This week's training.

It's been a while since I posted, that due to a few things, the main one being that last year was one where I didn't really do many races.

Well this year started well, but then some personal issues cropped up and training slipped and races were not attended due to not being ready. I'll go into that more in a future post.

so my targets for this year are the Wigan 10k in early September and the Abersoch Half Marathon in Early October.

because the races are so close together, I'm going to train for Abersoch and trust that Wigan takes care of itself.

At last year's Wigan 10k my time was 72 minutes, I'm confident that I can beat last year with my PB of 64:54 hopefully being in play as Wigan's a pretty fast course.

For Abersoch, I'm not so sure. I ran the Great North Run in 2:37 and Chester Half in 2:43. I'm aiming to break 2:30, but Abersoch is a hilly course, so it's gonna be interesting.

This week's Training is a 5K on Monday, 5K Thursday, 5K parkrun on Saturday and 10k on Sunday.

See you this time next week to let you know how it's gone.

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Race Fees -

Recently Stephanie the Magpie (Not a real magpie) wrote a post about Race Fees. I don't run as many races as Stephanie, but her thoughts tend to mirror mine. You can find her post here http://amagpieinthesky.com/magpie-runs/race-price-cap/

To preface everything else I'm about to say, I'm a plodder, my 10k PB is 1:04:54. I'm not an Athlete and would never claim to be.

The first race I entered when I started running with Family, was the BUPA Great Manchester Run, it cost about £36 and I didn't know any better, but I enjoyed the event which was well organised.

The next race I entered opened my eyes though. The Trafford 10k was less than £20, excellently organised and far more intimate. It was full of runners rather than 'Fun Runners' with people wanting to get a good time and very few walkers. People had obviously trained for the event. I know that sounds elitist, but when you go to an event to get a PB you want like minded people around you, who are aware of those around them.

Next time the Great Manchester run came up, I signed up reluctantly (after some persuasion from friends)mans all of my fears were realised. I didn't run well that day and didn't 'get' the day at all. Some of my complaints were people walk / running within the first 1k, people barging through those in front of them and the number of people stopping right in front of you for a walk were frustrating for me. I couldn't get close to my PB.

Since then I've run the Trafford 10k twice, the We Love Manchester 10k, the Salford 10k and the Wigan 10k. All well organised and more inclusive. All cost me less than £20. I also ran the Chester Half Marathon which cost me less than £30.

In 2013, I ran the BUPA Great North Run which cost just under £50 which was a fantastic event which caused me give the Great Manchester another go for £38, but again, I didn't enjoy it. I won't run the Great Manchester again, I might tackle the Great North Run again, Yes the GNR suffered some of the same 'Fun Runner' blights of the Manchester, but there was far more space to make your own space.

By the same Token the Colour Run and Electric Run look brilliant, but at £25 and £28 respectively for a 5k fun run, it seems expensive.

I've now signed up for the Wigan 10k £19.50 and the Abersoch Half Marathon £29 and both promise to be brilliant for reasonable prices. You can enter some brilliant Marathons for less than £60

Before Stephanie posed the question I hadn't thought about it as a price for Kilometer, but I suppose I evaluate races on Cost, potential atmosphere and location. I doubt I'll ever pay more than £2 a Km and for Half Marathons, I doubt I'll pay more than £50.

I suppose my point comes down to the fact that the are some fantastic local races, and you don't need to go for the well known ones to have a good time, and if you want to challenge your PBs, then the big races aren't the Best ones to go for.

My tip, before you sign up for a race, speak to someone who's done it before.

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Team Armstrong

When I started running, it was with Family. Kim and Alan guided me from being someone who could barely stagger 1k, to completing 10k within 6 weeks (that's 1k to 10k in six weeks, it didn't take me 10 weeks to run 10k.) I ran my first race (Bupa Manchester 10k) with them and still do run with them regularly.

 

Not long into my parkrun 'life' I was already telling anyone who would listen about the wonder that was a weekly timed 5k, and I happened to mention it to Kev who works for Armstrong.

 

Not long afterwards, I stopped going to parkrun, I hadn't quite built the habit of parkrunday.

 

It was only in a chance conversation a couple of months later that I realised that some of Kev's colleagues had started parkrunning. I turned up the following week, but they weren't there.

 

The following week they were though and I started to run with them weekly. Graham, Laura, Sally, Ian, Matt, Jonathan and Helen have all turned up, barcode in hand on a Saturday morning. Little did I know, but a lot of Armstrong staff are runners, and Team Armstrong run in races.

 

In 2012, Team Armstrong were running the Salford 10k and I was asked if I would like to join them as an honourary member. I was delighted and agreed, since then, I've been adopted and run with Team Armstrong members regularly either at parkrun, or in races.

 

This year we've taken on the Trafford 10k and the Chester Half Marathon, next week the Manchester 10k is on and then the We Luv Mancester 10k.

 

Team Armstrong is the reason I started parkrunning again, and running with friends makes it much more fun.

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parkrun tourism

After embracing the fantastic event that is Heaton Park parkrun fifteen times, it finally dawned on me that there were other events as well.

 

I live within easy reach of of Heaton Park, but I work in Wigan, and when one of the lads I work with said that he was going to join the parkrun ranks at Pennington Flash, I agreed to join him on his first run, well when I say join, I mean follow.

 

So Sally and I schlepped up there and I was a little nervous as I was in an unfamilar place, we didn't know the local customs, where the start line was or what the course was like. Needless to say, we were made welcome.

 

I'm sure that I'll return to Pennington parkrun at some point, so I'll do a post then, but for the time being all you need to know if that visiting another parkrun whetted my appetite to see what else was out there.

 

In the next three months, I managed to make it to South Manchester, Wythenshaw, Worsley Woods and Bolton taking my tally to Six different events.

 

Don't worry, Heaton Park will always be my home, but every single park has it's charms and unique features. Cruella the Hill at Bolton, the Views at Pennington, the Lake at South Manchester and the Platforms at Worsley Woods. no matter what though, every event is welcoming.

 

When I sat down to set some running goals for 2013, I wasn't sure what to do, but the first one that came to me was to aim to take on 12 courses which I hadn't done before, 12 new parks, 12 sets of new faces to meet and 12 different experiences. This year, Oldham, Bramhall and Princes have all been tackled. Burnley will be my 10th different event which is halfway to getting on the leaderboard (at least until the criteria is changed again) and I had to postpone Woodbank due to injury.

 

parkrun can be whatever you want to be. I have the utmost respect for anyone who takes part in parkrun and if you want to do every run at one event, more power to you. maybe you can't get to other events, or you're not as lucky as me to live in an area where several runs are in easy travelling distance.

 

I firmly believe though that travelling to another parkrun both makes you appreciate your home run more, but also opens you to another beautiful space you may not have otherwise visited.

 

So why not take the chance to be a tourist. Maybe your home run is off due to another event, maybe you're on holiday and there's a local parkrun, or maybe you can get to another place easily.

 

If you can, I'd be amazed if you regretted it.

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Only just recovered

I'll be honest with you, I love running on the whole, but I wasn't really looking to last Saturday or Sunday.

In the previous week, I had a taster session with a personal trainer at DW Fitness Wigan. The session with Matt was hard work, painful, sweaty and brilliant. I really enjoyed it, but was already starting to regret it by lunchtime on Wednesday, but Friday morning, my legs were in agony, my waist was aching and I was struggling to grip anything due to the pain in my hands. (yes, you read that right, my hands)

So it was with trepidation that I eased myself out of my car, On parkrunday, and ambled down to the start line. I was back at home in Heaton Park with my parkrun family after a few weeks of tourism with Team Armstrong (To come in a post soon) for a gentle jog. Graham, Laura and Karl were in attendance joined by Myself, Lauren and Lauren's cousin Meaghan. Sally and Matt were AWOL.

The weather behaved and I finished in just a touch under 35 minutes as I took it easy. Karl is coming back from an injury and Saturday was his first non treadmill run, I was proud to watch him cross the line in a decent time, OK he was in front of me.

The other reason for taking it easy on Saturday was that Laura and I were running the Chester Half Marathon on the Sunday morning and to be quite honest, I wasn't looking forward to it ... in fact I was pretty worried.

In September I ran the Great North Run and did a fair amount of training for it. I coped pretty well and managed to finish in 2:36. For this Half Marathon, I hurt my back in early April and I hadn't managed to prepare very well, in fact the last time I'd run more than 10k was back in early February, so whilst I felt like I could finish Chester, I wasn't 100% that I would, and I certainly wasn't expecting a decent time. anytime under 3:00 was a win.

Getting up at 05:45 on a Sunday morning is just wrong, getting in the car by 06:25 is bad and picking up Laura at 07:00 is just antisocial, doing all three is an affront to anyone who just wants to be lazy. However, we rolled onto Chester Racecourse about 08:15 and by 08:55 we were stood on the start line.

Well, I say the start line, we were back in the Over 02:30 section at the back, it took us almost 7 minutes to reach the start line.

I won't say too much about my own race, I was under prepared and understandably didn't cope too well with the course, however, it was a great event, lots of people out on the course to support the runners, great camerarderie between the participants and the weather was about right being slightly overcast and not too rainy.

I finished in 2:41. If you'd have offered me that before the race, I'd have ripped your arm off. I didn't enjoy this half as much as the Great North Run, probably due to the lack of Prep and less support out on the course. I'm considering sticking to 10k as a maximum from now on.

Laura managed a great time of 2:22, I was really proud of her.

I'm obviously a runner now though because by Tuesday morning my legs were recovered.

This week, Burnley parkrun.

 

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