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Thursday 16th August 2012
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ha ha - good luck with it then Snap, I'll report back for sure. In fact I'm off to check the exact distance it is now!
Ah it is only a 10K then. That's a bonus. We'll see what a few obstacles do for morale along the way, but shouldn't be too bad.
Afternoon
Blimey threads been busy last few days
will have to read back but so little time at the mo laters
But in answer to LMH who asked a few days back no 10km isn't a targeted race can't remember your exact question but just want to improve on Horndon back in June Don't really have a targwted race this year although Southend (Oct 7th) is the one i'm aiming for supposed to be a fast course not that the old one as slow
What: short run 2.48 miles
Why: its all a zombie can manage tooday
Last Hard: Monday!!!!!
Lyrics no
keeping the typo maybe OED will spell it like that one day
Just finished doing the pin cushion act.
I'll know in the morning!!
CG4 it seems like you’ve hit the nail on the head with the best way to enjoy training and racing, and that’s to have some close rivals. Nobody, but nobody improves if they are doing it solo, solo, solo.
Snap, even this old grunt is not planning to dive straight into a halfIronMan.I saw the fun that peeps were having on a local shorty tri and realised that looked like a good dose of fun to start with. There’s no point feeling like a wreck after the first attempt. My first shorty is next weekend and of course, that will be a PB. I’ve done loads of PB chasing this past few years, and each one is great. I’m taking the opportunity to bag easy PBs that can be smashed later! The hIM is part of the path to the full IM. As I see it there’s no point being nearly good enough. Mind you, I have re-read your capability and see that you have got the basics in place.
Tom, I got the reference toBarnsley’s favourite son. These newbies don’t realise that he qualified for the Elite start atLondonwithout having run an elite marathon time. His HM’s were good enough. Last seen in the yachting capital of the world.
Wabo, I hope that your reference to having a massacre is more to do with the physio, rather than a reference to the cyclists thread “massacre in theLadyGarden”.
Emzap. LACROSSE! By crikey, there are few enough lacrosse players around. I played for the school team and a local club in the NW of England. As a defender I recall that my tally was 7 goals, and 2 broken (opposition) sticks. As well as a broken nose and the taster that base training could lead to being able to run a marathon.
LMH, I must have been with you today. I nipped out for a bike ride too. From Glos to Chepstow, across theSevernBridgeand back up the other side. A classic round trip of 65 miles and a bit. 4h16m all in, with an early pee stop and photo stop mid bridge. Coming home the wind was behind me and it was great speeding along with minimal effort. 3853 calories burned, apparently. That sounds like a beer and a very large curry to me. This was a solo run, so it was nice to log an average speed (15.4mph), I know that it’s higher with the peleton.
Apart from that I passed my pilot’s medical, without need for mandatory glasses. Min HR was logged as 49 on the couch.
Ha ha ha ha .....
My previous experience with club running is a group of people standing outside the clubhouse unable to decide what to do followed by a run of a previously unspecified distance at an unspecified pace with possibly an unspecified number of efforts of unspecified duration at an unspecified intensity....great if you're the fastest in the group. Me...I'll just lurk at the back.
What I got was 1 mile brisk, 2 sets of 200 strides with 80m jog on grass disguised as a continuous relay ...great little VO2max session, followed by another 2 miles brisk. A great session, gulping for air but really enjoyed it. Nicely structured session by the coach (with lots of encouragement) with everyone operating at their optimum pace and engaging with everybody else. Really loved it.
I downloaded the kindle version of "Running with Kenyans", various extracts of which I've read as articles in the Guardian over the past year. It's a fascinating and informative read and sheds a lot of light on what makes them so good. It's not one of your "uplifting, mighty feats of charactor and endurance" reads...quite the opposite, as it has a nicely understated matter of fact style that illuminates everyone involved.
Sometimes I come across on these threads as being a bit miserable old git, but today I feel a bit like Ivan Denisovich...today was a good day.
Blisters, enjoy your beer and curry. Me, I got white wine and shepherds pie. I know it sounds a bit like a "country supper", but at least the wine bottle had a screw top!
Nice work Blisters, not least on the medical. Quite often watch lacrosse, but far too dangerous to even think of playing.
Enjoyed marshalling this evening at the club's final evening 5k. Most of the Olympians turned up, but from what I saw only Ron Hill and Jeff Norman actually ran. Very big field: I would estimate 500: will see when the results are out. And rather quick at the front. The best bit was having a very long chat with my running doctor friend who was very reassuring about the Achilles, particularly as he feels its the calf that is the main issue. Its just going to be a long slow process and the problems over the last couple of weeks have just been a blip, which pretty well matches what the physio emailed me this evening.
LMH: have a great trip.
Emzap: sounds a great location! Hope the run was appropriate!
Tom: really glad that you enjoyed the club (and the country supper!). How often will you go down? Is it far? Tonight's race was a real trip down memory lane, chatting with Alan Blinston, Jeff Norman, Ron Hill and Diane Modahl, but more importantly lots of other ex-runners or runners that I don't often see.
Blisters: I did, of course, get Tom's reference to BR: I see him and Hilly quite often and we also exchange emails fairly regularly. I just had visions of Tom running around Barnsley with Barnsley's finest...and there are quite a lot of them:
http://www.barnsley.towntalk.co.uk/about/fame/
So he (or she) was a mere youngster then?
510 finishers tonight...not bad for a Thursday evening! And a real quality field with 6 runners under 15 mins and 159 under 20 mins, and 6 of those 159 were over 60!
When I ran with BR around Barnsley he took me for a tour of the sights....sorry heights: Who says the old sod* hasn't got a sense of humour
*I know he doesn't post on the daily thread anymore, but I always lurk the "Middle Ground" as he's always got something interesting to say, and I'm a secret admirer of Hilly (ever since the Mike Gratton days).
I see Brilly fairly often and we keep in touch through messages, also, as we have common ground away from running. Of your list of runners I can't remember John Jones, but Dave Black is one who is definitely missing!
Ah, yes. I had a personal rivalry with Hilly, as we slowly tagged the various milestones. Achieving a 3:15 marathon was completed by us both at Cardiff; I beat her by something like 20 seconds. When it came to a sub 3 marathon she beat me by 2 years. I am of course conveniently ignoring the obvious facts that she did 2:56 (I didn't) and that the female world record is 15 minutes adrift of the male one. Mind you, she did support me on both my sub 3s, and most importantly told me that she believed that I had the ability to do it. There's a lot to be said about mental strength.
And now, as a throwback, I shall add a few phrases to jog the memory:
-squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom
-more cake and less icing
-NB150
-Bob Dylan
-100mpw plus
-lactate threshold training
Blisters: add Hadd.
John Jones (WE&S I think) was probably the best club runner who never broke through. Every week he'd be in AW as the winner of some 10M race somewhere.
Do you remember Bernie Plain (Cardiff AAC and Commonwealth Games marathon runner). I once got suckered into running a solo session with him....a couple of guys I'd planed to do a 10M didn't turn up and one of the non-turneruppers had asked Bernie to come along. So there I am running an eyeballs out 10M ...he was cruising, I was suffering but trying to look cool. At the end of the 10M I turned off for home and promptly threw up....Bernie went round the 10M again!
This was when I lived and ran in Cardiff...mid 70s. I used to run with a group of Cardiff University guys who told me to look out for someone they'd run with the previous year, who was totally out of sight of them and was destined for bigger things... his name, Ian Thompson.
Did you ever come across John Robertshaw...he ran for Sale Harriers, but was working and running in South Wales when I was there....possibly a bit before your time (even though I'm the junior partner in that 131 year old relay run)
LMH - the 1/2 Mara on Sunday and then 2 weeks off work should give me the urge for a few weeks of a final push towards somewhere around the 5:10.
Blisters - Menthol strength is still massively under-rated in endurance sports as you get so much time to talk yourself out of it on the day. Once you go from hoping to achieve X, to believing you can achieve X, and then finally expecting it then you are there mentholly.
Tom: Bernie Plain should, indeed, be on the list! Lots of others, no doubt! Our club was full of Robertshaws! I didn't know John, and don't actually know where he fitted into the family. "Pop" was a coach and his wife was the treasurer; Alan was the club's chief coach and coached over a hundred internationals. And he had no badges. I know Norman Poole, one of the Natonal Middle Distance coaches pretty well: he puts the vast majority of his knowledge and success down to Alan. It was Alan who advised me to join in something like 1974. There were several other Robertshaws, too!
Freary, Adcocks, Batty, Taylor, Tayor, Kilby, Grove, Fowler, Lane have just sprung to mind! (And yes, I knew that you were the junior relay partner!)
Tom: I didn't hit it off with Pantman either, and was blasted for giving someone some advice, being told that I didn't know what I was talking about. He was probably right!
One of my greatest running moments (one day I'll share my greatest, posted on the daily thread back in March 2005) was being overtaken after 15 miles of the Cheltenham -Gloucester 18M by Alan Rushmer....(1976 when realised I could just about do this running thing)
I think we need to get together sometime, if only to spare the other readers and posters on this thread our communal stroll down memory lane.
Tom: I was only very young in 2005! Talking of Mel Batty, I did meet him once, in the company of Dr. Hill: he seemed a really nice guy, and I know that Ron was really upset when he died. If I play my Alan SImpson, Andy Carter, John Whetton and Derek Ibbotson cards I wonder what you will respond with! And yes, Alan Rushmer was class! I also think that we should keep this banter going: it keeps the youngsters off the streets whilst they are reading our reminiscences!
Alan Simpson was a Sheffield runner and a hero (an earlier life version of Peter Elliott) , as I lived in North Notts. "ibbo" was another hero drawn from the same era as Gordon Pirie, and Vladimer Kutz
Childhood memories...childhood heros...who says that sport doesn't matter.
Off to bed...more tomorrow perhaps
Tom
John Robertshaw was one of Newport Harriers top runners in the mid/late seventies, early 80s. He was one of several runners who met in the Old Arcade in Cardiff to drink SA and talk running. Some of the others were Tom Jones, who also ran for Newport, and Steve Strech, who ran for Cardiff.
Bernie Plain was a top international athlete, who once came 4th in the European marathon, and as far as I know, is still UK 20 mile record holder. He was known as the "Parkie" as he was a park-keeper at Maindy Stadium.
I ran in the 1981 Duchy of Cornwall marathon. I saw Ian Thompson at the start, and thought, yeah, he's past his best, I'll have him ... I ran the first 5 miles with him, flat-out, feeling awful. He was just smiling, taking it easy and enjoying the run.
Unfortunately I hit the wall at 5 miles (earlier than usual!). Ian won with a time of 2 27 (it was a very hilly course, one of the toughest in the UK), and I limped home in 3 29, an hour later. I didn't learn my lesson though, and tried the same against Bernie Plain in the 1981 Poly. I got to 10 miles this time before hitting the wall, and staggering to a 2 41 finish (Bernie won in 2 24).
Happy days!
The top Newport Harriers runners, at that time (pre Steve Jones) were Dave Hopkins and Robert Sercombe. Robert once managed to get himself disqualified from the Poly for abusing an official, which was really bisarre as he was one of the quietest polite people you could ever hope to meet.
Alehouse: Dave Hopkins was a school teacher and many years later a regular poster on RW told me that he had taught her.
Those indeed were the days Philip. My daughter now lives in Dinas Powis, and when I visit I often run some of my old routes....if only to remind myself that time and tide...etc
I do remember John and Dave Walsh, Gordon Macillroy and Rob Atkinson. Mac was a director of Les Croupiers Casino, and agreed to make a yearly subscription if the club was known as Les Croupiers running club. Dave, Gordon, Rob,Errol Alexis, myself and Mick McGeoch were some of the founder members of the club.
Most of us were members of Cardiff AAC and left to found the new club. John stayed at Cardiff, though he was a great friend of LCs. Sadly John died some years ago after collapsing after a run. Rob Atkison has also died.
I've heard of the other runners though didn't know them. I competed from around 1977 to 1988 when unfortunately I had to stop running following an accident.
I was talking to Mick McGeoch at the Cardiff Parkrun a few weeks ago. He's injured at the moment, but Errol Alexis, looking fantastic at 78 years of age, was running.
After I moved away in 1977 (I didn't run much that year through injury) I gave up running until 2002. In 2005 at the age of 57, I had, relatively, the best run of my life in the Bath HM, where I was first M55 and M50 (Martin rees didn't run that year!) in 79:02. When I ran towards the finishing line I heard a voice over the PA announcing "here comes Tom S finishing...I used to train with him 30 years ago". It was John Walsh doing the announcing. Definately the icing on the cake of my best running day ever. It was after the race when we were chatting that he told me that John and Rob had died.
I ran the Cardiff Parkrun back in 2008, on one of my visits to the daughters. It was the eve of my 65th birthday and the last year that I showed any form.
Thanks for the memories Philip
Hi Tom,
Tom Jones was an architect (I think) who studied in Cardiff, probably at UWIST. He was a close friend of John Robertshaw's. He was a solid runner, who struggled with injuries. I knew him better than John, as Tom and I were at a similar level.
You may find the old editions of Ace, the Les Croupiers' newsletter interesting. There's an interview with Rob Atkinson,1 part in each edition, and a report of the 1974 AAA marathon you mentioned, in which Bob Sercombe was disqualified. Brian Lee's "Pacemaker" articles about vets runners - he mentions John Walsh - are interesting too. Brian Lee is a well known author, who has published many books about local history.
http://www.lescroupiersrunningclub.org.uk/storage/adobe-acrobat-files/Ace Edition 7.pdf
http://www.lescroupiersrunningclub.org.uk/storage/adobe-acrobat-files/Ace%20Edition%208.pdf
Really enjoyed the link!