It Was All Going Too Well

After the 10k race over the bank-holiday weekend everything seemed to be going swimmingly well. Perhaps a bit too well as it turned out. The 10k left me feeling quite fit and able to build on the longer runs. A speed session with the group of 400/800/1200 meters also went well which hadn’t left me blown out as those sort of distances usually do. The following two ParkRuns saw my times drop neatly into the twenty-six minute bracket with runs at 26:40 and 26:39 respectively, an improvement of just on a minute on the previous run.

Buoyed up by all this I went out for an interval session at the other local recreation ground that I use with the intention of putting in hard session. Each lap of this ground is almost exactly a half mile which gives times easy to equate with the three mile ParkRun. 

3 laps x 1/2mile, 5min rec. 

2 laps x 1/4mile, jog other halves to rec.

1 lap. x  2 x 200yds sprint, jog to rec. 

It was nothing that I shouldn’t have been able to handle. But hip/pelvic muscles started to protest on the third lap and instead of calling a stop I foolishly pressed on hoping that it would ‘run off’. Of course it didn’t and instead I wound up with a full blown injury that had me limping off the field. 

And so it was, unable to run for two weeks and still painful in the third. I eventually tried a couple of very short jogs and eventually judged it safe to return to the group runs. I completed this weeks session without too much aggravation but I was taking it very easy and not trying too hard. That of course put paid to my plans for a try at a good time on the 5k in mid June. I haven’t  actually placed a foot in a ParkRun for a month so I suppose it’ll be back to times around the half-hour again.

Luckily in all of this the injury doesn’t seem to affect paddling. It’s only painful when taking load bearing on the hips during footfall, and of course the day afterwards. Consequently I’ve been able to put in some time on the water and been trying to get more consistent times over the Hare & Hounds 4 mile course. Basically that boils down to being able to keep a modest pace going non stop. Using the Gymboss I’ve been increasing the time expended gradually in sets from three minutes out to now six minutes. 

It was on my return from one such session that I found myself with a job…

Esher 10k Run

The Monday evening training sessions were interrupted by the Mayday Holiday with a layoff on the 7th May. By chance a local school has been organising a 10k road race for the last few years on the holiday which has gradually grown in popularity and now commands entries of up to about 450 runners. Our coach recommended giving it a try in place of the session, which seemed like a good idea to do something a little longer than the usual 5k ParkRun.

I had run the previous Saturday’s ParkRun and although I’d done a slightly faster time than previously I was still a little disappointed at the lack of progress in posting better times. I was still languishing around in the high end of the 27 minute time frame. It was a last minute decision to do the 10k and I went down to the start to sign on as a ‘late entry’ about a half hour before the start. I hadn’t thought anything about the time I was likely to do, only that a good steady run, while keeping the pace up against others wouldn’t do the training schedule any harm.

So, equipped for the first time in my life, with a chip attached to my shoelaces, I tagged onto the very rear of the throng and we all shuffled off from the start at a steady walk from the school grounds. Soon we were on the back roads and the crush of the start began to ease itself out to the width of the small backroad we were on. After a few minutes we turned onto one of the paths that meanders around the local common. The path itself was just about half dried out after rain a few days previously. For a lot of the way the path would be runnable but would suddenly present a mud bog cutting the width down by more than half. That of course resulted in much jinking about and sudden changes of direction to get the dry path through the mud.

It all settled down after a while as the throng of runners stretched out a bit. An inner loop around Arbrook common was followed by another, larger loop around the perimeter soon followed by a excursion to the other side of the A3 via an unlit subterranean tunnel, around a few fields and back again. Passing through 5k I was going quite well with a time just over 28 minutes but by 7k was starting to slow and a few others were overtaking in style. I managed the last part of the race to the finish without any real problems, but rather slower taking my overall time out to 1:00:54.

The distance was rather more than I’d done recently but If I’d thought about it I would probably aimed to finish in under the hour, but being a spur of the moment entry I hadn’t considered that possibility. Which was a pity. But it was a pleasant run on a sunny day and for me, something out of the ordinary. Perhaps next time I’ll go in a bit more prepared with a target time to run to.

The Wey Hasler, April 2018

A week after the debacle that was the club’s Hare & Hounds time trial, in which I was soundly beaten into third place by another club member that I had expected to best, I went for an open match in the Wey Kayak Club’s Hasler event. The Wey KC isn’t in the same group as my own club so any entry I make doesn’t score points, but its a handy intro to the season as it is quite local to me at Guildford and a good practice run. I haven’t competed in this race before but I watched my son and granddaughter do it last year and it seemed like a race not to miss.

I duly turned up and secured one of the last parking spaces. Nearby were a couple of other members of my club and we checked in and prepared for the foray. We had a fairly good leisurely paddle upstream to the start point near the A3 road bridge. This presented a bit of milling about to turn around and organise ourselves into the correct start rankings. Eventually we were organised into the start grid line up and the first sections were on their way. My group, Div 9 k1s sidled up to the start line, and we were off. From the start we had to paddle back the thousand meters to the clubhouse and just beyond to the first turn. All was well but the confines of the river banks and the number of boats had kicked up a chop that made consistent paddling difficult.

As usual I overcooked the first half mile but found myself just trailing my protagonist from the last weekend’s H&H.  Once past the first turn we ploughed on and both he and I overtook a couple of others that were slowing Something of a crosswind was beginning to make itself felt, and as we progressed the bow waves rebounding from the banks were making the going quite unpleasant. But if I was feeling it my immediate opponent was having a worse time than I was. As a rule I don’t have too much trouble with windy conditions. If at all possible I usually head the boat as near head-on into the wind as I can get, lower the angle of the paddles and keep to a strong stroke. That usually takes me through the worst of it although having a stable boat under me is a big help.

We progressed and I pulled ahead and started catching other paddlers that were having a trying time. In fact I had made up three places as the finish hove into view and was well ahead of my clubmate. To get to the finish we had to go about 50 meters downstream of it, turn around a buoy and return to pass through the finish. Approaching the buoy there were about four or five other boats heading into the turn and a canoe with two crew stopped on the right hand side. Just at that moment the canoe took off from the bank and cut across the apex of the turn causing the approaching line of kayaks to carry out all manner of inventive avoidance manoeuvers. I had been approaching for a wide sweeping turn as the canoe emerged from the melee and crabbed across in front of me. I had to slam the brakes on to avoid a full on ram into its side an was lucky to just have enough room to pass behind him.

But, I’d lost what momentum I’d had in a turn and had to start accelerating again. Meanwhile my protagonist had taken advantage of the mess and found his way through on the inside. Luckily he was still behind and I was able to get ahead to take the place in front of him. He had made up two or three places around the turn and I had lost one of the places I’d made down the course. Nett result was that I was lucky to keep ahead of him.

It’s time to learn some tactics.

Hare & Hounds April 2018

I missed the ParkRun on the third Saturday of April as it was time for the club’s Hare & Hounds once again. I really didn’t want to miss this one as the previous two had coincided with very cold weather, which had cancelled the January one and the one in February hadn’t looked much better.  This time though I wasn’t the only ‘Hare’ as another member was on the start line at the same time as myself. 

On paper I should have  left him standing and taken the max points relatively easily. Indeed I was quite quickly away and he soon dropped behind. By the first half-mile bridge I couldn’t even hear him in the background. My style, for want of a better description, mainly consists of some fairly speedy events followed by equally lengthy recovery periods. The fact that I had only had a couple of paddles in the previous month did not help one little bit. 

My opposition however had evidentially been doing some unsportsmanlike practicing and has developed his own style of paddling action which could be likened to the Duracell Bunny. An almost completely flat stroke with only half of the paddle blade submerged, all done at about waist height. Nevertheless it worked well enough for him to catch up and overtake me at about the end of the first mile. His paddling was however, relentless. It just kept going while I was still forced into my regular breaks to allow the blood to return to my arms. 

The only thing that slowed him was an occasional foray into the bushes as he cut the corners on the bends just a little too tight. By the turn at two miles he had opened up a gap of about 50 yards    and it was there that was able to make up most of that distance as I made a much faster turn and came out of the turn almost on his tail. On the return leg we were both overtaken by a pair in a k2 which had started a couple of minutes behind us. Just for a while I was even able to wash-hang on the k2 pair and that stopped me falling any further behind. We both also had to negotiate our way around another pair in a c2 which had a start of about five minutes on us and at that point I lost the assisted ride from the k2.

All the same, he opened the gap up again and held it until we got to the last half-mile. As we passed into the last open stretch he was at last faltering and slowing. I put in a bit of a spurt and closed down the gap again, but he was still too far ahead for me to be able to overtake. We passed through the finish line with a 50 second difference between us placing 2nd and 3rd to the k2 pair.

I’m not sure what all that proves but clearly style didn’t win out over strength in this case. I think I’ll need to do a bit of practicing.

Oh! I Don’t Like Mondays

Apparently the experience of two months worth of coaching sessions on Monday nights, just as it’s beginning to get dark and running around hard, metalled roads wasn’t enough to stop me from signing on for another nine week stint. The sessions start at 8 pm, just when my body is telling me that it should be beginning it’s shut down for the night and a cup of cocoa, which would be more appropriate than dragging my sorry arse out to the local recreation ground for violent exertion. The worst part, in having to postpone dinner until gone 9 o’clock, is no joke but there’s no possibility of running on a full stomach, so it has to be. Five others have also transferred over from the last group, but at least one of them hasn’t shown up for the first two sessions so far.

Two weeks into the new set of sessions has seen the group begin a new regime that at least takes over where the last one left off so it’s not just a repeat of the previous course. The initial session re-introduced hills. This time in pairs. The intention being to encourage one another to greater things as we head towards the peak of the local bridleway. Unfortunately, due to the recent heavy rain its very muddy and has to have the way picked out carefully in the encroaching gloom. It’s not too bad in the daytime when I revisited it again about a week later, but its still not ideal.

The second session, around a 500 meter loop of road was also run in pairs, (I think there’s a pattern developing here). This time one of the pair gallops around the loop and the other jogs easily in the opposite direction. On meeting up we reverse roles for the second half of the loop back to the start. Repeated half a dozen times gives a fair work out.

Part of the value of this course has been the new stretch and exercises for warm up which are beginning to make themselves felt. Several of them are new to me and are reaching places I didn’t    know existed. Also new is the use of a stretch band with handles to work out individual muscle groups. Unfortunately one group in the hip has been worked out rather too well and is currently presenting something of a problem. It’s back to the old cold compress in that area for the moment.

Despite all of this the results at ParkRun haven’t been exactly spectacular and lag behind what I was achieving for a similar expenditure of effort eighteen months ago. At best I’ve managed to trim only a few seconds off each week for the last few runs. They have been: 

24/2;  29:23.    17/3; 29:32     24/3;  28:58.    31/3;  28:57.     7/4;  28:06.    14/4;  28:03

I suppose that’s progress, of a sort, but I had rather hoped for better.

April & the DW Blues

The weekly coached sessions came to an end with the last one on the Monday before Easter. For a change the recreation ground’s surface, where it’s held, had more or less dried out to only a slightly sticky surface, but we were able to use it for the first half of the session for warming up and doing some mobility exercises. The second half was back onto the road around another road that loops around the recreation ground and its surrounding houses in an approximately triangular shape, to the tune of 0.98 of a mile. Once more we were running in pairs in opposite directions and changing over a baton as we came up to one another at the half way point. The idea being to keep up some sort of pace after passing on the baton. Luckily we were only required to do two laps of this course, but as it was at around 80% effort it was sufficient to get the idea.

The question is, was it all worth it?  Well, yes. The value for me, was in the training with others and that it was structured and regulated. Much of it was simply intervals that I could have organised myself, but the fact is that if it had been just left to myself, somewhere along the nine weeks I’d probably have let it all drop and any value up to that point would have been lost. As it was the impetus was there to keep up the effort and through that, the improvement. The other value has been the mobility and the strength exercises at the start of the sessions. These brought home just how perfunctory my warm-up sessions had become. They had been distilled down to a few stretches and maybe a half mile jog, it simply wasn’t  enough. Taking on board the full regime has resulted in me coming away from a jog session without ending up stiff and painful for the rest of the day.

The last ParkRun saw an improvement of over 50 seconds on the previous week. Although the time is nowhere near where I want it to challenge my previous best, it does at least now feel achievable that I might put in another PB before I move up into the next ParkRun age group. With that in mind I’ve signed up for another set of 12 sessions that starting next week will take me just past June. 

Meanwhile, back on the water I’ve sort of settled into the Tuesday club paddling session. I’m loosely justifying this as ‘cross training’ and it does feel as if its helping with the mobility and strength of the upper parts that are otherwise just along for the ride on a jog. Otherwise there’s little activity on the boating front and not a great deal of improvement. 

The Easter weekend has come and gone again. Once more leaving me as a spectator of the fabled ‘Devizes to Westminster International Canoe Race’ that I should have been part of if the flesh had been a bit more willing, and the mind not quite so weak. I have to say though that I am very glad that I wasn’t part of this year’s race though as I watched the whole debacle unfold from the sidelines. Almost biblical rainfall in the few days just before Easter brought about flooding along the Thames putting up the red warning boards. At several of the locks the get-ins and the get-outs were under water and the torrent was moving at a pace that only the more experienced paddlers would have been able to cope safely with. Couple this with a downing of the new DW website leaving the communication between the organisers and the competitors for the most part to Facebook made it almost inevitable that the race would be stopped on the second day at Reading.

A great pity and a big disappointment for all concerned. Still… there’s always next year.

Litany

With each entry this log is reading more like a litany of injuries than a record of athletic prowess. Not least, the very latest one that has just taken another two weeks out of training… so I won’t go there.

The Monday evening coaching session has seemed to be paying off. Running with and against others has had an effect and it does seem to have spurred a bit of an improvement in the jogging. It doesn’t seem to be quite so much of a plod around the distance. The sessions mainly have concentrated on intervals of some kind, whether with doing a set distance or a set time. On the last but one it was 0.3 of a mile around a block of houses. Two of us running fast counter to each other to see who would get furthest around the circuit. Recovery was the remainder of the circuit. The last session was running out on a straight road first for 100 yards then extending the distance by another 100 yards each time, ending up at 600 yards after each effort.

The ‘homework’ sessions should have been another long pace run and a longer ‘easy’ run. So far, I’ve managed only one week where I’ve completed all the requirements while still putting in a session in a kayak. I’ve used the ParkRun as the Pace run which incorporates two, five minute efforts with five minute recoveries in between. Frankly, running on paved roads in the dark, and in wet/cold/icy conditions hasn’t been conducive to running at speed. It was the the incident on the second week of stepping on a kerb that wasn’t there, that took me out for two of the weeks… but we won’t go there.

Nevertheless, the sessions have wrought some improvements and sooner than might of happened if I’d been left to my own devices. Some of the stretching and mobility exercises are new to me and do seem to be finding weak spots that I didn’t know were there. I’ve used the Richmond ParkRun with its attendant hills as the pace run, so it’s been something of a workout. Unfortunately that’s reflected in a slower time than I would have liked but hopefully it will pay off in the end.

The last session in a kayak went a little better than the Hare & Hounds of a month ago, at least I went over the same course a little faster, but still with lots of recovery time dragging the time out. I missed the last H&H as it coincided with the second ‘Beast from the East’ and I didn’t feel like fighting my way down to Basingstoke to get snowed in. There are still another six H&Hs to the season so there’s still time to improve… but we won’t go there.

All in all, it’s been a mixed bag of a month but rather better than it deserves to be… onwards!