It has taken well over a week to recover from the Kilomathon but I am pretty much back to walking normally now, and with glorious weather this Sunday I decided to get back out there and start to recover my fitness back to pre-Christmas levels.
My first idea was to take out the bike but the rear tyre was looking a bit soft. I tried to pump it back up but it had one of those weird Presta valves that I have never successfully managed to use correctly yet. I succeeded in removing all of the air from that tyre while trying to pump it up. I’m going to have a look on the internet today to see what I did wrong.
My next plan was to head out in the kayak. First time this year and it took me twice as long to find all of my bits of kit and remember how to work the roof rack. In the end I got on the water though. I had a great time on the river paddling downstream and exploring tributaries and things. On the way back I spied a nice old wooden rowing boat, a slow three man affair. Over the course of about 10 minutes I caught up with it until they saw me coming, at which point they started to paddle a bit faster. We had started to race and none of us were going to slow down. I was in a shorter but narrower boat, they had length but they were also very wide so I think I had a faster hull speed, they were powered by two men though. For the next fifteen minutes we didn’t stop hard paddling. As I got closer I could hear them grunting with effort but I too was feeling the strain and had it been any other time I would have stopped for a quick drink. We drew level just as they shipped their oars to drift to the quayside, and we shared a couple of pleasantries. I was well and truly stuffed though and glad when I made it to my landing too.
A good workout all round, though carrying my boat back to the car park I had a thought that I could do with building up my upper body as my new Speeder (4 weeks to go) is 4kgs heavier and although 22kgs isn’t beyond me, I could make portages easier if I do some weights at that weight range. I have loaded up the barbell to 22kgs and will now be doing some lifts in the evening.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The Killerthon
This weekend just past saw the culmination of months of intensive un-training get tested on the longest road race I have ever done. But to that in a second, firstly I have found the boat that I have been looking for. Fast enough to take on distances races with a degree of competitiveness, stable enough to inspire confidence.
I have had my eye on the Pyranha Speeder for ages having seen it at a boat show a couple of years back but I hadn’t really given it any great attention until I started all of this Devises to Westminster nonsense. Testing out the thoroughbred racing boats scared the bejesus out of me, the slimline hyperfast carbon and glass boats are undoubtedly the fastest craft out there and the only choice for the competitive racers, but they are so unstable for a fair to middling paddler like myself, I don’t think I could have taken part in any race without intensive training to become comfortable in one. I don’t have enough time on the river to be able to do that so I had to look to alternatives, and I wanted a boat that could be used in more situations than just distance racing.
The Speeder seemed like a good candidate, it has the lines of a racing boat, long and slender and is advertised by Pyranha as being a stable river runner. Reading reviews all over the internet I wasn’t sure if Pyranha’s “stable” was different to everyone else’s stable, so I felt I had to take one out for a test drive. West Midlands Canoe Centre were kind enough to get a demo boat in for me and on Saturday I took it out. On the water I was aware of the boats tendency to tip but it didn’t seem much worse than I have experienced in my RPM and certainly the advertised secondary stability was there in spades. Once I got up to speed I was more than confident that I could handle this boat, it was fast, and to my surprise relatively manoeuvrable for something of this size and weight. I got back to the quayside with the biggest grin on my face. The upshot.. One new boat arriving in about 5 weeks time and I am pretty excited by the prospect of this years paddling.
That was Saturday, Sunday was the worlds first Kilomathon. I’ll be surprised if this is the first time a 26.2 kilometre race has ever been run ever anywhere in the world, but the organisers were making a big play on the fact that that this was the first Kilomathon and that the 5,500 of us who turned up would be taking part in history. It might be the first time anyone has ever called it a Kilomathon I suppose. Anyway, twenty six point something kilometres is sixteen point something miles, three miles longer than a half marathon and as I had done two of those so I wasn’t particularly worried about the additional distance.
I’m the first to admit that my training was poor but I had completed my first Half Mary (Ironbridge) after a similarly poor training regime at about this time last year so I had pencilled in a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. Two hours is my Half time and I thought an additional 40 minutes for the remaining 3 miles would be fine and plenty, even if I ran at a slower pace I thought I would be well in.
Race day didn’t start all too well, my iPhone which had my running playlist and was going to be key to liaising with my dad and wife at the end of the race broke down just as we had set off. We turned around so I could grab a spare iPod and then we were running late.
Getting to the start line after a two hour drive it was cold. Sunny but bitterly cold and when the wind blew I just wanted to get running. After a seemingly long delay we were away, my left leg which has been giving me some gyp since forever, gave me a quick painful reminder that there were problems with the shin but that soon subsided after a couple of kilometres were under the belt.
My dad had started in a forward group because he was going to run the distance in a quicker time but after about 10ks I had somehow caught him up, we shared a brief chat but I couldn’t keep up and promptly fell back. By 13kms I was completely knackered, seriously tired. Legs were out of fuel, feet were feeling bruised, and my shins were beginning to ache too, had this been a training run I think I would have phoned for a lift home because my pain had become quite serious but as it was my options were to pull up and get rescued by the stewards or carry on. I carried on.
By the 20th Kilometre I was in agony, I had been forced to walk for stretches of the distance and the pain in my feet had made it impossible to run in my preferred toe first style so I resorted to a knee jarring heel first gait to keep moving. It was about now that my iPod ran out of batteries, and I was overtaken by an asthmatic, it was all getting pretty grim.
For some reason I was under the impression that the Kilomathon was 24kms. I don’t know why, I put it down to my mind trying to cope with the self inflicted pummelling I was putting myself though. Either way, there is nothing more crushing to moral than thinking that the finish line is only one more kilometre away only to hit the 24km marker post and there is no cheering crowd, no aid station, just a couple of marshals clapping and telling you to keep going. I had built myself up to collapse, only to discover I had to keep going for 2 more kms.
I made it to the finish line in screaming pain. I could not run anymore, you can tell by the finish line photos where it looks like I am making an awful lot of effort for very little forward motion. I staggered through the finish post, collected my medal and things and wanted to collapse.
That wasn’t how it ended though. The ordeal continued. I then had to liaise with my dad (who had finished half an hour before I had) and then we were supposed to walk the short distance to the car park where my wife was waiting in the car but because my phone decided to stop working I had to try and find my Dad amongst a crowd of five and a half thousand other knackered runners. After ten minutes I decided to give up and head to the car by myself. My missus would be there who could then phone my dad to tell him where we were.
I set off cold and tired to the Park and Ride car park which a steward told me was a short walk thataway only the short walk I took seemed to have been in the wrong direction and I ended up walking a very long way round with a few other runners who had also got lost. I eventually made it to the car ready to finally stop moving to discover that my wife wasn’t there, she had headed to the start line and was still waiting for me to finish. I collapsed to the floor and just sat there for a bit, I was not going to be able to walk back to the finish line even if I had wanted to. Eventually Someone lent me a phone and we all met back up.
I am now at Thursday and I am still limping, and my shin splints problem is back with a vengeance. After the race I vowed never to run again but now the sun is shining and the pain in my legs isn’t keeping me awake anymore so I think there will be some more distance events in the future.
I have had my eye on the Pyranha Speeder for ages having seen it at a boat show a couple of years back but I hadn’t really given it any great attention until I started all of this Devises to Westminster nonsense. Testing out the thoroughbred racing boats scared the bejesus out of me, the slimline hyperfast carbon and glass boats are undoubtedly the fastest craft out there and the only choice for the competitive racers, but they are so unstable for a fair to middling paddler like myself, I don’t think I could have taken part in any race without intensive training to become comfortable in one. I don’t have enough time on the river to be able to do that so I had to look to alternatives, and I wanted a boat that could be used in more situations than just distance racing.
The Speeder seemed like a good candidate, it has the lines of a racing boat, long and slender and is advertised by Pyranha as being a stable river runner. Reading reviews all over the internet I wasn’t sure if Pyranha’s “stable” was different to everyone else’s stable, so I felt I had to take one out for a test drive. West Midlands Canoe Centre were kind enough to get a demo boat in for me and on Saturday I took it out. On the water I was aware of the boats tendency to tip but it didn’t seem much worse than I have experienced in my RPM and certainly the advertised secondary stability was there in spades. Once I got up to speed I was more than confident that I could handle this boat, it was fast, and to my surprise relatively manoeuvrable for something of this size and weight. I got back to the quayside with the biggest grin on my face. The upshot.. One new boat arriving in about 5 weeks time and I am pretty excited by the prospect of this years paddling.
That was Saturday, Sunday was the worlds first Kilomathon. I’ll be surprised if this is the first time a 26.2 kilometre race has ever been run ever anywhere in the world, but the organisers were making a big play on the fact that that this was the first Kilomathon and that the 5,500 of us who turned up would be taking part in history. It might be the first time anyone has ever called it a Kilomathon I suppose. Anyway, twenty six point something kilometres is sixteen point something miles, three miles longer than a half marathon and as I had done two of those so I wasn’t particularly worried about the additional distance.
I’m the first to admit that my training was poor but I had completed my first Half Mary (Ironbridge) after a similarly poor training regime at about this time last year so I had pencilled in a time of 2 hours and 40 minutes. Two hours is my Half time and I thought an additional 40 minutes for the remaining 3 miles would be fine and plenty, even if I ran at a slower pace I thought I would be well in.
Race day didn’t start all too well, my iPhone which had my running playlist and was going to be key to liaising with my dad and wife at the end of the race broke down just as we had set off. We turned around so I could grab a spare iPod and then we were running late.
Getting to the start line after a two hour drive it was cold. Sunny but bitterly cold and when the wind blew I just wanted to get running. After a seemingly long delay we were away, my left leg which has been giving me some gyp since forever, gave me a quick painful reminder that there were problems with the shin but that soon subsided after a couple of kilometres were under the belt.
My dad had started in a forward group because he was going to run the distance in a quicker time but after about 10ks I had somehow caught him up, we shared a brief chat but I couldn’t keep up and promptly fell back. By 13kms I was completely knackered, seriously tired. Legs were out of fuel, feet were feeling bruised, and my shins were beginning to ache too, had this been a training run I think I would have phoned for a lift home because my pain had become quite serious but as it was my options were to pull up and get rescued by the stewards or carry on. I carried on.
By the 20th Kilometre I was in agony, I had been forced to walk for stretches of the distance and the pain in my feet had made it impossible to run in my preferred toe first style so I resorted to a knee jarring heel first gait to keep moving. It was about now that my iPod ran out of batteries, and I was overtaken by an asthmatic, it was all getting pretty grim.
For some reason I was under the impression that the Kilomathon was 24kms. I don’t know why, I put it down to my mind trying to cope with the self inflicted pummelling I was putting myself though. Either way, there is nothing more crushing to moral than thinking that the finish line is only one more kilometre away only to hit the 24km marker post and there is no cheering crowd, no aid station, just a couple of marshals clapping and telling you to keep going. I had built myself up to collapse, only to discover I had to keep going for 2 more kms.
I made it to the finish line in screaming pain. I could not run anymore, you can tell by the finish line photos where it looks like I am making an awful lot of effort for very little forward motion. I staggered through the finish post, collected my medal and things and wanted to collapse.
That wasn’t how it ended though. The ordeal continued. I then had to liaise with my dad (who had finished half an hour before I had) and then we were supposed to walk the short distance to the car park where my wife was waiting in the car but because my phone decided to stop working I had to try and find my Dad amongst a crowd of five and a half thousand other knackered runners. After ten minutes I decided to give up and head to the car by myself. My missus would be there who could then phone my dad to tell him where we were.
I set off cold and tired to the Park and Ride car park which a steward told me was a short walk thataway only the short walk I took seemed to have been in the wrong direction and I ended up walking a very long way round with a few other runners who had also got lost. I eventually made it to the car ready to finally stop moving to discover that my wife wasn’t there, she had headed to the start line and was still waiting for me to finish. I collapsed to the floor and just sat there for a bit, I was not going to be able to walk back to the finish line even if I had wanted to. Eventually Someone lent me a phone and we all met back up.
I am now at Thursday and I am still limping, and my shin splints problem is back with a vengeance. After the race I vowed never to run again but now the sun is shining and the pain in my legs isn’t keeping me awake anymore so I think there will be some more distance events in the future.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Nothing to report
It is recommended that when you keep a blog, you update it regularly so that your readership knows when to expect an update, daily, weekly, monthly. This is something I have failed to do at the moment mainly because I have absolutely nothing to update. This is a training and fitness blog and currently I am doing neither training or keeping fit. I have a developing beer belly which has deviously crept up on me since Christmas and I have a race on Sunday that is further than I have ever run before, I even still have shin pain that is making minor events like going up stairs painful. On top of that I have managed to choose a swimming race in the Great East Swim which clashes with my best mates wedding. I asked him to move it but he wasn’t having it… Hopefully I will get a deferral and be able to do that race next year but as it stands that isn't going to happen now... Stupid wedding.
I have a plan though. I am not the sort of person who backs out of an event so I will be taking part in the Killerthon this weekend, even if it kills me, despite the fact that I am not particularly prepared for it. After that I am going to increase my cycle miles now that the weather is getting more pleasant, no chance of shin pain there and good cardio stuff. And I am thinking of getting some serious kayaking miles in this year. I am test driving my boat of dreams this Saturday and hopefully will get to use this during the summer with an eye to take on next years DW.
I have a plan though. I am not the sort of person who backs out of an event so I will be taking part in the Killerthon this weekend, even if it kills me, despite the fact that I am not particularly prepared for it. After that I am going to increase my cycle miles now that the weather is getting more pleasant, no chance of shin pain there and good cardio stuff. And I am thinking of getting some serious kayaking miles in this year. I am test driving my boat of dreams this Saturday and hopefully will get to use this during the summer with an eye to take on next years DW.
Monday, 1 March 2010
How not to do it.
This is a blog about how not to prepare for races. So far I have successfully not prepared very well for a kayak race, two half marathons, and an outdoor swimming race. Currently I am doing fantastically badly at preparing for the longest race I have ever attempted.
There are two weeks to go until the kilomathon and due to another dose of very painful shin splints, and the fact that the weather has been quite grim, I haven’t really been out running, I have been playing squash, but not running.
So last week I declared to my squash partners that I am now going to focus on being ready for this race. I give it a week so that I am certain my shin splints have gone away and this Sunday I went out for a nice and easy 4 mile run. First time I have hauled on my trainers for a while, possibly first time this year… Maybe not, I can’t quite remember. That’s beside the point really. I have a 16 mile race in 13 days and so far I have run 4 miles, once. It wasn’t a very good run, my feet started to hurt and then towards the end my back ached. So yeah. Great! Four miles and my body started to groan and in two weeks time I have to do that distance 4 times over. Well, I had better up my run rate I suppose. Get out there two or three times this week and maybe a couple more the week after.
Then I get an email from the guys at the kilomaton saying that it’s time to taper the training. I need to reduce my weekly mileage down so that my body is at its peak condition ready for the race. I have to REDUCE my mileage. I have only done four miles as it is. Gagh! I feel I might have left it a bit late in the day to start my training then.
Note to self. Don’t enter races that happen in March. Training in the winter is even less likely to happen that in the summer.
There are two weeks to go until the kilomathon and due to another dose of very painful shin splints, and the fact that the weather has been quite grim, I haven’t really been out running, I have been playing squash, but not running.
So last week I declared to my squash partners that I am now going to focus on being ready for this race. I give it a week so that I am certain my shin splints have gone away and this Sunday I went out for a nice and easy 4 mile run. First time I have hauled on my trainers for a while, possibly first time this year… Maybe not, I can’t quite remember. That’s beside the point really. I have a 16 mile race in 13 days and so far I have run 4 miles, once. It wasn’t a very good run, my feet started to hurt and then towards the end my back ached. So yeah. Great! Four miles and my body started to groan and in two weeks time I have to do that distance 4 times over. Well, I had better up my run rate I suppose. Get out there two or three times this week and maybe a couple more the week after.
Then I get an email from the guys at the kilomaton saying that it’s time to taper the training. I need to reduce my weekly mileage down so that my body is at its peak condition ready for the race. I have to REDUCE my mileage. I have only done four miles as it is. Gagh! I feel I might have left it a bit late in the day to start my training then.
Note to self. Don’t enter races that happen in March. Training in the winter is even less likely to happen that in the summer.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
