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

Winter Cross Ultra 50k - The Ultimate MPCR*

After a lack lustre Christmas Eve Parkrun (18:30, a minute down on 2 weeks previous), I was having doubts about the sensibility of the post Christmas trail 50k (Seoond Wind Running's Winter Cross Ultra), but with the option to call it quits at 30k I figured it would be a decent long run either way.... 

A 5am start this morning was a bit of a rude awakening to say the least and it was pretty cold to boot. This was my first 'proper' Ultra event with indoor aids stations, food (inc minces and mulled wine) so unsure of the expected routine with such things I resorted to type and just ran non-stop!

Thankfully it was just getting light as we were led out at 7:30 for the start, so no need for head torches. The race gets it's name from the shape of the course, consisting of a north, east, west & south out & back leg (if you are doing the full 45 mile version, strike the south bit for the 50k). The initial north bound section was an easy 9k along an old railway line (i.e. flat), which served as a good shakeout and left me in a group of 3 at the front, although the other two were in for the full 45 miles. It was into and out for the race HQ and on to the east leg 2.

On the way out on leg 2, at top of Old Winchester Hill

An undulating mile or 2 later and I hit the first serious climb of the day up Old Winchester Hill on the South Downs Way. The top was reached without too much hassle and then down the other side. A bit of farmland meandering and it was up climb 2 of leg 2, a delightful chalky gully up between two fields, which left me thinking that will be fun on the way back.... Reached the checkpoint at the end of the leg and was still on sub 7:30/M av pace and feeling pretty good. Turned around and was pleasantly surprised by the gap back to the 2nd place runner which was up to a couple of minutes. The return run was uneventful, although by the the time I can down off O' Winchester Hill my feet were beginning to sting with hotspots quite badly and there was the definite possibility of a decent blister forming on my left ankle... non-stop through race HQ again and out on to the last leg.

The pace had crept above 7:30 by this point and I was wondering what I would be able to sustain from 19 to 31 miles. A quick jog through he village of Meonstoke and then it was on to the piece de resistance of the course, a 2km uphill drag on tarmac to the top of Beacon HIll. It was head down and work time! By the top my upper legs were giving me a lot of gyp, but I carried on, getting close to "one foot infront of the other" mode. The next 4 or so miles undulated along farmtracks and road and I just tried to ignore the pain in my feet and hip flexors.

The final checkpoint, with 6ish miles to go eventually appeared and turning back revealed that the next runners were in sight (but I neglected to note if they were 45M or 50K entrants). This spurred me on, although my legs didn't really respond to any requests for acceleration... A great aspect of the race was that you pass a lot of the other runners as you come back towards HQ, which proved much needed motivation and support.

By the time I reached the start of the descent back to Meonstoke from Beacon Hill, I was past caring about whether I could hold on to first place, I just wanted to stop running! I got back the hill with no issues, but there was one final stumbling point, the only stile on the whole course, strategically positioned with half a mile to go. My quads had nearly cramped up climbing over it on the way out and I was praying they would play ball on the way back too. Thankfully my left quad almost went, but I straightened it just in time to save a painful hobble to the line!

At this point I was happy that the win was in the bag and as an added bonus the whole family (parents included) were waiting just before the finish to loudly encourage me on. Over the line in 4hrs 7mins to take the overall 50k win (and default course record, only because it was the inaugural race!). Took a while to get changed as my legs and feet were in a bit of a state, prize giving was quick and then it was off for a dirty great big burger and pint of ale in the village pub to refuel. Overall a great event and really well organised. Think I'll have a day off tomorrow though.

*Mince Pie Compensation Run :-)

Marathon Training While Travelling (inc videos)

I got back to the UK the weekend just gone from a 2 week work trip to North America. Running while away on business is always interesting as I love being able to get out and explore new places, and this enables you to cover more distance/areas than if you just walk (and you miss lots if you drive everywhere I find!). It also makes planning marathon training a bit more challenging!

The trip was pretty varied, starting off with a week in Houston, Texas, where the temperatures were nicely in the range of 15-25DegC, before flying up to Calgary, Alberta the second week, with a overnight excursion to Edmonton (3hrs drive north). The temperature differential was stark, from +25 in Texas to hovering around freezing in Canada, there was even snow...

Houston involved mostly running from my hotel to the approx 3 mile running loop at Memorial Park, which is very popular with Houstonians, as most of the city is dominated by cars and quite frankly a bit rubbish for running in! The track circles a golf course/parkland and is hard pack gravel. It makes a perfect marathon training circuit, plus there are lots of other runners so the atmosphere is great :-) There is also a local trail running club which meets in the park to run offroad, the Houston Area Trail Runners (http://www.trailrunninghouston.com/), but I didn't get a chance to meet up with them on this trip.

The run below is typical of the "Sub Lactate Threshold" work I've been doing in this springs marathon training campaign. It consists of 10mins Easy running followed by 70mins at "SubLT" heartrate (approx 155-160 for me currently) and a short cool down. More on the general training approach I am using in the near future.....Note for this run I was coming straight from a work meeting, so just drove to the park and started on the running track (saves the 2 miles of concrete sidewalks and busy intersections from the hotel!)

I also got the chance to explore the pathways and trails along the Buffalo Bayou slightly further out to the west of the city. This was pleasantly surprising as along side the tarmac bike path that runs the length of the Bayou, there is also an decent amount of lovely dry single-track trails to run on, some quite technical in places.

So on to Calgary in the second week, I had been there before so was very familiar with the extensive network of pathways along either side of the Bow River, so spent the majority of my runs doing different combos of distance/bridge crossing etc.. It was quite hard work to start with and then after a day or two I remembered that the city sits at an altitude of 3,000ft, which isn't massively high, but probably enough to be felt during exercise. Here's a on-the-run video of clips taken with my Garmin Virb Elite camera one evening, it's just a rough edit so it's a bit long, feel free to skip through!

Towards the end of last week I then drove up to Edmonton for an overnight stay. It was a bit colder in Edmonton (-5 or so in the mornings) and there was quite a bit of snow on the uncleared pathways by the North Saskatchewan River (which was frozen over). It took a bit of getting use to running on snow and ice! I did another run vid with the Virb camera, this time with some of the HR/GPS data it records overlaid on top.
Apologies for the shakiness of the footage, it was shot handheld (the Calgary one is on a telescopic pole which steadies it a lot)

On my last morning before flying home I was running down to the river in Edmonton when I came across a good 100 or so runners doing hill reps at 6:30am, turns out it was a club called the November Project (http://november-project.com/edmonton-ab-canada/) who run 3 times a week in the city, whatever the weather (down to -30C sometimes!!!). I jumped in for a single up and down, there was even someone taking pictures halfway up...

Overall a decent couple of weeks training, on the return from an ankle sprain about a month ago, with 97 and then 103 miles. Including a good sprinkling of Sub-LT workout runs (one in a 20 miler).The second week was compressed into 5 days, which wasn't great and left me pretty tired. But I assumed that with the flight home and associated jet lag that running at the weekend probably wasn't going to happen!

XMiles.co.uk Brand Ambassador Announcement

I'm very happy to announce that I have been selected to be a brand ambassador for the awesome endurance running website and online store XMiles.co.uk, from the website;

"XMiles are proud to announce Alistair Pickburn is joining the Brand Ambassador program, the program has been created to give something back to the sport we love and provide support to athletes during the calendar year. Our aim as an independent running nutrition store is to support and be active in the running community.

Supported by XMiles, the full team will be a community of amateur athletes who follow the XMiles ethos of supporting individuals and teams in challenges without barriers of ability.

The program is part of an initiative from XMiles to support athletes and events at grass roots.

Al is joining XMiles as a Brand Ambassador in 2016. Keep up to date with his approach and progress with training for this year’s London Marathon. Following a string of good marathon performances in 2014 & 2015, Al is looking to modify things quite a bit from previous years to see if a change of training approach can help him break the 2:30 barrier. This includes changing some aspects of his diet and nutrition including introducing concepts from Renee McGregor's book 'Training Food'.

Watch out for his blogs on XMiles and on his own blog including a look at his 2016 targets/training approach, reports from some key races leading up to the marathon and the results/analysis of recent lactate threshold & VO2 max lab tests he has taking part in."

(link to announcement on XMiles.co.uk).

Set up and run by fellow athlete, Anthony Clark (Bournemouth Athletic Club, marathon PB 02:30:06 London 2015), XMiles.co.uk is based in Dorset. XMiles is a vibrant young company formed by runners focused on nutrition products, advice and guidance for endurance sports. They are committed to sharing knowledge and experiences whilst supporting individuals and teams in challenges without barriers of ability.

Whilst growing a brand that will be recognised for excellent customer service and connections with the roots of our sport,  XMiles aims to support runners of all levels along their journey, whether they are attempting 1 or 100’s of miles over one or many days.

Xmiles stocks a great range of some of the best nutritional products for exercise, including my personal favorites for race nutrition; Gu & Cliff Shot Gels. I'm also a fan of the Beet-It sport shots and Nuun electrolyte tabs. The full range of brands in the store are shown below

Xmiles has a great loyalty rewards scheme, sign up and each £ spent gets you a reward point, £500 points = £5 off in the store. You can sign up by following this link

I'm really looking forward to my involvement with XMiles and contributing to the online running community surrounding it!