London Marathon Results and Runner Tracking

If you are looking for real time results for the 2012 London Marathon then they are available here.

This year the BBC has also got coverage of the Women's and Men's races live on the BBC website. The mens feed has got Richard Nerurkar providing the analysis while the womens feed is spending a lot of time watching the british battle for the third Olympic team spot. Definitely better than listening to Brendan blathering on !

A couple of shout outs for friends running this year. Gerry, Rich and Alex from Running Forever along with all the group who came to our March training morning. Nick Somerville from Wells who is running better than ever at 50, Steve Bernard running his second London 22 years after his first (fundraising page here).

Yeovil Half Marathon Results 2012

If you are looking for the full results from todays Yeovil Half Marathon they are here.

Shaun Antell's winning time of 70.35 was a very good effort on that course.

Hope everyone had a great day out in Yeovil and will be back for more in 2013.

Next up is the Easter Bunny 10k and the first Yeovilton Summer Series 5k, both on the superfast Podimore course.

Somerset Boys on top in ESAA Cross Country

What a fantastic saturday afternoon at Ilton in Somerset watching the English Schools Cross Country Championships. Its a long time since I've been to one of these events, 25 years to be precise when as an Intermediate boy I slogged my way round some fields in Preston to finish somewhere about 160th. Any idea where I can get a copy of the results from ?!

So 100,000 km of running later I was back to where it all began for me (sort of). There was some terrific racing at the front and the usual tales of agony and ectasy on the deceptively tough course round Merryfield airbase.

One of the highlights was seeing the Somerset boys (left) win the aggregate team competition for Group C Counties (less than 60,000 pupils) with a points total that also beat all the Group B and half the Group A Counties.

It was particularly satisfying as a good number of them are from the Taunton AC and Wells City Harriers clubs and have been training together with regular Saturday morning hill sessions in Street while some of the older Wells lads have been giving me a hard time on Tuesday evenings !

Full English Schools Results on http://www.esaa.net/

Adidas Adios 2 review

The original Adios racing shoe made its name as the shoe to break world marathon records in and the Adios 2 took up where the 'Haile shoe' left off by carrying Patrick Makau to a new WR in Berlin last September.

I've had a pair for a couple of months now and have been wearing them alongside the Asics DS Racer 9 as a comparison so this is my view of them.

The changes to the Adios 2 are several with the addition of Continental rubber to the outsole and a little bit more medial stability being the headlines, along with a fractionally reduced weight. I've used a pair of the orginal Adios for a while and immediately noticed the additional stability. Its not a huge change but for the runner that does benefit from a bit of stability its a welcome addition.

This shoe is still quite low in the heel and I find that my calf muscles need a good stretch after wearing them. That said they feel very responsive, more so that the DS 9 which I reviewed a few months ago. The forefoot just feels firmer and more dynamic for my liking.

So what about this highly touted outsole ? I used the shoes in a 10k race last weekend in Schaffhausen and the tarmac was wet and the corners looked particularly slippery (left). The traction from the Continental rubber was as good as promised and I was able to charge into the corners with total confidence, not something I could do in many of the racers I have owned.

The wear rate looks like its going to be very good as well which is a welcome sign as many modern racers seem to wear out their lightweight blow carbon outsoles way before the midsole has worn out.

Would I wear them for a marathon ? Absolutely, to my mind the best marathon shoe I've had since my old Adizero CS that carried me to a 2.18 in Toronto. For 5-10k races I prefer something even lighter so may be tempted to try out the Adizero Pro or anything else that readers can recommend.

Buy here from Running Home

Also take a look at the Saucony Kinvara 3 review.

Feel that rythmn

The last two sunday's i've been lucky enough to work with two groups of runners in Somerset who are preparing for a spring half marathon or full marathon. The focus of both training days has been specific preparation so both groups spent a good amount of time on the track learning to feel their race pace and what I noticed and learned is well worth sharing.

We know, because we have either seen it or experienced it, that if you go out too fast for your fitness level then the later stages of a race are going to be ugly and you can lose loads of time. And equally we know that as runners we tend to overestimate our fitness. So if we are relying on the thinking part of our brain to determine our race pace and then just jump in and do it on race day the odds are strong that we are going to get it wrong !

So practicing race pace becomes really important. Many people don't do it, certainly not to the point where it is second nature. What we did these past weekends was start the athletes at the race pace their under distance times suggested were realistic (Daniels VDOT tables help to do this). Now clearly predicting marathon pace from a 5k race time can be tricky so use the closest recent under distance performance to find the pace.

Using an out and back format on the track the runners were able to run one rep getting feedback on their pacing from a trackside coach and then for the return rep they were on their own with the idea being to see how close to the start line they could get.

So what did we see. Not surprisingly some folks were better than others at first for a variety of reasons but generally the early reps with quite variable. And over time the runners got better and better and judging their pace. Self awareness also started to develop along the lines of 'this pace feels fine but not for a full marathon so i'm going to run a bit slower'.

After 40 minutes of running at race pace almost everyone was really getting the feel for their pace to the point where we could mess things up by putting in a few short reps at a significantly faster pace and then have the athletes drop straight back into race pace.

So if you are doing a long race this spring take some time to practice running at your race rythmn. There are big gains to be had from just a few workouts like this.

Marathon Training Morning in Taunton on Sun 4th March

Last year's hugely successful 'Marathon Training Morning' will take place again this year on Sunday 4th March in Taunton.

After a short talk on marathon training and some injury prevention work there will be a long training session focused on learning to feel marathon race speed as one of the biggest causes of disappointment in marathon races is athletes going to fast early on. We will also have things set up to practice drinking on the run. After training there will be a Q&A to deal with all those questions that make a difference to your race day performance.

For more details and to register email me.

50k debut in Gloucester

Yesterday I dipped my toe (well jumped with both feet actually) into the deep waters of ultra marathon running by racing the Gloucester 50km race, part of the IAU series.

Expecting a low key debut I had travelled up on the morning and was happily stretching out some tight muscles from the journey when I spotted fellow sub 2.20 marathon runner Steve Way, so much for a low key race ! With the marathoners setting off at 10.30am we had a short wait before the 40 odd runners in the 50k got underway with previous winner Julian Rendell showing early on (left).

My pre-race plan had been a bit affected by the weather which was blowing a stiff westerly. Having seen the havoc strong winds can create in Toronto I decided to go a bit slower than my 3:30/km target pace and after a gentle opening kilometre I quickly settled into a nice rythmn which was averaging out at 3:34 with the hills.

After a short flat loop in town we headed out into the countryside for 4 laps of a 10.5km circuit. Laps like this are a mental battle as much as physical and the first couple felt pretty comfortable, though with hindsight I should perhaps have backed off a little going up the hills and into the wind but I was fully committed and going for it as hard as felt was possible.

Lap 3 was when it started to get hard (left). Having passed 25km in around 1.29 I was still feeling pretty good and at 30km I actually started to pick the pace up, a move that would cost me dear later on. A couple of 3:30s and a 3:25 took me well past 20 miles, the point at which you really start to race in the marathon. And then it dawned on me that there was still another 10 miles to go and there was no way I was going to hold the increased pace to the finish.

With the effect of the hills (especially the downs) starting to tell on my quads I hit 40km still cranking out solid kilometres and wondering how long it would be before the elephant jumped on me. At 45km the last big climb started, well actually 2 climbs with a short downhill over the course of 2km). And then the elephant jumped out from behind a tree and climbed on my back. I was down to 6min miling and into survival mode - a feeling many marathoners will have experienced before !

Focusing on getting to the top of the hill knowing that the last couple of kilometres would be down/flat I was able to haul myself to the top though I could sense the holy grail of a sub 3 hour clocking slipping through my fingers.

Unfortunately going downhill on trashed legs wasnt much easier than going up and the last mile felt as long as in the 2006 London Marathon. Going round each bend I imagined Frank yelling "faster, faster!" but it wasn't doing me much good with a knee lift now measured in microns rather than centimetres.

Getting to the line brought as much relief as I have felt for a while at the end of a race (left) though my time of 3 hours and 47 seconds was good enough to go seventh on the UK all time lists which on that course and in those conditions was very satisfying. So all in all a very solid debut at 50k. I'm pleased that I fully committed myself to running as fast as I could when it would have been easy to sit back in the pack and have an easier run.

Results