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.
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.
1 comment:
Well done guys, great effort!
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