Meet Trigger

Take one old jalopy from a charity shop for £35, wobbly wheels and non existent brake pads ‘n all.

Take it apart, binning all the crap bits, in this case, everything bar the saddle, seat post and rear deraileur.

Get the paint stripper out and go to town on the whole frame and forks.

Then it’s time to prime and paint, do the forks first and you can choose your colour scheme without wasting loads of paint on the frame.

To get back on the road,  fit parts from your old, slightly too small commuter bike, once you’ve refurbed the seized wheel bearings of course. Don’t forget to apply copious stickers to the frame before the last couple of layers of layer.

Realise that old wheels suffered more than you thought when you had a coming together with that VW Polo so get some new ones, not forgetting a new cassette and wheel skewers, new tires are also essential*

Also treat yourself to some clip less pedals, because falling off when you’re trying to set off or come to a stop is so much fun**

The view from the drivers seat, Garmin foretrex 201 so you know how fast you are going, top tube bag for phone/cash/snacks/puncture repair kit

I still need a new seat post and saddle,  and the brakes and gears could be better set up but apart from that,  I am back on the road.

*well, essential in that I didn’t want to put old tires on shiny wheels.

**I’m believe it’s a rite of passage, and everyone is doing it. It’s really not fun.

Cape Pembroke Half Marathon, Stanley, Falkland Islands.

“Red sky at night, shepherds delight”

Given the Falkland Islands tendancy to be a bit wet and windy occasionaly, to arrive in Stanley the night before the Stanley Running Clubs annual Cape Pembroke Half Marathon to this view certainly raised morale a few notches.

Our merry band of runners, 8 of us in total, had spent all day Friday and most of Saturday working hard to make sure we had everything done to enable us to take the Sunday off in order to take part.  We eventually made it to Stanley and found our accommodation for around 8pm.  For some of us, this was our first and potentially only visit to Stanley,  so it was only right that we headed out to sample the local hospitality.  For some, this meant enjoying a few alcoholic beverages,  me, well, I was on the softies.

The more sensible members of our party, Myself, Eric, Mickey and Van, turned in early on, whilst the other 4 runners, Max, Tinks, Sion and Harry stayed out to, ahem, carb load, for a bit longer.

Sunday morning arrived and it looked like a perfect day for running.  At 6 am I headed out for a walk to recce to home straight and the finish area on Victory Green.  The sun was out and there was very little wind, fortunately it would stay like this all day.

Victory Green

At Victory Green, the finish are was to be on the grass just to the left of the car in the above photo, runners would be coming towards the camera.

Whale bone arch, commemorating 100 years of the Falklands being British, 1833-1933

By the time I arrived back at the accommodation, most if the others were up and about, some in better states than others!  I met up with Eric and Sal (along with Gaz, Sal had come along as an extra driver/support crew) and we headed off to recce some more of the route and do a bit more of the ‘tourist thing’.

The totem pole

The race route was to be multi terrain, the first three miles or so would be on the metalled Airport Road, once we reached the airport itself we would leave the hardtop and encounter 5 miles of XC terrain, starting and finishing with a short length of gravel track

In between the gravel sections would be some of the toughest trail running I have ever experienced in a race, including the Meon Valley Plod! But I wouldn’t see that until during the race as it was impossible to drive any further down the track in the 4×4 we were in.

Arriving back at the accommodation again, we met up with the rest of the party, once bags were loaded into the vehicles we headed to Shortys Diner for breakfast, a full English isn’t my usual pre race meal, but there wasn’t much choice, Shorty doesn’t sell porridge.  After breakfast it was off to the leisure centre to register and collect numbers, we had already submitted forms so it was just a matter of paying our entry fee and we were good to go.  It was at this point that Harry decided that he was suffering from man flu so wasn’t going to enter.

This reduced our party to 7, and general consensus seemed to be that for our race within a race, there were three contenders for top spot.  Max and Sion had been getting ever more competitive and spent the morning trying to psyche each other out.  I was the other contender but kept out of the mind games, deciding I would let my legs do the talking.

At 10:30 registration closed and it was time to board the minibuses to the start line, which was a good 10 minute drive from the leisure centre.  The only trouble was the driver drove for 15 minutes and dropped us too far down the road, meaning that some 40 runners had to walk half a mile back in the direction we had come to get to the actual start line.

Just before the start we had the obligatory race brief,  usually I zone out during these as they are pretty much the same, this one however had a phrase I have never heard in brief before….

“The off road section has got a bit of everything, sand, puddles, rocks, mud and a mine field…..”

Yes, you read that right, we were to run adjacent to a mine field, the fence marking it was right on the edge of the path we were to take. Note to self, don’t stray from the path or take any shortcuts!

There were 86 entrants this year, and 4 kids were running as an relay team.

As soon as the last stragglers had arrived at the start line, we were off.  Despite my efforts to get to the front of the pack I was hemmed in and for the first half mile I was held up whilst my competition, Max and Sion, had got clear at the front and were rapidly opening up a good lead.

It took me over a mile to catch Sion, despite the fact that he had only gone to bed at 3am and was nursing a hangover he was still hammering it, I was having to run around 6:40/mile just to catch him.  Eventually I did pass him though and set my sights on the boss, by the time we reached 2 miles I was on his shoulder.

2 miles into a Half is way to early to start racing, we all know this, but once I was with Max that’s exactly what started to happen, we played cat and mouse for the next 2 miles.  At around 3 miles, just after we hit the gravel track and after the first water stop (neither of us drank we were that intent on staying with each other) I thought I had him, he was no longer on my shoulder and was dropping back.  Then we turned another corner and the proper Xc section was upon us.

I’m not a great cross country runner, but I usually enjoy it.  There was no enjoying this, the sand swallowed your feet and rocks appeared from nowhere,  it was like running in lumpy treacle! Very quickly Max was with me again and just as quickly he was ahead of me, he’s shorter and skinnier than me so I reckon it was like running on a normal road for him, whereas the terrain was sapping all the energy out of my legs.

At around 6 miles we reached Cape Pembroke lighthouse,  and as per the instructions in the race brief and the timely reminder from the marshalls, we ran around it and turned to head back to the airport, which meant another 2 miles cross country.  By this point I had been caught and passed by another 5 or 6 runners but I could still see Max in the distance, mainly because of his bright yellow tshirt.

8 miles in we reached the end of the first XC section and rejoined airport road to run back towards Stanley,  I had spent the last 2 miles convincing myself that I would be able to regain ground once we were back on tarmac.  As it turned out, I was way off.  My pace hovered around 8min/mile as we headed up the hill that I hadn’t even noticed was a hill on the way down it.  I could still see Max but there was no way I could make up the half mile he had opened up on me.  I would have to be content with 2nd in our little race, provided no one else came past me!

At 10.5 miles (I remember the distance because the eventual 1st woman passed me at this point and asked how far we had left) we turned off airport road and after a short downhill towards the sea we hung a left passed the seaman’s mission and entered the 2nd Xc section of the race.  This was on a well used coastal path and was much easier to run on than the first bit, it also only lasted about half a mile, if that.  Despite that I still nearly went arse over tit several times due to tired legs and sneaky rocks.

When we rejoined the road, we should have had 3 miles or so left, all we had to do was follow the coast all the way to victory green.  It was at this point that the winner of the race appeared, coming back to encourage his mates, who just happened to be right behind me.  I asked him his finish time and instantly wished I hadn’t! 70 mins exactly,  and he’d even run to the start line instead of getting the bus. 

GIT!

The last few hundred meters between the Globe Tavern and the finish line were along what had become quite a busy road, not with traffic, but pedestrians, tourists from the cruise ship that had arrived in Stanley the night before.  One of these tourists decided it would be a good idea to cross the road right in front of me,  just as I was opening up the pace for a sprint finish! Fortunately I was able to avoid a full on collision but there still contact, at least we both stayed on our feet!

I crossed the line in 1 hour 33 mins, if it had been the full 13.1 miles that would have  been a PB, however my watch told the truth, we we around .6 of a mile short.

Goody bag and tshirt collected, I found Max, Gaz, Harry and Sal right by the finish line and was instantly handed a Budweiser! Max had been finished for around 5 mins when I crossed the line, it would be a further 30 mins before the rest of our guys finished.  Mickey was next in, then Sion followed by Van and Tinks who ran together and then Eric came in with a dramatic sprint finish with a guy we learnt later had been with him for around 5 miles!

That was it, done, probably the most southern half marathon in the world, all that was left was to shower, change and go to the pub, for food of course, and then to head back to Mount Pleasant to bore anyone that would listen with tales of how we ran through a mine field….

Race day, Falklands Challenge

0545 am, an obscene time of day to be getting up, especially on a Sunday!

We were to be at the gym for 0800 ready to commence what, for some of the 12 strong team, would be the longest endurance event they had ever taken part in. Breakfast opened at 0600, those of us with a bit more experience slipped into pre-race routines that have been fine tuned and now just seem to happen.

For me, that means a big bowl of porridge oats, with added dried fruit, followed by a glass of orange juice, chased down over the next hour by plenty of water and a fruit filled flapjack slice. Once breakfast was done and fuelling taken care of, water bottles were prepped, one with an electrolite tablet added, one just straight water, kit double checked, trainers chosen (Adidas supernova riot 5s over the Kanadia 6s I would normally wear to run outside) and our was off to the gym.

Despite the high spirits and eagerness the day before, the 1/4 mile walk to the gym was strangely quiet, 4 sets of footsteps echoing down the corridor, everyone clearly lost in their own thoughts. For me, it was a case of figuring out if the niggles I was feeling were real or imaginary, almost every thing ached, knees, ankles, hips, the works!  I told myself it was all in my head and everything would sort its self out once we started.

Once we arrived at the gym and meet up with the rest of the team, everyone visibly relaxed, maybe realising that there were a lot more people going through the same as they were. Talk of which order to do the disciplines, whether to split the distances down or smash then out in one go filled the small reception area where the boss had set up the progress chart and the collection bucket. We had already raised over £500 by the time we came to start via Just Giving but every little helps, and within minutes there was already a healthy amount of loose change in the bucket.

I had decided to start on the bike, 32km straight off the bat to break the back of the distance we were to cover, the plan was to follow that with 1.75 km in the pool, then the 3.75 km on the rower and finish with the 16 km run, preferably outside. Others were splitting up the run and bike, doing circuits of 8-10 km on the bike followed by 4-6 km on the treadmill, others headed straight outside to get the run done early. My bike phase passed in the blink of an eye, I was either head down, eyes closed or watching sky sports on the TV right on front of me, I managed to cover the 32k in 52:30, 5 and a half minutes quicker than I’d done it in training.  I was drenched in sweat but feeling good, I expected the bike to be the hardest leg but I came off the saddle feeling like I hadn’t done anything yet. On finishing the cycle, I still had 10 minutes to spare before the pool opened so I decided to crack on with the row, given that I was still feeling fresh. A couple of minutes in and I got news that meant I had to rethink my strategy.

Sometime during the previous night, someone had found their way into the pool and mistaken the water for a toilet,  as a result the pool would now be closed until further notice! This is not great news when 12 people have all got 50 lengths to do! I carried on with the row, finishing bang on my 16 minute target and my only option was to head out on the run, a quick discussion with the score keeper and it was decided that I would add 1.75 k onto my run, easy enough I thought, it just makes it 7 laps instead of 6… I’d planned on leaving the run till last, given that it’s ‘my’ sport and I know I can keep going when my body is telling me it’s done. What I want prepared flee was the wind! I knew the forecast was bad but the 50mph + winds took me by suprise, it wasn’t so bad when sheltered by buildings but on the other half of the lap, where there was no shelter, I am sure I was very nearly dumped at the side of the road everytime there was a sudden gust. After 5 laps I could take no more, I had been reduced to walking into the wind when it was coming from the front, I just couldnt run into it, and I had ear ache from the constant wind going directly down my lug hole when it was coming from the side. Enough was enough, I headed inside to do the last 5k on the tread mill.

Once inside I was told that we were to add the swim distance into the row, brilliant, this meant I only had 3.25 km left to push on the treadmill, less than 20 mins later I was finished and getting onto the rower again for the last 1.75km.

OH

MY

GOD!!

I’d left running til last because I knew I’d have nothing left afterwards, so asking my legs to keep going was horrendous!  My hips felt like they were going to fall off and I could barely pull the handle. That 8 mins on the rower was the hardest 8 mins I’ve ever had on any machine in the gym, the only thing that kept me going was knowing that once it was done, it was all over! That was it! I fell off, staggered to the progress sheet and entered my finish time, 11:10 am, 3 hours after I started, finishing 4th, some 15 mins behind the first man home, not that it was a race of course!!

Over the next hour, a steady stream of people came and posted their finish time, every one came in under 4 hours. Once every one was done,it was time for a quick ‘ after ‘ photo then it was off to shower, change and into the cafe for cake, lots and lots of cake.. And of course conversation turned to our next challenge, in 2 weeks time, 8 of today’s team will be running what is probably the southern most half marathon in the world, the Falkland Islands running club Cape Pembroke Half.

From hardly training to training hard.

So there we were, 16 of us sat on the bus after another wet and windy day spent waiting for someone to task us (they didn’t by the way), just a couple of days after I had suggested to my colleagues that running the Cape Pembroke half marathon might be fun.

We were all set to head back to our accommodation when the boss asked us a question…

“who would be interested in a charity event whilst we are down here ”

Now, it is rare for a charity event involving the military to not be a physical challenge, yet a sea of hands appeared, it would seem the idea was a popular one, despite there being no date nor concept of what we had just volunteered for!

A few days later we were presented with the idea.

The Falklands challenge is one usually completed by individuals posted to the islands for 6 months or more,  and involves covering the distance equivalent of circumnavigating the islands by land and water.  This is a total of 575.35 km by land (treadmill or stationary bike) and 62.9 km by sea (swimming in the 33.3m pool or on the concept 2 rowers) distance can also be claimed by attending circuit sessions run by the pt staff.

Our challenge was to cover the same distance between the 13 of us, with each man covering an equal distance, using all 4 disciplines.   That would be broken down as follows :
16 km run
32 km cycle
1.75 km swim
3.5 km row

And we would aim to complete all of this within 8 hours!

And here’s the kicker, we would be doing it a week before the half marathon!

Thanks boss!

For those (like me)  that prefer to work in miles, this works out at approximately 33 miles per person!

That’s 1 mile in the pool, 10 running, 20 cycling and 2 on the rower.  I’ve opted to go swim, bike, run, row as swimming is my weakest event and I figured I should get it done whilst fresh, then the 30 miles on the bike and run will allow for some kind of recovery of my arms for the quick row to finish….that’s the theory anyway.

And then it’s full on recovery mode for the half the following weekend.

No backing out now, time to start thinking like an athlete again, the alarm is set for 5:30am to be in the pool for 6 when it opens, and as it is 20:30 now, it’s time for a glass of water and then bed.

https://www.justgiving.com/exseahorsecircumference/

Falklands challenge

As some of you may know, I deployed to the Falklands earlier this month, in order to prevent us from vegetating in our rooms, my boss came up with a challenge for us to train for, we will be completing the following event on the 16th of Feb, a week before 8 of us also take part in the Stanley Running Club Half Marathon!

“13 members of the 17 Port and Maritime contingent of Ex Fuels Endeavour 15 will take part in Exercise Seahorse Circumference. The challenge is to run, swim, cycle and row the equivalent distance of the entire circumference of the Falkland Islands, which equates to 575.35km by land and 62.9km by sea.

The distances will be split down so every man completes the same amount. Each man will run 16km, cycle 32km, swim 1.75km and row 3.5km as fast as possible. The challenge will be timed and the team aims to complete it within 8 hours.”

Usually the challenge is done by individuals, spread over a 6 month deployment.

Ex Seahorse Circumference is being done to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and is a very difficult challenge, any donations will be gratefully received.

https://www.justgiving.com/exseahorsecircumference/

Marcothon 2014

For many people, keeping up the training during the winter months can be a drag. Long nights, cold and wet weather and especially the festive season can conspire against even the keenest of athletes.

Why do you think so many top athletes spend their winters in the sunnier climes of the southern hemisphere?

I don’t mind the cold and wet, it’s never the wrong weather, just the wrong clothing (take this mornings parkrun, I should have worn more clothes, shorts and t shirt weather it was not!).  It’s the dark nights that get me, most of my runs are early before work or later once the kids are in bed and it is all too easy to find something on TV, or decide that I can’t possibly run so soon after eating tea…

So when I heard of Marcothon, I thought I would give it a go, I mean how hard could it be to run at least 3 miles a day every day in December?

As it turned out, it was quite a challenge!

Not so much the distance but fitting it in to the day, usually if I don’t get time between work, the wife’s work, and all the other stuff that takes priority, runs can be bumped to the next day or shortened with distance made up later in the week.  This is not the case with a runstreak that requires a certain distance every day without fail!

Fortunately I was off work and the kids were on school for the first couple of weeks, apart from nearly missing the start of a nativity play (in hindsight, should have run further) and very nearly being late for a school pickup, they went swimmingly.

It was during the later part of the month that things got difficult, the kids were off school and the wife was still working, reducing my running windows to, on one occasion, 45 minutes!  It sounds like plenty of time to run 3 miles, but don’t forget to add on getting showered and changed too.

It was during this time that the runs were becoming a bit of a chore too, I was using the same two 3 mile routes most days and they were, frankly, getting boring! Motivation started to wane and a couple of runs were fairly slow slogs done because I had to, not because I wanted to!

With Christmas looming I found some motivation, mainly after being told I was going to the Falklands in January and realising that for the early part of 2015 my outdoors running would be limited.

With the end now in sight things got easier.  I’d found another decent 3 mile loop, there were lots of festive parkrun events happening and there were still twice weekly sessions with the Fareham Crusaders to help rack up the miles. Even with the other half spending a couple of days in hospital I managed to get out and hit the road.

I fully expected to get slower as the month went on, as legs got tired and there were no rest days to recover.   However, on the 25th day, after the kids opened their presents and before Xmas dinner, I ran Southampton parkrun.  From nowhere I managed a parkrun PB of 19:33! Far from getting slower, 3 miles was getting much, much easier. 

This was proven again on new years day, a day I didn’t have to run because of marcothon, but the only day of the year that you can run 2 official parkruns.  At the first in netley, I ran 21:19, I was pushing hard because I wanted to get round and finished with enough time to get to Southampton to do the double. The plan was to cruise round Southampton, I wasn’t bothered about the time…

I finished in 19:44! Not a Pb, but quicker than Netley and including a 5:53 3rd mile!

It seems running every day can help you get quicker, would I do it again though?

Probably not, to be honest.  It is hard work getting out every day and at times, the joy usually found out on the road was just not there. Run streaks, it would seem, are not for me.

Completing what turned into a 160ish mile, 33 day run streak has been fun on the whole though, and there are some bragging rights to be had, surely!

2014 – Year of the Marathon

So there we have it, another year done and dusted.

181 runs covering 1,112 miles, including 2x marathons, 2x half marathons, 2x 21m trail races, numerous shorter races and even a 33 day run streak to finish the year. Considering my list of races up to the end of 2013 consisted of 2x half marathons and 2x 10k races, it has been a very busy year!

Already looking rough, and this was the first hill!
(Meon Valley Plod, March ’14)

I have been very lucky, the one injury I picked up only put me out for 5 weeks and forced me to pull out of 2 races, the Lordshill 10 miler and Gosport Half.

All of my races this year highlighted two common themes with my running..

1 – I go out too fast – Every time! I know I do it, and I’ve tried to stop myself doing it, but it doesn’t work, and I always end up paying for it. At the Bournemouth Marathon in October I almost paid for it in the last 50 meters as both calf muscled decided they weren’t going to play within a few steps of each other.

2 – I tend to enter races with very little notice, thus not giving myself a lot of time to train properly for them. Training Hard or Hardly Training? yeah, hardly training it is then.

All in all, a successful year, no DNFs and plenty of race bling, but where to go from here…

Bitten by the bug

I was never really into ‘training’ as such, as a soldier I am expected to maintain a certain level of fitness, and that’s exactly what I did. For the first 10 years of my service I did the minimum, scraping through fitness tests and telling myself that was fine, never doing any phys other than the thrice weekly PT sessions I had to do.

In 2012, something changed! I moved to a new job and lived 10k from work, across the busiest town I’ve ever seen. Running to work was the done thing apparently, so I did. 9k into the 2nd run to work, my knee gave way and I had to thumb a lift the last Kilometre across camp as walking wasn’t happening for me. Usually I would have given it up as a bad idea, got back in the car and carried on normal jogging, lurching from 1 fitness test to the next, not this time though!

I resolved to sort myself out, I went home, bought a bike off Amazon and a few days later started cycling to work, 5 days a week. Once I was able to run again, I started small, a couple of miles round the block, then a bit further round town, eventually I was running to and from work again at least twice a week, whilst still cycling the other three days.

To cut a long story short, I was hooked, I started to drive nearly an hour on a Saturday morning to the closest parkrun. Then I entered an actual race! The Adidas Trail 10k in the Forest of Dean, and I finished 9th overall.

Perhaps I could be quite good at this running thing…

Since then, I’ve run 2 Marathons, 4 Halfs, a Sprint Duathlon and various other races including a 21 mile XC race (twice) and a few 10ks and 5 milers.

Now, I’m constantly striving to go that little bit faster and that little bit further. Training sessions are never hard enough, bergan runs are a regular feature of my training, carrying anything up to 15kg, I always try to add that little bit extra, be it an extra hill rep or sprint interval, or ensuring a Strava segment is worked into an otherwise regular run.

So what next? I’ve got a bike, and am actually not too bad at swimming so having dabbled in Multi-sport races already, perhaps a Triathlon is in the offing? Or having done 2 marathons and following several Ultra runners on Twitter, perhaps I should go longer? 50 miles? 100 miles?

Maybe I should combine the 2, go the whole hog and smash out an Ironman?

Exciting times indeed!

It’s not all about me now though, I want to show my kids what its possible to do with a bit of effort and commitment.

What was it that made you put your trainers on and hit the road? What is it that makes you keep doing it, day in day out?

The things we do.

It’s freezing,

It’s Sunday

It’s 0830.

So why am I sat in the car waiting for the rest of the Fareham Crusaders to turn up for a trial run / recce of the Stubbington 10k race route, a race I’ve had to give up my place for because I’ll be in the Falklands?

I’m not even only running it once, the idea is to run it twice, once for the faster runners then again straight afterwards at a slower pace.

I’m not sure I thought this through properly!

Have you ever found yourself questioning your sanity at the beginning of a race or group training session? 

Or have you ever got to the start line and thought “nah, this isn’t for me” and pulled out?