Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
Options
Training for a shorter Tri
The materials in this website are in no way intended to replace the professional medical care, advice, diagnosis or treatment of a doctor, qualified personal trainer, therapist, dietitian or nutritionist Runners's World, Part of the Hearst UK well-being network © Copyright 2017
Comments
Cake I will try to remember, just hope I look like a continental person doing kissing and not some desperate woman.
Looking like July 12th
July 12 not doable for me
Need to find a UK full distance in late August, no I'm not doing wales! Might see how Challenge Weymouth goes this year.
Cotswold 226 is currently the top of my list for my first attempt- if they bring it forward then less time to train.... Eek! Should have the running legs after my mara this weekend but still havent actually biked more than 30 miles and wetsuit hasnt seen action since chatsworth in july. Heyho its doable right?
Alibear - hope you find something.
rpitch- Echo for Cakes advice, it is hard easing off but if you try to stick to your plan through illness you could end up out of action even longer.
hope you enjoyed the ride steady and all.
Ali there is a long distance race near cromer if any good in August? http://www.theanglian.co.uk/
Yep Cake that is a great race but not one I'm really up to just yet, sea swim and the bike and run are a bit hilly. There again Weymouth would be the same.
Ali I think Im going to do Hever Castle in Sept next year if you wanna come with
Toddles off to Google , back in a bit
Nope that looks like a half and I'm searching for a full. How I managed to book 2 weeks holiday that scuppers all UK IM Distance races I don't know. Well I do I booked last week of may first week of June and that wipes out most UK summer races. I need 8 weeks solid training on my return before the race and I can't seem to make that happen.
Alibear the Hever lot do a full iron distance race called the Bastion on 12 July 2015 if that is any good..
I have been looking at training plans, but until my Garmin comes back from being repaired I just can't find my mojo to do much.
Sunday just gone was my last race of the year so I'm putting my feet up for a bit. As ever I seem to be off on the timing as friends are all busy signing up for winter running races and are raring to go.
Time for a rather belated GNR report! Apologies for the length...
Intro
I had previously done the Great North Run in 2012, as my first ever mass participation sporting event. I had entered as the previous year I got caught up in the atmosphere when cheering on my then girlfriend (now wife), and also after discovering the hell of travelling from Newcastle to South Shields along with thousands of other people, and deciding that it’d just be easier to run it. But I didn’t train enough, only getting up to about 9 miles in training, and only achieving that distance once. On the day itself I got to 9 miles and my right knee decided it had simply had enough, and so I was reduced to walking the rest of the way, with the occasional slow jog when I felt obliged due to support from the gathered crowds.
So 2014 was to be my second attempt, with better training and I was going to run it without injuring myself. Well, that was the plan anyway. A series of niggles and pains in my feet and legs resulted in no running whatsoever for about 9 weeks, up to 2 weeks before the big day. On the Bank Holiday Monday, my wife and I decided we should try to run, and went straight out for an 8.5 mile slow run. We managed, but it took the rest of the week to get over it. A couple of 2 mile runs over the remainder of the build up to race day meant I knew it was going to be slow, and it was going to be tough. My wife’s running fitness was in a much better place than mine, so she kindly said she would stay with me and help me get to the finish.
Pre-Race
Race day dawned, on a clear, bright, yet somewhat chilly Sunday morning. We walked down to Durham to catch a train through to Newcastle, expecting extra trains. Upon arrival at the station shortly after 9am, we discover that there is no train until 9:53. Things were going to be extremely close for getting to the start on time. An already crowded East Coast service to Edinburgh promptly arrived several minutes late, and resulted in a mad dash across the Toon to arrive at the start too late to enter our assigned waves, and so we continued walking to the very end of the long, long line of people (57,000 people take up quite a length of dual carriageway ‘A’ road) to the one entry point that was still open. We missed the mass warm up (thanks for small mercies), but were in place for the Red Arrows flying overhead. A half mile walk at a pace of about 34 minutes per mile gave us some opportunity to work our way around some of the people who were obviously intending to walk the entire 13.1 miles, and eventually we crossed the start line.
The Race
Having arrived somewhat late, I hadn’t had chance to make use of the loos before getting into place for the start of the run. A somewhat stable door/horse already buggered off approach to pre-race hydration meant that I had taken on far too much water that morning, so when we started running my bladder began to protest. However, I managed to push it to the back of my mind by concentrating on the far more important matter of there being 13.1 miles of running ahead of me. Luckily the early stages of the Great North Run are full of moments of encouragement, such as running through the underpasses to a deafening chorus of “Oggy oggy oggy!” “Oi oi oi!”, and the great support from the crowds all along the Tyne Bridge, probably the most iconic part of the entire route.
A couple of miles in, and I started to get into a bit of a rhythm. I knew it was still going to be tough, but I was fairly sure it was manageable. It was, however, getting quite warm in the sun and even at a fairly modest pace we were getting a bit of a sweat on. It was also a fairly involved task trying to work our way around the walkers amongst us, which would turn out to be a bit of a recurring theme throughout the run. I can’t really complain too much though as we did end up walking ourselves a few times. It would just be nice if people in larger groups were a bit more considerate, and didn’t just walk 6 abreast leaving no room to pass.
Mile markers came and went, more or less in time with the beep from my Garmin to indicate that it had recorded another mile. Water was taken on, Lucozade Sport consumed, and soakings gratefully received from spectators with hosepipes. High fives were given to kids stood patiently holding their hands out, though care was taken not to inadvertently slap the hand of the St John’s people with purple latex gloves holding copious amounts of Vaseline.
Around mile 5, Helen told me she was struggling. Being a teacher at the end of the first week of a new school year, she had picked up all sorts of bugs and germs from the kids, and so had been feeling a bit under the weather to start with. The heat wasn’t helping, and she was starting to feel like she was in danger of causing herself problems. At this point I told her we should walk for a bit to recover, which seemed to help. I knew then that we were close to the next lot of portaloos, so I decided to take the opportunity to relieve myself of one of my own causes of discomfort. Helen decided to carry on ahead, promising to stick close to the edge of the road so I would sport her easily when I caught back up. Due to the queues, and the fun of removing a running vest and the upper half of a trisuit (which I was wearing to help reducing chaffing issues) it took me a while to catch up with her again. I did however record my fastest mile split of the run during this point, hitting an earth shattering 10:27 for that mile.
The rest of the run consisted of alternating between a steady jog and walking and went on incident free. Without exception, every one of the charity cheering stations were brilliant, providing support for everyone and not just their own runners. The Breast Cancer Care support crew though went mental when they saw us coming with our pink vests, declaring their love for us and quickly holding handfuls of sweets out for us. The live bands playing along the route were superb, with my favourite being one that was playing on the balcony of a pub to the side of the route. And as always, the local support was just fantastic. As we dropped down to the seafront with just a mile remaining, the density of the crowd somehow managed to increase and we knew we were nearly there. The finish line came into sight as we passed the 800m sign. Just after the 400m sign the road was
Just after the 400m sign the road was lined by soldiers in full uniform, applauding us as if we’d done something worthy of their praise and respect. And then it was down the finish chute, hand in hand with my wife, hands held in the air in celebration of a challenge conquered slowly, but conquered non-the-less. Over the line in an official time of 2:53:33.
After the Race
Once over the line, and our timing chips had been removed by the lasses who obviously drew the short straw when it came to race day roles (didn’t envy them sitting on the grass removing timing chips from many thousands of sweaty feet) we headed over to collect our finisher’s packs. I wanted an XL tshirt but they had none left, which turned out to be good as the sizes were generous to say the least. We quickly donned the tshirts and medals and began to limp our way to the Sanddancer pub for a much needed pint for recovery purposes. It was at this point that my least favourite aspect of the Great North Run re-emerged, the crowds. It’s always going to be crowded with 55,000+ competitors, but when you’re knackered and don’t like crowds much at the best of times, it’s beyond fun. The pub was, as expected, heaving, and so I did the gentlemanly thing of sending the wife off to find somewhere outside to sit whilst I took her money and joined the “queue” at the bar. 45 minutes later I walked back out into the sunlight with 2 pints of San Miguel ready to kill the next person who tried to push in.
Beer was consumed, buses were boarded back to Newcastle, and traffic was sat in as the entire population of the North East tried to head down the same road at the same time. Upon arrival in the Toon, we hobbled to our favourite sushi place for a good feed, and discussed the day. We both came to the same conclusion about the Great North Run: we’re done with it. Yes, the atmosphere is absolutely brilliant. The entire region gets behind it 100% and you’ll never hear anyone complain about the inconveniences that it causes, which is a rare thing for an event. Local people go out and buy refreshments to hand out to runners, despite many of the areas being somewhat less than affluent. The entertainment on the route is fantastic and well spaced to keep you going when you need it, with the Boost Zone blasting out a bit of Springsteen (Born to Run, obviously) at just the right time to get you actually wanting to keep running. But the logistics of the day, and the sheer number of people made us both realise that it’s never going to be a run for us to aim for PBs, and would always purely be one for simply doing. And we’ve both done it, and can’t be bothered with the hassles any more. We both also got to the end and thought that we’d rather have done the Helvellyn Tri, which was on the same day. We’d much rather be doing something that as well as running, also involves swimming and cycling!
Great report DurhamBiker. I know exactly what you mean about the GNR, I did it back in the 90's and it was packed then.
My priiformis muscle has been naughty and tightened up on me. My bike ride yesterday went well but then the niggling pain this morning turned into spasms. I have stretched and will hopefully be OK for a little Pirate ride around the Surrey Hills tomorrow, although I may be walking up most of them. Just as I started thinking that I was finally getting somewhere with sorting out the long term muscle weakness
2 bike rides done this weekend. 41.29 miles yesterday from Durham up to the Tan Hill Inn (highest pub in Great Britain) on my mountain bike carrying a tent, sleeping mat, sleeping bag, stove, clothes etc for a camping trip with the wife and a couple of friends. Slightly different route back made today 43 miles. Lots of climbing, very hard work carrying all the kit
feeling a bit better and managed to get a run in today and i'll probably go on the bike later.
Also went to watch the southwell sprint this morning to take some of the mystery out of the whole event thing. Think it really helped.
Thinking about signing up the clumber park dualathalon in March now.
evening all
DB - well done at the GNR - it is an event that I would not want to do because of the crowds, same with London, the crowds and the hassle of the logistics really puts me off
well, I came home early from a retirement do because I wanted to be up early to get 20 miles run/walked but hardly slept, sneezing and snuffling, been headachy all day, so have done nothing. Not going to swimming tonight either. Hoping that an early night will sort me out and I can get out and run tomorrow. Won't have the time for the 20 missed miles though
rp - good to hear you are feeling better
Great ride up and down the Surrey Hills with Dustboy, IronCat, Ferrous Ferret and Cheerful Dave. Did some roads for the first time, others for the umpteenth time but they were all gentlemen and waited for me at the top.
My legs do ache as the Garmin recorded 32 miles and 2730 feet of climbing. It confirmed that there are no hills you can not walk up but I did less walking than I thought I would.
Well done steadyCj. Seen the pictures on FB. Was the biscuits nice?
popped out for my first group ride yesterday. stesdy 30 miles with some hills. Need to shift a few pounds as struggled on them.
Overall was please. average speed increased by 4mph as in group so was good to see how the legs handled the increase
The biscuits were great and definitely fuelled me up a few more hills.
Just in case it's off any interest to some of you guys who live down south a race open's up soon called the grizzly done if a few times travelling down from up north and it's worth a trip. Has hill's, challenging topagraphy, and mud. if your tempted well while a look. It's a ballot this year but hoping I can get in. I'd rate is as hard as a marathon it's bacisally a fell run in all but name and a decent chippy at the end.
well done steady! A few more of those and you will have no problems at outlaw
nothing for me - a lazy couple of days. But feeling better than yesterday so must have just been a hayfever thing, back to training tomorrow then
Thanks cake. Need to get back training ready for outlaw. Joined a running group tonight and did interval training. Sets of 400m with 1 minutes rest etc. really enjoyed it And all added up to just under 5k.
3 weeks back into training and second sports massage tomorrow for the legs. After so many months off through injury my legs are really feeling it so hopefully some more pain tomorrow should help
Into my 4th week...
With the exception of a couple of missed runs due to a nasty fever/flu thing i've pretty much stuck to my training schedule. Another swim tonight - felt more powerful with my stroke so that's good.
Couple of other benefits: lost 5lbs and feel a lot more energetic.
Back on the fitness bike tomorrow.
ooh only 11 days to my marathon and I'm bricking it....
I've missed the whole triathlon season with this stupid marathon training...I might have to do some winter biathlons or maybe learn to swim over the winter.
Just a thought...I might get to meet two real pirates at the start (and then watch them disappear in to the distance). How do you greet a pirate? Is aarrgghhh sufficient?