Bleeding Nips

No the title's not a socio-political comment but a reflection of the state of my chest at the end of 13.2 tortuous miles (for me at least)!

The good news is that both Liz and I completed the Bath Half Marathon on Sunday and in doing so we both managed to beat our times from 2003; the last time we ran the event.

Liz was a quite staggering 19mins faster than before and did, as expected, open a can of whoop ass on me. I trailed in almost a mile behind.

Our final run the previous weekend had been difficult; we covered just less than 9 miles in a mixture of rain and sleet. I was suffering cramp after 6 miles and needed to stop and stretch. Liz was fine the next day but I didn’t quite get rid of the soreness until Thursday so wasn’t able to do a warm down run mid week. It also left me feeling a bit worried about my ability to complete the course without stopping.

We headed down to Liz’s dad’s house in Cardiff on the Saturday and tucked into a huge pasta meal whilst casting a jealous eye over the wine bottle – we’d both been “on the wagon” for the last week.

Race day morning arrived and we soon realised a basic flaw in our cunning plan to consume huge quantities of porridge for breakfast, the race wasn’t due to start until 11.30 some 4 hours later so we tucked a few crafty croissants into our bags and headed off. It was in the car on the way that we made our biggest mistake. Both Liz and I were concerned about being properly hydrated so chugged down about a litre of water each and promptly spent the majority of our time up until the start of the race needing the loo. Apparently the trick is to take small but frequent sips of isotonic drink in the build up – DOH

Overall it was a well organised event and with 15,000 runners it’s difficult to know how else to start the race but having to stand shoulder to shoulder with fellow runners for 30mins before the start meant that any benefit I’d gained from stretching and warming up had been completely lost. It’s really not the ideal preparation for running a half marathon.

Sadly Liz was entered into another section of runners and I didn’t get to see her at all during the race. This also meant that my cunning plan to run hand in hand until surprising her with my sprint finish over the last 10 metres was scuppered. Liz ran a well paced race with slightly negative splits, apparently this is ideal, and finished very strongly whilst I just seemed to find it a world of pain from about a halfway. The good news is that my new ACL was completely pain free. Sadly the same couldn’t be said for all the other parts of my legs not to mention nipples; why did no one tell me about this – I’ll be using plasters next time!

I need to say a big thank you to the ladies that gave up their time to provide massages after the race. Both Liz and I benefited hugely from their healing hands, making the 3 hour drive home just about bearable.

A few days on and the stiffness has now gone and we’re about to start training for our next challenge, the Steyning Duathlon on Easter Monday. This is a 7K run, 36K bike ride and a final 5K run so we need to get out and about on our bikes and practice the transition phase apparently (thanks for the tip Tricky).

Alastair Kerr, who was a great friend of PA, has been organising runners for the event on behalf of TRUST PA for a number of years and again put on a great day with the usual passionate support from both Rob and Gerri Blundell so thanks guys, we’ll be back next year.

Finally, a massive thank you to everyone who has donated using our Just Giving page www.justgiving.com/lizandmatt it was heart warming to see the donations grow and with literally blood, sweat and tears being shed in the cause you did get good value for your money plus we are now one fifth of a way towards our target of £500.

A break from the old routine......

Well there's one week to go until our Bath Half Marathon and the training's been hard work for me but Liz has been flying.

I've had this virus since New Years eve and only started running 3 weeks ago. Originally I'd be aiming for a 1hr 45min time but with the lack of training it would be more realistic to look at simply completing the course. Liz had been hoping to break 2hrs but she's been going so well that a 1hr 50min looks a reasonable target so I'm facing the real prospect of getting spanked out of site by my wife - and not in a good way too!

Honestly though I don't know how anyone other than the unemployed manage to undertake any kind of regular training programme. I’ve been having to get up at ridiculous o’clock to fit an hours run in before jumping in the car and driving to work. This is not ideal and means I look like an arthritic octogenarian trying to get out of the car and walk into the office!

To break things up and help in our goal to climb Mt Blanc later this year we recently took a trip to Aviemore in Scotland for a weekend of winter climbing. I’ve been before so had some idea of what to expect but it was Liz’s first time so we hired a guide, Anna, who sorted the routes and organised all the extra gear we’d need like crampons and ice axes.

The first day was spent in Coire an t Sneachda climbing up some easy snow gullies and learning how to build snow bollards to provide secure protection for belaying down slopes when there’s nothing else available. We also dug out a couple of ice axe belays and platforms which were nice and solid but you’d end with piles if you spent too much time sat in them.

Unfortunately Liz got very cold which meant she didn’t have such a great time so that evening she headed off to some of the gear shops in Aviemore and treated herself to some shiny new clothing and was toasty warm the next day.

The second day we headed into the neighbouring Coire for some altogether more serious stuff. Armed with technical axes we headed up some steepish ice and rock and traversed several very steep and icy slopes which we both found quite unnerving as a fall hear meant that one or both of the other’s on the rope would have to hold the fall which would probably be ok if it was me but as Anna looked 7 stone wet through I didn’t fancy the chances of her managing to hold my near 14stones. As it turned out I did slip on one slope as I got sudden cramp in a hamstring and went down quicker than Desire Washington. Luckily I was on the only bit of flat rock at the time so disaster was avoided.

The final pitch turned into a bit of a nightmare as both Liz and I were exhausted, it’s particularly hard on the calf muscles and we were both shaking like a small, bald dog as we clung to the side of the mountain watching a storm come in and engulf our Guide as she headed out of sight up a steep chimney leading to the top out onto the Cairngorm plateau. Obviously we made it OK but the first thing I said to Liz was “let’s not do this again!”

Several days later we’re contemplating a return in October.

So we have a week to go to the race. We will be doing a 10 mile run tomorrow followed by a couple of gentler runs mid week – wish us luck and if you can pop over to the Just Giving page then that would be great.

Matt