and 19 felt quite a slog as we came back north into Canary Wharf, but the crowds there are very uplifting and I started to get the sense that I was 'nearly there' with 6-7 miles to go. At this point I was now feeling confident that I was going to be able to maintain a similar sort of pace through to the finish and was starting to pass quite a few other runners. In the second half I was only passed by 5 runners, but passed 57. The effort level wasn't rising, but the discomfort in my legs and feet was, but nothing overly worrying. 

Coming back through Limehouse (round mile 21) a short guy with a beard, white cap and black vest with 'Boutique Marathon' logo on it (#31238 - Marc Lorenzo) caught up with me. We ran the next couple of miles back along The Highway, past The Tower of London and along Embankment, which gave a nice boost on a stretch which is normally a real drag. The crowds aroung the Tower were simply unbelievable, giving me a real emtional moment. The course dips downhill slightly just past the Tower at the mile 24 marker and I practically floated down the road on the noise generated on either side of the road, trying to hold back tears!

It's really interesting to look back and compare the pacing of those who finished in a similar time to me. The Strava website has a neat tool called 'Flyby' where you can play back the track of your run and of anyothers who did the same run and uploaded to the website. Check it out here for this year's marathon. Lets you see who you were running with and when who overtook who!

Strava Flyby View - Find out who was where when in a race!

Once alongside the River Thames, you're in 'One parkrun to go' territory and physiologically on the home straight. Although opinions can vary on this point as Embankment is the scene of many a death march to the finish which can seemingly last a lifetime.... This year not being in total eye-balls-out-mode it was not particularly comfortable but certainly managable for me. Due to the heat quite a few familiar runners had called it quits on anything special tme-wise and were just cruising/jogging into the finish. I felt that I should still do the race some justice and kept my pace consistant in the high 5 minute miles. Also I didn't really want to slow down, in my head I was telling myself that keeping the speed up was cutting the time to reach the pub and a pint! It was definitely one of the more enjoyable trips down Embankment in my runs at London to date, in the sunshine with huge crowd support 😎

The 2nd to Last Turn - Off Embankment
& Into Parliment Square

At mile 25.5(ish) I turned right in front of Big Ben and into Parliment square and it really was a case of 'nearly there'. The run down Birdcage walk towards Bukingham Palace was superb with a beautiful green canopy of newly sprouting tree leaves forming a coolling tunnel to run up as the 800m, 600m, 400m to go signs ticked by going past St James Park. A final right turn by the Victoria Monument and the finish line was in sight, I made a small effort to muster a bit of a sprint finish, but it didn't come to much (although my last 400m or so did register as 5:34/M on my Garmin). I did remember to try to put on a celebratory finish arms out stretched pose across the line, but it ddn't come out very well! Check out the finish line footage in the video below for proof, Also including a few other clips from the BBC coverage of the race, including the start (i'm jumping up and down behind Daniel Wanjiru!)

Post race medal pose with marafuning friend Ryan Snell

My finish time of 2:33:15 wasn't what I'd hoped for in the run-up to the race, but in light of the conditions it was very satisfying (for the record it was my 5th fastest marathon) especially since it got me my highest London finishing position of 53rd, not including the elites. With the benefit of hindsight I think I hit a good balance between energy expended/fatigue/pace. I could have pushed harder and come in maybe a minute or so faster, which would have pushed me up the rankings, but with the penalty of significantly more recovery time required. Since then I've scored my highest ever finish position in an RR10 series XC race with 3rd at Stony Cross 10 days post marathon and a solid 34:30 (3rd again!) at the mutli terrain Lymington 10k threes weeks on and I'm pretty sure continuing with the sub 2:30 attempt would have ended badly (and possibly before the finish line!). 

With Parents Jill & George, God-Mother Lesley & Son Cameron
(photo by Wife, Milly!)

Overall it was a fantastic race and I've extended my streak of sub :245 London's to 7 years. Post race there was a fair amount of hot weather chat in the finish area before walking out to meet my family on Horse Guards Parade. We then heading down Whitehall for the customary pint (or two) of London Pride in the sun outside the Red Lion, catching up with various marathoning friends from the Runner World sub3 forum.

We headed back to the car (thankfully less than half a mile from the pub!) and got on back home. a quick change and shower and we were back out again for a excellent BBQ at our friends Jennine and Tom's place, with the added bonus of a fantastic hot tub to soak the race aches and pains away in, with a beer 😎. Downside was that I had to share the hot-tub with half a doazn kids to start with, but they did get out and let me have a little bit of time to myself!

So that's spring marathoning done for another year. Bit of a strange one with such cold weather for most of the training and then a hot race. I'm confident that the heat adapation training I did in the 10 days leading up to the race (extended hot sauna sessions and overdressed treadmill running) did help me on the day. I'm sure i was in shape, but I would have needed to do it a lot more heat work consistantly over a longer time period to have stood any chance of getting another sub 2:30 time in the race day conditions...

So now it's time for a bit of break from trying for fast times over 26.2 miles. I'm eyeing up an autumn race, with either York or Bournemouth on the cards. Before that I'm planning on getting a couple of trail 50k races in as well as as many of the summer's club RR10 XC races as work/life allows. There'll also be a week (or maybe two) of running on the Cornish South West Coast Path. 

Plus I've also got some exciting news on the near horizon, but that can wait for another day 😉

London Marathon 2018 Part 3 - Spring Training and Race Prep

In a nutshell my spring training for the 2018 London Marathon went a little like this....

Jan
55 miles
61 miles
71 miles
82 miles
Feb
101 miles
71 mile (Wokingham Half Marathon 74:52)
110 miles
90 miles
March
101 miles
101 miles
105 miles
102 miles (inc a windy/wet York parkrun in 17:11)
April
97 miles (inc Salisbury 10 mile race, 6th place in 55:46 & a new PB)
64 miles (inc Poole parkrun in 16:37 for another PB!)
62 miles (Taper week with marathon)

The basic structure of the training was high mileage with a weekly or so 60-70 minute steady run around 80-85% maximum heart rate. I also slotted in a few parkruns as shorter but harder training runs. There should also have been a 20 mile race in early March as I was selected to run for Hampshire in the Inter-counties 20 mile match as part of the Essex 20 race near Southend, but the 'Beast from the East' snow put pay to that race (and many others) and I didn't find an alternative.

Although my time at Wokingham was a little disappointing, it was after only 6 weeks back into regular running post achilles injury rehab, so it might be expected. However by the time I ran Salisbury in April I was confident I was back into sub 2hr 30 marathon shape and raring to go. I also track my heart rate efficiency, the average number of beats per mile of each run, and this number had been progressively dropping from well over a 1000bt/mile in Janurary down to 920-30bt/mile by the start of April. The value estimated by my Garmin watch for my Vo2Max (maximum volume of oxygen my blood can carry) had also risen from 66-67 to 70-71%, A number which I have some trut in as it's matched with accurate lab testing in the past.

Running sub 5:30 miles at the start of the Salisbury race

Then the weather threw another curveball and from up to 10 days out from the London raceday it was looking likely that it was going to get unseasonably warm. I'd not done any adapation work for the possibility of higher temperatures on race day, such as running overdressed (either outdoors or on a treadmill) or extended sauna sessions. So implemented a hasty plan of daily(ish) overdressed treadmill 3-4M runs followed straight away by at least 30 mins in a hot (100C+) sauna. This was not a lot of fun, but may have had it's benefits.....

My London marathon weekend is a well practised routine of Expo visit on Friday afternoon to collect my number (and catch up with the guys from Alton Sports!), then back to my brother's place in High Wycombe for Friday & Saturday night. My last pre-race run was Wycombe Rye parkrun which I usually do moderately hard (feels worse due to the lack of carbohydrates eaten during taper week, largely to get my weight down as much as possible). This year this translated into a 18:08 & first finisher, which was probably a bit exuberent, but not damaging for the following day.

Up the lovely steps halfway through the parkrun!

My brother had come to parkrun too and afterwards we got in a final half hour sauna session in the Lido complex right at the finish to parkrun! I was also testing out one final attempt at dealing with the higher temperatures (forecat now up to 23C) - shaved legs and arms, which felt super nice with a cooling breeze! Then it was just a case of getting the carbs in through the rest of Saturday, get a racing hair cut, prepping race kit and getting to bed (and a bit of playtime with my 9 month old neice!).

Race Day Nutrition Planning (and carb loading!)

2018 Race kit ready to go

London 2018 Part 2 - ....and the rest of 2017

Through a lot of the training build up to the 2017 London marathon I'd been increasingly aware of something not quite right with my left ankle. I had no issues when running, but after I'd been sitting down for a while, when i got up my left achilles would be very tight and painful to walk on for a few yards before freeing up anf feeling normal to walk on again. I realised I was developing a painful region on the tendon which eventually became a noticable lump. As I could still run with relatively little discomfort I continued training. I found that by introducing eccentric/concentric heel drop and raise exercises after each run it helped to reduce the stiffness/discomfort which I was experienceing after rest. My train of thought was that if I could get manage it ok through to the marathon then a decent rest and training reduction after that would hopefully sort it out. The cuouple of months or so post London involved travel for work (to Mexico City!), 2 trips to Cornwall and a week in Scotland, so my running was fairly on/off and whenever I could fit it in. Running in Mexico City was fun, althought the altitute made it hard work and the UK holiday trips gave oppotunities to run in some beautiful places, including the South West Coast Footpath and the West Highlands. the downside to this was the inherent lumpiness of the trails I was running on, which my achilles did not like!

Beautiful Running Scenery in the West Highlands of Scotland

By June I was pretty unfit (due to sporadic running), heavy (post marathon food bingeing) and had an achilles which still did not feel in good shape! I'd knocked the running volume back and was enjoying getting out on my bike, in the pool and open water swimming at Ellingham Lake (6am Wednesdays!), but the heel drop/raise exercises I was doing weren't really getting on top of the achilles issue. So I got an appointment to see Rob Edmondson at Therapeutics Physiotherapy in Eastleigh. 

I've seen Rob on and off for a number of years and he's be great at getting my running related issues sorted. He diagnosed a chronic tendinopothy and we looked at how to manage loading the tendon. Left along the tendon was unlikely to heal well as it doesn't have it's own blood supply, so we needed to figure out how to load the Achilles enough to promote a healing process but not overload it and do further damage. Contrary to rational thinking my achilles was actually happier running at at faster paces! The thinking goes along the lines of the faster speed means the foot is in contact with the ground for a short period of time per stride and so the overall 'loading' time on the tendon is less. So I ended up doing interval sessions with walking recoveries. The basic rule of the injury rehab was to do active loading on the tendon a minimum of 24 hours apart, to allow the breakdown/repair cycle to take place. The active loading activities consisted of 'loaded' heel drop/raise sets (3x8-10) with increasing weight in a rucksack and fast pace running workouts with interval lengths depending on how the tendon reacted. I filled in for the reduced run volume with swim and bike work (which was very nice riding in the New Forest through the summer). This continued for a couple of months, but my achilles didn't really show much sign of resolving, with a sore lump still present on the tendon. I stopped running completely from mid Auust to September and still things didn't seem to get better.

So in September I took the decision to get a consultant appointment to get the injury reviewed. This coincided with starting a new job after 12 years with my previous company, so there was a fair amount of upheaval with work travel and getting into a new working week routine. The consultant (Dr Mark Wotherspoon, also team doctor for England Cricket) got the tendon ultrasound scanned which confirmed Rob the physio's diagnosis of a chronic mid-portion achilles tendinopothy. The scan images looked a right mess of clearly not nice and straight collegen fibres😟. The recommendation was to get back and continue working with Rob to progressive try and get the tendon to heal through controlled loading, but it might take months even years to get back to normal, not great news. We considered Shockwave therapy, but Dr. Wotherspoon was uncertain whether it would help given the chronic and not acute nature of the injury (Shockwave is more for pain elleviation).

Back at Therapeutics with Rob an updated action plan was devised based on the Consultation feedback. I could run, but needed to determine how much the tendon could tolerate. So we started with a simple 'Couch to 5k' run/walk apporach, starting with 6x(4'30" Walk/30" Run), increasing the run segments by 30" & reducing the walks by 30" every other day. Then loaded heel drop/raises on the other days and as much road bikes as I could fit in commuting etc...

This seemed to do trick after a couple of weeks the tendon discomfort (to touch) was greatly reduced, but still with a pronounced bump. It was good enough that I could switch to short fast runs again and I ran East Coast parkrun in Singapore, while away for work in October, with no problems or reaction from the tendon. I did a couple more 5x1M speed sessions (walk recoveries) while in Singapore, supplementing with hotel gym cross-trainer time. 

parkrun - Singapore Style - 8am, 29DegC & 95% Humidity!

Through October and November I stuck to keeping the runs well spaced and mostly done at speed with walking warm-ups/cool-downs and recoveries between intervals. The weekly mileage hovered around the 20 mile mark. I was getting very regimented with my heel drops/raises, doing unloaded sets after every run and every day before bed. I also experiented with some different shoes (thanks to Scott @ Alton Sports in Eastleigh for sharing a few of his pairs with me to try out, luckily we're the same foot size!) and found I got on very well with the Adidas Supernova. Up to then I had routinely run in lightweight shoes, with the Adidas Boston Boost and New Balance 1400 being the favourites. The Supernovas, especially when worn with Superfeet insoles for extra heel support, really felt like they helped my injury, probably by not making it worse! I've continued to use the Supernovas (with insoles) into 2018 spring marathon training and do think that they have contributed my general lack of injuries since January 

Coming to the end of 2017 by early December the lump on my tendon was noticably reduced in profile and any tenderness had largely gone. The Christchurch Christmas Pudding 10k was my first proper race (barring parkruns) since London the previous April and I was very happy to run just over 37mins in iffy wet and windy conditions, felt strong too. I suspect the focus on fast running intervals had actually given me reasonable 10k fitness! So as Christmas approached a final Physio check-up gave the all clear to start, cautiously, increasing weekly mileage into spring marathon training....

London 2018 Part 1 - Look Back on the 2017 Race

I've got out of the way of posting much on my blog for a while now, but there's lots to say so with the London Marathon looming this weekend I thought I'd post a series of updates on what I've been up to since the 2017 race. 2017 was very definitely a year of two contrasting halves....First up is a very late review of VLM17!

2012 to 2017 -  Under 2:30 after 7 goes...

I had a pretty much perfect day by all accounts, breaking the 2 1/2 hr barrier in 2:29:30. Encouraged by Ryan Snell of Exmouth Harriers I'd decided that this year was going to be an all or nothing approach.  I've run fairly conservatively to HR for a few years and ended up with a string of 2:33/2:34's and really didn't just want to churn out another... I also have to give a hat tip to club mate Henry Swinzto at New Forest Runners, he originally seeded the idea in my mind that you don't know your limits until you step over the edge!

A strong run on the lumpy Salisbury 10M race (for 2nd place, it was a warm day) 2 weeks previous had showed that the aerobic engine was in good shape. My last few double digit runs a week out were well below 7m/M so I had confidence that the potential for a fast time was there.

I ticked off a now well rehearsed 1 week taper with a combo of short (3-4M) easy runs, some 'MP' treadmill strides (eg 4-8x200m@17kph) and a daily sauna session (to encourage heat adaptation), plus a quickish progressive parkrun (18:39) the day before. I did the trip to ExCEL to collect my race number(s) on the Friday before and then heading to my Brother's place in High Wycombe for Friday & Saturday night. Everything went smoothly getting to the start and I was great to meet up with the usual suspects for pre-race chat and banter in the UK Club Championship start area.

The weather was ideal for a marathon, overcast and 11-12C with only light winds, The plan was to run 17:45 5k's up to 30km or so and then hopefully be able to hang on for the final stint. The start was a bit of a manic weave-fest with Ryan and George King from Winchester AC, but a few miles in and things had settled down and we'd tag on with a good few other sub2:30 aspirants. The first 5k ultimately was a bit quick in 17:28 with the downhill and by 10k the margin under target had grown to 30s with a 17:38. Honestly in the first 6M I was seriously wondering if I'd bitten off too much, but I'd taken all the HR stats off my Garmin and just focused on the pace. Thankfully as the miles progressed my legs settled in nicely. 

10-15k passed spot on in 17:45 and around that point I found myself drifting forwards into and to the front of the next big group of runners. 15-20k was 17:47 and I started to get the inkling that this could be a good day, but it was a bit early to tell and my mind see-sawing a bit from the positive to the negative going through half way in 1:14:25 and 20-25k in 17:44. A bit of a headwind going south through the Isle of Dogs was enough to push thoughts towards the 'well a PB will be just as nice' but thankfully the crowds around Canary Wharf rallied my mind. 25-30k clocked at 17:51 and the 'av lap time' (using manual splits) on my watch told me I was still on 5:41/M pace, so it was game on at 20M with 30ish secs still in the bank.

30-35k (17:50) was when the mental fight kicked in, my legs were slowly voicing their displeasure louder and louder, nothing critical in terms of cramp potential or the like, just resistance to the task at hand. Going along the Highway through mile 22 the field was becoming quite spread out which made it tougher still. Somewhere in the 23rd mile the thought popped into my head (with the actual pace showing 5:42) that 'that's a decent outing', to which another part of my mind retorted back, 'you don't get the kudos for running a good 23M...there's less than a parkrun to go, GET ON WITH IT...' 

Daddy's Big Shiny Medal!

35-40k was my slowest (admittedly not by much) split of 17:52, but the target margin was down to <10secs.... With only a couple of miles to go finally the conviction that this was going to be the day really started to kick in and it had a rallying effect on my pace with the last 2.2km averaging 5:39/M. The run up Birdcage walk seemed to go on forever counting down the 1km, 800m, 400m, 385yd(!) markers to the turn into the Mall. Sighting the finish line clock at 2:29:0x, for a moment I wasn't sure I'd get there in under a minute! Crossed the line elated and got down to kiss the tarmac in respect. Job done and massively happy 😁 Beers were thoroughly enjoyed on the pavement outside The Red Lion pub on Whitehall 🍻

THe post race elation lasted a fair while and to be fair I wasn't sure I'd have the motivation to try and repeat the feat, however the rest of 2017 didn't go very well running wise....

A selection of reasonably fast Dorset/Hampshire Marathoners