Category: Running

Official Time – 50.23 Watch time – 50.05

Well, that was my first International race!

Other than a couple of minor hiccups the day went well and a good time had by all. After nearly missing the race due to delays at the Channel Tunnel it was just great to be out racing and making the most of the day.

Normally, I am a stickler for preparation, and I felt nowhere near prepared arriving with 45 minutes to go before the race started. Add to this, the race itself didn’t start until 4pm local time (give me a 10.30am race start any day) this was all in all a different experience, but one that I can’t wait to do again next year. In fact, having to rush my preparation actually meant the pre-race nerves were almost non-existent by the time I had reached the start line.

Hardelot is a very nice coastal town in the North of France about an hour South of Calais. It seemed like an affluent area of France from what I saw on the 10k route that largely stayed pancake flat apart from a small hike to higher ground at around 4 miles. It was a warm day and the streets were lined with a good number of vociferous spectators, although my grade E GCSE French meant that I didn’t have a clue what they were shouting.

Others who had taken part before in the race had warned me that the race wasn’t chip timed. Most organised races these days have some sort of method to accurately time each runner so I did find this kind of strange. However, when I collected my race number I was surprised and pleased to see a small chip included for my trainers.

Maybe this was new for 2016, but the point of chip timing is to get an accurate start and finish time to work out your overall time. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as if the starting mat (the mat to read your start time) was in place. These mats are always a trip hazard at the beginning of races and there is always a bottle neck at the start of a race as we all look down to our feet to makes sure we walk over the mat and not trip over it. The same thing happened in Hardelot except no one could see it which meant runners looked longer at the floor in the hope that they may find a mat.

The race start was a little chaotic, the street where the start line was seemed relatively wide and it had ample space for 500 + runners to squeeze into, but some reason the start was infuriatingly slow. Whether racing culture in France is different, I’ve not run enough in the country to tell but in the UK, us runners kind of know our place. We seem to have a great perception as to where we belong in a holding pen. Whether it is years of our polite queuing etiquette or simply good judgement, I don’t know, but most of the time we get in the right order from fastest to slowest. This didn’t happen in France, it was a free for all. Slower runners mixed in at the front with the faster runners which meant that after half a mile or so I was still ducking and diving trying to find my natural position. It would have been interesting to see a graph of my pace over the first mile, I reckon it would have looked like an undulating mountain range.

Once I got into a rhythm the run was a joy, even though I could have done with the temperature being a few degrees cooler. Miles 1-3 went by well enough and I was on course for going sub 50 minutes for the first time this year. Mile 4 saw me fade somewhat though, with the heat and the slight increase in elevation, but I soon bounced back in mile 5 putting in a decent mile again, before running my 2nd quickest mile at 6 with a sprint finish to round the run off.

I did feel frustrated at the end knowing that the 4th mile ruined any chances of going sub 50, other than that mile I had run consistently throughout.

After the race, I found out that I was far better at drinking than running so finished a great day sinking some drinks with the rest of the A&D lads and lasses. I had plenty of spare change from the entry fee which was an incredible 5 Euros, the cheapest race I’ve ever entered. Not only did I get to run a wonderful course I also came away with a nice souvenir hoodie all for less than a pint.

So I am a quarter of the way through my training schedule and so far I can’t complain, it has gone pretty well. By the end of the week I am feeling pretty tired, I have the aches and pains I would expect and I know the 2nd month is going to become more difficult, especially the long runs, but overall I am in quite a buoyant mood.

The one thing that helped me immensely during the first month is simply being organised. I’m sure most of you are in the same boat, juggling work, family, social life and more work. In December my wife bought a family planning calendar. When I say family planning calendar, it isn’t a calendar with images of various methods of contraception plastered all over it, no one wants to see a festive looking diaphragm in December. What I mean is, a monthly planner for the family, so Mum, Dad and children each have their separate columns to fill in their important dates, appointments, meetings and so on. Physically writing out my training regime actually helped me mentally prepare for it.

There is an old football cliche which you may have heard before. It’s normally used in post match interviews, when players just want to be in the changing room celebrating with their team mates, but instead they get hauled in front of those ridiculous advertising boards with about a hundred different brands all vying for your attention. Most of the time I sit there not listening to the player being interviewed, but thinking to myself, ‘I could really do with a Mars bar right now?’ or ‘I  must pick up some Castrol GTX when I’m in Halford’s next time.’ The reason I drift off is because those interviews are full of cliches (to escape the tedium, why not play footballer cliche bingo with friends? It doesn’t take long to get a full house). One of the most prolific cliches, which is used in approximately 96.4% of interviews, is where the interviewer refers to a future fixture. He will ask ‘So, great win today, you must be looking forward to the derby match in two weeks time?’ The player replies, ‘Erm…..y’know……erm… we’ve got a tough game next week….erm… away from…erm… home so we’ve just gotta take it one game at a time….erm.’

I know I am mocking footballers a little here and deep down I would really like to see them try and take on two games of football at one time, but in some ways I have applied this cliche to my running schedule. It is easy to be overawed initially when you plan marathon training. I used to drown my palms in sweat at the very thought of months 3 and 4. Now though, with a month of solid training in the tank, I can safely say, concentrating on the next run ahead of me, one run at a time has made me more confident about reaching my goal and allowed me mentally to manage the volume of training.

I’d like to share a couple of highlights with you all as I am sure you don’t want an account of every one of my training sessions so far.

If you’ve read my blog before, you will know that my Dad has been a keen runner also for 30 odd years. He is always a good sounding board for training ideas and has helped coach me over the past few years. I was talking to him about planning my long runs one day over a pint in the pub and he told me how he used to plan his long runs back in the day before GPS watches and smartphones were readily available. He used to ask his Dad to pick him up from his house, set the trip meter in the car to ‘0’ and drive out randomly until they reached the desired mileage he wanted to run that day. So as soon as the trip meter showed 13 miles, my Dad would hop out, wave goodbye to my Granddad and run back in the direction they just came from. That way he could be sure that he was doing the correct mileage and reap the full benefit of the training session. This sounded kind of fun to me. I never want my long runs to become stale, so I try and change the route as much as possible so this appealed to me.

We made plans that the following Sunday, he would pick me up from my house and drive out into the countryside for 9 miles, kick me out and find my own way back. Now, I live on the edge of town in a small village, so my location is pretty rural anyway, but my Dad proceeded to drive to a place that was so rural, the people that live there didn’t even know it existed. At 9 miles I jumped out, said my goodbye’s and proceeded to look around me. There was nothing but countryside and a road. Off into the distance I could see a wind farm, but the only wind farm that I knew of locally was in a different county altogether, which was a little disconcerting. Before I started to panic, I knew that I was only 9 miles from home, I’d looked at the trip meter before I left the car, this was definitely 9 miles from home, so I was not particularly far from my destination and I thought I’d paid enough attention on the way here to work out my route back.

So I followed my nose back home with vim and vigor and also a touch of trepidation. The wind was taken out of my sails almost immediately by three fairly sizable hills to navigate, but once I’d cleared those I was nicely warmed up and ready for the challenge. That sense of being slightly uneasy with my surroundings helped me pace the run well, I noticed at the half way point that I was running quicker than planned, but felt good, so I continued. Once I’d located where I was and felt comfortable with my surroundings it was a pleasant run, apart from a few parts where road and path turned into muddy track, long grass and finally squelchy, rain sodden turf that swallowed me up and spat me back out. So if you ever get bored of your long weekend runs, maybe this idea will spice things up for you.

To help with motivation during my marathon training, I decided to join a running club last year and it is something I would thoroughly recommend. My running has come on leaps and bounds since I joined my club and it has given me the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of like minded people I would have never of met. Running is now not always a solitary past time for me, with regular organised club runs every week, if I don’t fancy trudging around with just ol’ muggins here for company, I don’t have to. Running during the winter months can sometimes be soul destroying, but now I have a support and motivation network which helps immensely. Our running club is quite diverse as well, it caters for all ages and abilities. The club also doesn’t discriminate based on how you earn your living. Most of the members hold regular 9-5 jobs or they’re tradesman, teachers, nurses, that sort of thing. However, there is the odd exception. We have recently had a magician join our ranks. We might have to watch him closely though if club records start to tumble. A week after Paul Daniel’s joined we welcomed another new member, who predominantly works away from the UK protecting vessels at sea from Somali pirates. Chalk and Cheese, but that’s what makes clubs such as ours so interesting.

Keep on running and fundraising Team Lullaby!