Mud, glorious mud

Finally I've got a few minutes to write about last Saturday's Southern Cross Country at Parliament Hill.

Pre-race much of the talk was about whether the orginal event shoudl have postponed from January because of the weather and what effect it would have on the strength of the fields. Without having visited the course on the originally race days its hard to say whether postponement was the right decision, however getting the race back on even with reduced fields was definitely a good call - once races miss a year its very easy to miss more and slide into oblivion.

For those unfamiliar with the Southern its a throw back to the old days when championship cross country races were 9 miles. In recent years the international 12km standard has been adopted for our regional and national championships but the Southern stuck with the old 9 miles - one of the few occasions when failing to move with the times is a good thing ! This makes it a real test, especially as the hilly course can get pretty muddy in places.

On the start line I was having some good banter with Ben Noad and a few of the other more 'experienced' runners at the expense of the low mileage/interval trained runners who were about to suffer for their lack of real endurance. Whilst club mate Frank Tickner put on a demonstration at the front of the race I had probably my best XC race for years as I worked my way through the field from about 50th at the top of the first hill to 30th after 1 lap, 19th after 2 laps and eventually into 14th place a stones throw behind my old sparring partner Huw Lobb who had a good day in 13th place as he also prepares for a spring ultra marathon.

The trick on a course like this is to manage your effort, saving energy through the mud and big hills so that you can use on the faster parts of the course. And of course controlling yourself on the first of 3 big laps so you have something left for the last lap otherwise you can easily find yourself treading water in the thick mud in those closing miles.

Reflecting on what has contributed to a better than usual performance 2 things stuck out for me. I've been doing more longer hilly runs this winter as I gear up for my first 100km race in the spring and that definitely gave me a strength in my legs that has been missing since my last full marathon buid up in 2009. And the second thing has been getting to grips with cross-country skiing this winter which seems to have had a positive impact on my glute and hip flexor strength and mobilty enabling me to run through the mud like I could 20 years ago - more on the cross country skiing in a future post.

And if you are reading this having also run on Saturday and your legs are still tired then you are not alone ! While I felt great at the finish its fair to say that my legs have been pretty battered all week and are only just starting to feel right again. Looking forward to nice supercompensation from the effort :-)

Long live the 9 mile Southern at Parliament Hill !

South of England Cross Country Results 2013

In the absence of any official results on the SEAA website here is a link to the results on the Milton Keynes site.

Loved this race as always, Hampstead Heatrh at its testing best !

The big Alcohol Free Beer test - Beck's Blue v Cobra Zero v Erdinger

Us runners love our beer and for a couple of decades now the brewers have been trying to come up with an alcohol free beer that actually tastes like real beer. So here is a quick review of the current best efforts for those of you looking for something lighter.

First up is Beck's Blue. Available in packs of 275ml bottles this is one of the most popular alcohol free beers available and made by removing the alcohol after the beer has been brewed out. The taste can best be described as a bit metallic and while its definitely recognisable as a lager it is definitely on the thin side. I found this beer was at its best when very served very cold and its refreshing for a post training run tipple.


Next up is Cobra Zero. Packs of four for this one and nice sized bottles that look good in the fridge. This is the marmite of beers in more ways than one ! It has a similar yeasty taste and apparently that is down to the brewing process. The fermentation is stopped almost as soon as it is started, hence the yeasty flavour. I tried this beer cold, at room temperature and very cold indeed but nothing I could do made it palatable for me. Even pairing it with a fiery curry failed to disguise the taste. Not my favourite and no doubt some folks will love it.

Last in the test was Erdinger Alkohol Frei. Getting hold of it was much trickier than for the market leaders and its only available in UK in a 500ml bottle. This is a version of Erdinger's Weissbier and a very good job they have made of it too. It looks like a weissbier and the taste is remarkably close to that of the standard product. The extra body of a weissbier probably off sets the lack of alcohol ensuring that the beer isn't thin or tinny. It goes well with food or just own its own, chilled. The one caveat with this one is that it does actually contain a miniscule 0.4% alcohol so may not be suitable for the teetoal !

And the winner ....
Erdinger Alkohol Frei  - prost !

Felix Limo retires

One of my favourite marathon runners announced his retirement today. Felix Limo had a purple patch from 2004-06 winning several of the marathon majors. We first met at Amsterdam in 2003 when both making our marathon debuts - his considerably faster than mine ! He was changing on the peg across from mine in the old Olympic stadium and was happy to exchange a few friendly words before heading out onto the track for the start. He came second in 2:06:42 that day, narrowly beaten by William Kispang who I vividly remember devouring the most enormous breakfast on race morning: bacon, sausage, eggs, fried potatos, the works. He waddled away from the table with a belly looking like he was heavil pregnant with twins. And then three hours later 2.06, unbelievable.
My other meeting with Felix was at London 2006 (left) . He had blown away the field to win in 2.06 on a wet day defeating amongst others Haile G. We were sitting at the back of the bus on our way to the river boat to get back to the Tower hotel and he was chatting away without a care in the world, talking about life back home and how he would be relaxing after his marathon win.

Just a very polite, modest guy and good company.

Goldilocks and the road runners

Not a post about the virtues of porridge for breakfast but on getting the feel for threshold pace. I was down at the track in Yeovil tonight and the local road running club had a good turnout of nearly 40 runners for their weekly 'speed' session. Its been great to see this workout develop over the last couple of years under the watchful eye's of coaches Darton, Hawkins and Jakeman. Whether inspired by Mo & co. or just new years resolution's there is clearly an appetite among the runners to train more and go faster. Sometimes I wonder if they realise how good some of them could be !

Anyway back to Goldilocks. The workout tonight was either 6x4mins of 3x10mins (2 fours without rest) and the goal was to run at threshold pace which for some of the runners would have been 10mile pace and for some more like 10k pace. Of course the trick when running threshold is to feel the pace where you are operating just on that ventilation/lactate turnpoint.

With practice and skill you can go so good at sensing it that after a few minutes at threshold you can just ease through it for a few minute before coming back below threshold with a subtle change of pace and this is where Goldilocks comes in. Too hot i.e. too fast and you get burned. 25-30mins is long time to sustain a pace thats too fast and a few folks who were breathing hard on the first reps were clearly in the too hot category ! Too cold, well thats being able to hold a long conversation during training without really breathing hard. Its tolerable but not really that appetising ! And then finally just right - breathing fairly hard and able to exchange brief conversations.

So the trick with threshold training is running by feel and with control. You should be working comfortably hard yet finish the workout knowing you could accelerate hard if required at the end - if you are hinging on you are pushing too hard and need to back off. I often get asked what pace or pulse rate to run for threshold and the best advice I can give is to learn to feel it as it will vary from day to day depending on conditions and how tired you are.

World Trophy 50km reflections

This post seems to have taken an age to come together. The race took place as long ago as 20th October and it didn't go according to plan with a problem in my right vastus lateralis getting progressively worse until I had to stop at 36km, frustrated and disappointed.

So one of the reasons it has taken me so long to pull some thoughts together was I that I very quickly wanted to move on from what had happened and focus on enjoying a good break and getting myself healthy again to resume training later in the year.


So a few reflections on the event. The heat. It was a hot day on the Italian coast with temperatures in the high 20s and no shade from the sun which was burning down for much of the race and reflecting off the sea. I was surprised to see people dropping out even in the first 10k as they struggled with the conditions which brings me back to the topic of heat acclimatisation which i've written about before.

If there is a possibility of a warm day then prepare for the conditions ! I'm still amazed at how many runners leave this aspect of their preparation to chance and hope they can cope - they invariably can't. I did my most comprehensive heat acclimatisation so far with regular treadmill runs wearing a hat and gloves and not surprisingly I felt relatively comfortable on what was a hot day.

All the photos here are of me running with team mate Dave Mitchinson. We spent the whole race running together and it really helped to have some company and a bit of moral support when things were feeling a bit tough. We hatched a plan early on to start steady and work our way through. In the early stages we were outside the top 10 and by the time I had to step off the road we up to 5th and 6th with 4th place in sight. Once again I was reminded of the value of setting out a realistic pace for the course/conditions. In the marathon or 50k you have a long way to hang on if you go out too hard and there were some of the early leaders who were hanging on for a long time!

With hindsight I had an inkling of trouble in my right leg when out for a jog the day before the race. There was some discomfort although it eased off fairly quickly. Knowing what I know now I would have spent a lot more time self treating that evening and on race day morning though whether that would have prevented the problem from flaring up who knows.

In such a long race drinks are critical and in ultra races you can have a support crew handing you bottles within the designated technical areas. We had our own drinks on a table (left middle) but some quick thinking from Team Leader Andy Smith ensured that he also got across the course to give us bottles of water in the second technical area to help us keep cool (left bottom). Thats the kind of experience in the team that really makes a difference.

And finally winner Steve Way deserves a mention for how he ran the race. With an out and back 6km loop along the seafront we could see the race unfolding and Steve dropping off the lead group a couple of times. He never gave up and get running his race. Even when I walking back in it was clear that although in third place he was looking the best of the leaders though I not sure he believed it given by the look he gave me when I yelled at him that he could win the race with 10km to go ! He only took the lead with 5km left and the size of gaps he opened up tells you just how badly 2nd and 3rd place blew up.

Winter Marathon Preparation events

The Somerset Athletics Network is putting on two marathon preparation events this winter. First up will be an evening masterclass at Frome Rugby Club on Friday 25th Jan at 7pm. This will focus on the main training components for the marathon and how to put together a 12 week build up for your spring marathon.

Then a few weeks later on Sunday 17th Feb we have a practical training morning at Yeovil Arena with the focus on race day and race pace preparation.

Places are limited to 25 for each event and members of Somerset Clubs can email me directly to register.