The marathon that is coming back, though not just yet...

So there was a lot of noise around the return of the Cardiff marathon next spring with an announcement by Run 4 Wales on the day of the recent Cardiff Half marathon. Over the days after there was a call for a register of interested runner which I duly signed up to, and anticipation built. Groups of runners were getting their teeth into the idea, parkrunners feverishly chatting about the route on facebook, and charity runners getting excited about a marathon on their doorstep after London marathon rejection letters began hitting postboxes.

2015 Cardiff half - Gareth James

For me it sounded brilliant as I was one of those turned down by the London marathon ballot (I am losing count of my 10+ rejections), and hoped it would be a 'no-brainer' replacement as a spring marathon... and then the news broke... not the new route, not date of the race... an announcement that unfortunately they couldn't square away the organisation of the event for 2017, but hoped to get the permissions in place for 2018. 2018 sounded all the sweeter for the suggestion that the great run series team may be involved in creating a Cardiff and Vale marathon.

I ripped up my rapidly forming plans, and I am now looking for that spring 2017 target. Beyond 13.1 miles would be great, but at the moment it is looking like more of the 'short' stuff going into 2017.

2016 despite its rollercoaster of fitness and emotional lows has been the year when I managed to complete the most half marathons in a calendar year, so perhaps I shall just stick with those and build another year around them adding in some other events. Thus, my 2017 plan is still incubating and when it is hatched I shall share it.

That wasn't meant to be a fartlek - and other worries about changes

I went out on Tuesday night for a run that was supposed to be another heart rate running experiment. 7.3km later and I completed what could best be called a fartlek run, with some hefty pace variations and not a stick of heart rate running (except for looking at it occasionally on my watch and cringing). Actually I enjoyed myself, and finished the session with a smile on my face. During the past run sit down and run watch upload I reflected that I have some hard thinking to do before the Cardiff half marathon.

Basically having made a foot placement switch off of my heels, and changing shoes for once and for all, I am firmly in an in-between state where I could happily run a 5k or 10k this way but have no idea how a 21k would look. I would like to run the distance and find out but I know that that way madness lies. Whereas I was not patient with the heart rate running this week I am going to have to be with my half marathon progress - only finding out if I can do it in low profile shoes, on my midfoot, running with a different running form on the actual day. I am more than a little bit scared of the challenge, as realistically I need at least another 12 months or more to work through the changes and make them a comfortable 'default' setting.

The event in 6 weeks or so is rapidly looking like an day out running rather than an attempt at any sort of time.

One down, around 28 to go

Run one of the plan was logged on Tuesday, it was a slow walk / run affair underscoring my current lack of fitness. I enjoyed it, I tried to focus on relaxed flow, and finishing in a state that would not generate a huge recovery burden. All in all I was quite pleased with my 5km, and I am now a little more up beat about the roughly 28 or so workouts / runs to come in the 10 week plan.

10 weeks to go

So I got an email in my inbox this morning that is essentially from myself - it is from a training plan I started with Strava weeks ago for the Cardiff Half marathon this autumn. The email tells me that I have 10 weeks until the race and that I have a 10 week training block to follow... given I have been running so sporadically and have been laid up with a viral throat infection for the best part of 2 weeks my initial thought was "Ah!!?!?". On second thought I mused "Well maybe this will get me back on track?". I have ditched my initial reaction, although they are often accurate, and gone with the more optimistic one.

The best part is the email told me that day one of training is a... rest day! So I am throwing myself absolutely whole heartedly into day one, and not training... that is one day ticked off as 'complete' 70-odd days to go :-)

3 runs in 5 days!

You might well wonder what is going on when I report that I have run 3 times in the last five days given my recent terrible posts of fitness woes. Well firstly it wasn't planned, secondly they weren't very long, and thirdly they hardly mark a complete 'return to form'. Of course I am very happy to reflect on three runs and look to build from here. In fact there are now 13 weeks until my autumn 'target' race and so I have 3 weeks until I have a crack at a 10 week Strava training plan. I have my fingers crossed as the last three runs have demonstrated some areas of weakness...

• lack of strength - stride length / running action is awful - my calves have been complaining a lot
• I am way way way too heavy - well, yes, we knew this a few weeks back
• I can't run in my 'old' shoes (they cause almost instance knee pain) and I can't complete the distance in my 'new' lighter shoes (they don't support me as fatigue sets in) - gait analysis and another set of shoes is required
• there will be a need to actually follow advice and follow the plan properly for a change and not think I know better
• realistic goal setting will be critical to my enjoyment not only of the training but of the event itself
• regular parkrun events with my kids will be useful in making sure I don't do too much tempo work (I have a habit of attacking parkrun like a race and wrecking myself for the rest of the training week)

... I will do my best to let you know how this all goes!

2016 has not been kind so far...

2016 has not been kind so far, I completed my 12 days challenge around New Year and then tried to get going on half-marathon training. I found initially that my motivation was lacking and then in early February I did something to my back - I don't know exactly what. In the end I struggled on for a couple of weeks and then went to the doctor for an opinion, he ruled out anything other than a back problem and gave me some pain relief and advice to go away with (and the advice to return if there was no change). The result was virtually 8 weeks of nothing, no running, feeling sorry for myself, and getting heavy (not in a good way).

Along the way I had to miss my first go at the Admiral City of Newport half-marathon (Sunday 6th March) which didn't help my mood much. Eventually enough was enough and I just had to get out there and do something as I was desperate to run the Cardiff World Half Marathon Championships mass event this weekend just gone. All I had the opportunity to do was a fitness test to see whether it was even feasible to run, and then give it a go being as cautious as I could talk myself into being.

I was so desperate to run the WHMC event because of the untimely loss of two colleagues since the middle of December. Neither of them were close enough to be friends and I hadn't spoken to one for a couple of years, but the combined effect that they had on my career and the combined effect of their sudden demises left me wanting to do something.... run... run remembering them. I ran for charity in their memory but the money raising wasn't really the driver it was a more raw emotional thing (that I still haven't properly figured out).

After the event, my slowest ever, I feel a bit of the rawness has gone and more happily personally my body hasn't reacted as badly to running on no training as I'd feared. Indeed there have only been a few niggles in my back and 'just' the usual leg soreness. I might have gotten away with my stupid bullish emotional decision to run the thing.

I will try and get back on here some more as I do have other goals to chase this year, I just can't promise when. Hope your running has gone well.

April - the only way is up

March was a wash out, I lost the entire month to injury niggles and frustration. March's woes were compounded by the knowledge that January and February had gone so well, the contrast could not have been starker. Now April and spring has arrived I am looking forward to more forward momentum and hopefully no more set backs.

There were obviously highlights in March, mostly non-running / non-sporting / non-exercising related, involving a family holiday and way too much eating (!!). One of the highlights that did relate to sporting endeavour was signing up for the...

Cardiff half-marathon 2016  the mass participation event as part of the IAAF/Cardiff University World Half Marathon Championships Cardiff March 26th 2016 -  Event website

...so I have another goal to look forward to next year that should help to limit just how much focus I put on the marathon this autumn.

I hope to get back to running this week nursing my calf, and perhaps back into a training plan next week if all goes really well.

Cardiff Half marathon 2014 - my race review

A much overdue race report that I found in my drafts folder during some pre-end of year housekeeping....

 Cardiff Half marathon 2014 

Cardiff city centre - October 5th 2014 - website

My impressions from the day -
Course: 10/10 - simple, flat, quick, well set out.
Marshalling: 6/10 - quality great, quantity not enough - particularly around the start area (more on that in my report below).
Facilities: N/A - as I work near the start / finish I used those facilities for baggage, toilets, and so forth.
Organisation: 10/10 - The start / finish area was fabulously laid out, and the facilities great.
Fellow runners: 6/10 - not a lot of care for fellow runners shown at times, otherwise a great atmosphere.
Crowd: 9/10 - brilliant and vocal support almost all the way round, obviously the barrage was a quiet spot but the city centre was packed.
My performance: 10/10 - given my lack of consistent training I couldn't not have asked much more of myself realistically.
My time: 2:05:41

Pic from the Cardiff Half facebook feed - I can find myself, I don't expect anyone else to ;-)

My race :
I got to the start right on time having cycled to work changed and walked down the the well organised start area. There were lots of signs in evidence and good numbers of marshals shepherding us towards our appropriate time bins in the start chute. The start in fact being right in front of Cardiff Castle was good and spacious, though it was very quiet when I arrived it filled up quickly. I hung out right at the back of the bin knowing that my injury hit preparation had not left me in the shape I had predicted way back when I entered.

Just before the start of the race as we moved toward the front of zone a woman came walking back and collapsed in front of us. I was saddened that so many simply turned their gaze away and carried on towards the start - everyone is chip timed a few moments to help would do nothing to their eventually run times. In the end a small group did congregate around to help her, I was stood nearer the barriers and so yelled will my not inconsiderably loud voice to the marshals who were a very long way in either direction. She was helped to the side as more and more people pushed passed desperately ignoring the situation in their lemming-like desire to get to the start line. In the end a marshal attended and I hope told her not to run. I set off feeling a bit dis-chuffed with my fellow runners.

First three miles - I spent my time trying to work out what pace my body might reasonably be able to hold for the distance and plumped initially for a just sub-2hr pace. As you can see from my GPS graph that ended up being a lofty goal. In mile 3 there is the only long hill of note, and it was there that I realised I needed to cool my pace a bit.

Mile 3 to 6 - keeping up the effort level became my goal, as I knew by then that sub-2hr was not on. From here I relaxed a bit more having had the distractions of the start area on my mind, and through half way a major pinch point on the course (as it enters the barrage) was negotiated with no mishaps.

I think my overall pace trend is fairly self evident

Miles 6 through to 9 - were where I started indulging in a fuel gel and the water stops, neither of which proved successful as I had not practiced either enough and I ended up with a bloated sore tummy for a couple of miles. It was around here that I began digging in to make sure of being around the 2:05 mark. The crowds really did begin to build through this section. It seems that I missed waving at my wife and kids because they were weigh-laid for a newspaper interview (about why daddy was running today) just as I went by. I didn't make it into the newspaper, but I did chuckle at the expert timing and was super pleased that they had made the effort to get out to the halfway mark to try and catch me.

Mile 9 until the end - this is where I had the most familiarity with the course as it was where I started running 'properly' many years ago. Especially the course went around the park that I had struggled to run/walk as a much lardier novice runner trying to get 10K fit. Knowing that the finish was coming and be able to picture every lump and bump in the road to get there helped no end. Feeling that my pace was really suffering through the 11th mile I focused on just letting my legs roll and being not too far from 2:05.

The finish line was right outside the Royal College of Welsh Music and Drama (which is a fantastically striking piece of architecture), and as usual I pulled out a last minute dash for the line. Happily this time being more careful and not clattering into anybody else. The area afterwards was brilliant, the best laid out of any welsh race I've attended and very much on keeping with Cardiff's ambitions to be a major UK half-marathon.

Overall I was very happy with my levels of efforts if not my base fitness, and aside from the start area misfortune was massively impressed with the race organisation. My cycle home with my medal was a good one, with the entire day topped by the delight on my kids faces when the saw my new metalwork - I still haven't the heart to really explain that everyone gets one not just the top three like in the Olympics!! ;-)

Breaking out of a running rut

30 days to go until my first autumn test – that’s right I have a 10k race in a months time even with my mojo still lost in the woods somewhere! Better than that from there I have a 'race' every other weekend until the end of September... it will be either boom or bust with my running mojo by the end of that period.

I am pinning a few hopes on the theory that immersing myself in things will help shake the junk out of my system and bring about a good autumn / winter of running and training in general. At the moment I am doing just about everything that any reasonable running magazine article might suggest to break out a rut...

1. Running for fun not goals.
2. Eating better.
3. Trying new things in running training.
4. Running with a friend.
5. Joined a club (I am stretching the definition to include the parkrun experience).
6. Building / changing routine (specifically by trying to get into a better sleep pattern).
7. Incorporating targets, such as races to shape and direct training.

Did I leave anything out that would also help?

Cardiff Half-marathon - how it went for me

No real mystery as to how the race turned out seeing as I couldn't help but post my time yesterday - plot not so much spoilt as blown, but here is a little of the detail of how it all came about that I set my personal best over 13.1miles.
Apologies for the lack of pictures but I ran without a support team armed with cameras.

Pre-race / start line
As it happened this year we weren't in Cardiff before the race, we were at a big family celebration an hour and a half drive away from town. We had a great time at the birthday celebration and the kids especially were having brilliant fun. I learned that being well meaning can result in doors being slammed in your face, but is not a story for this blog (just one of those little life lessons). I set off for the race at about 4:30am having decided that I would be best served getting back early and chilling at home over breakfast before heading to the course.

I got home in time for a good slow breakfast, a chance to sort out my kit thoroughly, and mentally disengage by watching the first half of the Korean Formula1 Grand Prix (which was pretty eventful). About an hour and a half before the race start I set off on my bike for work, where I could leave my keys, phone, dry clothes and so on without having to queue at the baggage drop off. The race this year had grown to take in 18,000 runners and an estimated 30,000+ spectators, so I wanted to get myself there and set in good time and good order.

On the way out of the office I met a bunch of fellow runners from the department all of whom were in great humour and fun to chat with on the short walk towards the start line and start pens. The start was set up outside the castle and was fantastically busy with a bustling atmosphere. I arrived in my start zone with a bottle of water, an empty bladder and a head full of happy thoughts.

Miles 1 & 2
The first two miles I had already determined were one of two key elements to my effort for a sub-2hour half marathon. I had to make sure I ran loose, ran easy and ran controlled - yes, I have that classic propensity to go out and blow it in the first phase of a race. Despite the usual ebb and flow of slower and faster runners trying to find their way within the mix of abilities I managed to run to my schedule of 9min/mile to 9.25min/mile - though admittedly on the high side of my target range. In the start pen I had spotted the sub-2hour pacer was about 100yards ahead of me so I had resolved not to chase him immediately but perhaps to be near him at halfway and thus be 100yards under his sub-hour pace.

Miles 3 & 4
The main hill in the course came early on and I was happy that I accommodated it without puffing like a train. At this point already I was having a good feeling about my potential time, especially as I recovered quickly from the effort of the hill. I looked to keep the pace as I'd set it and to keep the pacer in line of sight. I was holding the gap and if anything edging towards him slowly.

As I hit mile three I opened up my energy jelly beans and began popping them one at a time every couple of minutes.

Miles 5 & 6
Heading back towards the middle of the city from the bay and the barrage I was still working to keep myself flowing and rolling without over cooking things. I had gained on the pacer and was level through the sixth mile (a little early but it felt okay). The only problem with getting close to the pacer was the throng of runners stuck to him like flies round a jam jar, it was a little dicey as the route twisted and narrowed at times through the barrage area.

Miles 7 & 8
I knew this was where I had to start grafting while keeping my plan together knowing the the second big test of my plan lay three more miles away. I had taken my drink of water and decided on a caffeine energy gel at the same time. At this point I put away the remaining jelly beans and resolved that the gel was the last fuel that my system needed (and frankly would take - I have the growing feeling that some issues in last years near miss were from over using gels and upsetting my stomach).

Into the eighth mile I had a mini surge according to my GPS watch, but I don't remember trying to push and think perhaps it was just the distraction of the huge crowds while musing my fuelling plan change. I didn't do anything drastic but I recognised it and reigned it in before I went over the top.

Miles 9 & 10
At this point I sensed I was in shape to do the thing, although I noticed that the pacer was closing on me a little. I worked to keep concentration and keep my form.

Mile 11
The second big test - I have had issues around 11.5 miles in half-marathon runs and during my marathon at this distance out. I knew if I'd gotten the pacing right that I should ride it out, and in fact though I knew it was getting tougher to keep my pace (the GPS was giving me subtle hints!) I was managing it well.

Miles 12 & 13
There were two more rises through the closing section which I like to think took away my chances of pushing my pace on at all (ahem, wishing thinking probably). I worked hard on the inclines to keep the pace on target and keep my gap ahead of the pacer. Through these miles I began to really see that a PB was on the cards. The crowds through this section were even bigger, and as it was the student area very vocal.

The final dash and the line
As it happened the last bit was past my work on roads I know so very well. In the closing half a mile I knew that only an accident could take a sub-2 hour run from me, and happily I didn't fall foul of any mishap. It was a strange feeling knowing that I didn't have any need to have to sprint madly for a specific time - I was neatly under the 2 hour target.

My final time was 1hr 57min and 53seconds - and yes I think (I know) I pumped my fist with joy as I crossed the line. After the line the organisation was fantastic and though my legs were rapidly turning to jelly there was a good flow of runners so I didn't have to stop (where I would have probably stiffened up badly). I was not in ruins but I knew I had run hard and run well. Could I have gone faster? Perhaps, but I had trained with my final pace in mind and the target of sub-2hours as my primary goal so I executed my plan perfectly.

Summary
The weather was perfect, I marshaled my energies well, I listened to my stomach regarding gels, and I held to my plan - so all in all a good days running and a day to store away to remember during the tough road to my second marathon next year in Milton Keynes.

New PB - finally a sub-2hr half marathon!!

I am so pleased to report that on Sunday I indeed managed a sub-2hr half marathon after last year coming with 20seconds and having not finishing my last attempt at the distance. It feels great, and the buzz was a good one - I officially ran the Cardiff Half in 1hr 57min and 53seconds !!! :-D

More on my race and the event when I have more spare moments to put it all down on the keyboard.

Wittering on Wednesday - pre-race wobbles

Pre-race wobbles
So it is indeed race week, and grand though I try and make that sound all it really means is me and 17,999 other souls will run around the streets of Cardiff this Sunday. I am not 'in a race' - I have entered an event sure - but really I am not convinced I am racing anything other than perhaps the clock. Sure there are elite runners coming to race the Cardiff Half-marathon, but most of us are just doing it because we can and not to race the next guy or gal.

Why then do I find myself so charged the week of this thing? It is all about the culmination of a block of training, a set of efforts, to do this one distance at this one time as well as I can... and indeed that provides enough 'pressure' to quicken the nerves quite a bit.

Other Witterings
Ummm, well I don't have any... sorry, I blame the pre-race wobbles!!

Oh come on!

I was walking down the high street of my local city centre this lunchtime and low what did I behold but workmen installing Christmas lights - now fair enough these won't be officially turned on for some time yet, but yikes already?

In other "Oh come on!" news I run the Cardiff Half on Sunday, I have only one goal (two goals) which is to run the thing in under 2 hours (and to chill out as much as possible before and during). The prospects are not looking so great as I am getting over a pulled stomach muscle (gardening! don't ask!), and I have started a new job (so very tired from playing catch up / new guy last week and this). If I run the thing smart and with a cool head I have every chance of my primary goal... I just have that sneaking suspicion that my tired head might not make for the coolest come Sunday... I will of course blog all about it.

For the time being I am in prep mode, washing the kit I want to run in, buying the energy gels I plan to consume, putting my race number and pins in plain sight (!!!).

Diary - weather variable and autumn is here, windy, cool, shattered showers. I am currently grateful that I am again busy, and pleased that my little girl likes school. I am intrigued that we now have a ergometer in the house temporarily and yet I haven't gotten on the thing yet?!?! :-)

Busy but not - post-Olympic effects

Over the last couple of weeks I have been in my own little Olympics bubble, where there was not enough space for 'extra' things like blogging - sorry. The bubble was a lovely golden place to be as Team GB (& NI) outdid itself, although like a long holiday in foreign places I came 'back' from the bubble wondering just what real news I missed in the World. The events themselves were inspirational and I discovered today that the local rowing club is teeming with people wanting to start a new sport (or come back to it because the Games reminded them what they are missing).

For my own part I have felt ever more motivated to get properly on the move again post-illness, and so I have signed up to three races I started with the Cardiff 10k, and the Swansea Bay 10k... then things got out of hand and I applied to run the Milton Keynes... marathon! Yup, I have signed up for my second marathon - many said I would, and how all knowing they really were. Thus, although I have not strictly done the greatest amount of actual sport I have indeed been busy filling out forms that ensure that for the next few months I will be doing quite a lot.

Oh, and having had my vicarious sporting fix I should have space to get blogging again.... a training plan may follow (as I learned a lot of lessons the hard way from my first marathon).

Happy Wednesday - I hope the Olympics inspired you to go get busy :-D

Cardiff Half 2012 - new route - whoop whoop!

Well, I have been waiting with some level of excitement and then this morning on the way to work I saw an 'exclusive' in the South Wales Echo....

Cardiff Half Marathon takes the centre-fold spread in today's South Wales Echo - a very cool way to find out the good news

...it looks great, and will have plenty of variety. It looks pretty flat, though there is one section I need to have a look at (or in other words, take a training run out to have dash along). The potential for lots spectators towards the last third of the course will be fantastic, often the last couple of miles feature the (near enough) spectator free Cardiff Bay barrage section. Fingers-crossed I shake the chest infection I'm suffering to get into some good training soon... I'm getting kind of super-charged about the race just now.

The lake at the top of the picture is where I used to run around and around when I first took up running seriously training for my first ever half marathon, so I am really looking forward to running that section in a big event.

After a quick search it seems the article / route can also be read online at http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/need-to-read/2012/06/15/lloyds-tsb-cardiff-half-marathon-organisers-unveil-new-2012-route-91466-31182869/

[Added 19-6-2012] The route can be viewed on the official website http://www.cardiffhalfmarathon.co.uk/half_marathon_route.htm 

Wittering on Wednesday

Daylight

With the conversion of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland across to BST (British Summer Time) this weekend just gone the whole day suddenly alters. The apparent arrival of longer lighter evenings open up the day to many options, in my life that is getting out and about (cycling, running, rowing more in the weekday evenings). I can almost feel any hint of what might be called collective seasonal affective disorder burning off everyone in the last few days.

Blogger's own snapshot - City centre park coming into full blossom

The fact it has coincided with very lovely sunny weather might well have accentuated the benefit of the clock shift this year. That it also coincides with my training for a marathon this year might be heightening the feeling for me as it now means that evening runs will often be in daylight (and on routes that have felt unsafe all Winter as they are unlit paths / trials).

Training / fitness

I have been renewing my 'friendship' with the calorie tracking myfitnesspal app (see www.myfitnesspal.com), thanks to having read a post by 'Morning Runner', specifically "WIAW (after a 20 miler)". I was using this app last year (I have the tag on my blog showing my progress still), but had gotten out of the habit. Reading a post by one of the many extremely clued in running bloggers that I have been browsing in spare moments which mentioned the app got me thinking, and moreover remembering how well it worked for me before the Cardiff Half last autumn. So I am back 'on the wagon' so to speak, and hopefully over the next few weeks I'll begin to see real benefits. One benefit, as pointed out in the post I read, is that it helps you keep track of 'refueling' after heavy exercise days, as it is all to easy to wake up the day after a busy day feeling awful just because the exercise left you with net negative calorie count for the previous day.

Motivation right here, I've got to get into green ;-) - an image pulled from my myfitnesspal tools page

Having had a look around my myfitnesspal online pages, with charts of last years effort and so forth, I came across the BMI calculator (result shown above). I was mildly miffed (!) that my BMI came in just over the green / yellow boundary, it would be so fantastic to get myself firmly planted somewhere in the upper quartile of the healthy range... oh, and so much easier to run a marathon if I can shift a few pounds, and not have to haul the extra around 26.2 miles!

Blogging and stuff

While I am wittering on about blogs I've read lately I often have a look at blogger 'Blogs of note' page on the way into or out of my blog. One that has caught my eye and my attention of late is '366 Random Acts Of Kindness', it is thoroughly simply and yet complete genius. A guy has decided to take the leap year and spend a large part of it paying forward kind acts (see his post 'Tomorrow it begins...' for his full motivation). Some of the acts at first look seem so, so simple and then you realise "hey, I could do that" - and there in lies the essence of the genius. I will be checking back regularly to see how he gets on.

PS. I am enjoying the new Blogger user interface it is certainly cleaner and crisper looking than I was used to. It seems that I can navigate my way around it to - which is always a good thing ;-)

Real training has begun again

Over the last couple of days I have taken time to get back into the frame of mind that paid off very handsomely this year when I was preparing for the Cardiff half-marathon. I have started tracking my calories again using the myfitnesspal app, I have spent time musing a running plan courtesy of Marathon Coach by Running Method app, I have returned to leaping about my lounge with the 30-day Shred Jillian Michael's DVD (Mrs. Taffi is both tickled and baffled by this), and moreover I have even been out on a run.

It is a shock to the system to have jumped back into all the things I was doing a few months ago, and it is true to say my body is complaining quite a bit. Happily I remember that the first few days were a challenge when I got going back in the summer before it began to feel more comfortable. My goal this time is larger not only in distance (to run a marathon) but also in terms of weight loss, I feel I need to reach somewhere comfortably below 13st (182lb or 82.5kg) to make the run that bit easier on me). It has become clear that one of my bigger challenges in the next few months (however I do over 26.2 miles) is to find another challenge for immediately afterwards. The last couple of months without an immediate goal deadline have seen a blip in weight and fitness, which while not terrible were very noticeable [see my Weight page - which I have just updated]. All I need to be careful of is picking the right size of challenge next time, I will certainly not run any further than 26.2 miles for example.

The excitement of reaching my goal later in the spring is certainly driving me at the moment, and pushing me back into the regime that worked for the half-marathon without too much resistance. I suppose it might be the newness of the challenge, or the thought of a marathon completion, whatever it is I am hoping to ride its wave for a good few weeks into the longer mileage runs ;-)

PS. happy New Year! I hope 2012 is full of good things for everyone.

Minor twitter balls-up perhaps?

I realised last night that perhaps I made a minor twitter balls up... I shared via twitter my view of the half marathon I ran in a post below "Race report - Cardiff Half-marathon" which appeared then on the official race website twitter feed box. The title of my post might lead a reader into thinking it was so form of newspaper or official 'report' / 'critique', and I apologise if anyone thought that or were expecting something other than my thoughts (and how I got round).

Lesson learnt, so if I do something similar again I will endeavour to choose a less declarative title. Of course I could have simply written my of a formal 'critique' in the first place, but I opted to save my thoughts for the official feedback form where it will (I hope) be more useful :-)

Race report - Cardiff Half-marathon

Well we did it, I got round despite a cold all week prior (and a stomach bug brewing) and my wife completed her first ever half. The day couldn't have been better weather wise, clear, bright, not overly warm, light cool breezes here and there. Our preparation on the morning went very well. We got the kids organised, got out of the house only a few minutes late, headed into the city centre dropped off our stuff and then walked down to the start in Cardiff Bay.

We arrived in the start area 'just in time', I made a rushed decision about which pace area to wait in and ended up in the wrong one (the band ahead of my planned pace!). I had no time to work out if the new start area truly worked, but my impression was it was a little claustrophobic. Certainly the athlete's village looked the part as we rushed through looking for the start areas.

After the start I went out to fast (I know, I know, school-boy error!) and so rewrote my race plan in the first mile and a half. I opted to hold the pace and then try to manage the degradation in pace using my GPS watch as a gauge. I did just fine at maintaining the initial over the top momentum through the first 45mins up to my planned isogel and drink zone (the second drink station on the course - the drink stations were excellent all around the course). It was not until past a quick 10km (45secs outside my 10k PB) that I began to have to graft hard. Working to maintain pace and over the next 4 miles manage the beginnings of the pace fade. I went from 8min 45sec/mile over the first 6 miles out to 8min 52sec/mile by the 10th mile.

At that point I was still confident I could maintain and keep the average pace for the whole race to a value that would bring me in well inside 2hrs. However I made a major miscalculation... yes, my watch measures my running, but over a set course with wide roads and bends it is possible to run more than the set (measured) race distance / race line. So while my pace was looking good I hadn't noted that my watch was increasingly disagreeing with the mile markers. Somehow I ignored them and believe I would complete in under 2hrs regardless.

I got to mile 11 in 1hr 40min flat, leaving me 20mins to complete.... but my knee began to ache and my befuddlement with the watch pace continued. Then around 12miles the race pace guy for sub-2hr went by me, I hadn't seen him the entire race so was fearful. Only for another half mile later another sub-2hr pace group to come by. I was physically and mentally GONE, there was little left and fight as I might I couldn't pull a sub-ten minute mile out of myself. I tried to sprint at the line but my legs were spent and at this point my stomach was in painful spasm (the stomach bug had made itself known). I crossed the line angry and infuriated with myself. Sure I ran 13.1 miles in under 2hrs (GPS to be believed), but I began to realise that my staying out of the way of faster runners because of my poor start slot judgement I ran the long way around so many bends (including one very long 1.5 mile section). I learned any number of lessons the hard way, even though I had read about them all and probably even advised other to beware.

The race was great, the day was great, and in the fullness of hindsight I was unlucky with illness. The race organisation is improving, it after all only it's second year as a 'large' 15,000 competitor city half. There was little wrong that another year or two of running the event from the same base won't fix. Let's just conclude from the fact that I just finished registering for next year that I'm hooked on the race :-)

PS. no pictures of our own sorry. We were busy and the family were looking after the kids back at home. I'll paste a link to the official pics at some point soon.