running races

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Aliveandrunning September 6 2014

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No Cambridge junior parkrun at Milton Country Park today because one of the series of Spartan obstacle races took place instead. I’ve not seen any of the mud run/obstacle events before and didn’t think they would appeal to me. But I was completely won over. The people taking part had a great time and it’s a very entertaining to watch.

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Despite an initial impression of lots of men in macho posturing mode, this quickly changed when I saw the effort required to negotiate the course and the number of women taking part. By the time the runners hauled themselves up this ramp, they were very wet, muddy and slippery. Not everyone could do it but they all tried it. They weren’t worried by looking undignified and they got a lot of cheers and encouragement.

 

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This a small pond I run past when I do Cambridge parkrun. It’s stagnant, smelly and looks like a swamp. It is a swamp! It looks filthy and vile. As I watched dozens wade, swim and stagger across, I confirmed  it was all these things. A big Cambridge triathalon  has just been cancelled because of the degradation  of the water quality in the Cam. Well, the Cam is like crystal clear mineral water compared to this mud bath.

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No Cambridge parkrun at Milton Country Park yesterday because today’s Spartan race. Ms Alive and Running not able to accompany me to Wimpole Estate parkrun because she has joined a cult and is away for the weekend. But I wasn’t alone in the car. I gave my pal Kerry a lift despite his track record of being 2-3 minutes faster than me over 5k. This clearly demonstrates my current altruism, so different to last week when I had a nice collection of little dolls (which had surprisingly similar features to some of my faster friends) and a selection of needles. I’ve recycled all that paraphernalia now and turned to the mild side. I fully accept that I will be  frequently beaten by chums  and my mind is at peace (or piss as a European accent might have it).

They had a record 362 runners at Wimpole yesterday and I came in at 125th. Kerry ran a good race but his personal barcode didn’t scan which meant that he was regarded as an unknown when the results went online. There were quite a few unknowns sprinkled throughout the 356 and Kerry didn’t know his position number or his approximate time . He wasn’t an unknown unknown but a known unknown. Possibly he regarded himself as an unknown known. Who knows?Anyway, there’s a campaign afoot to change his status to to known known which I have contributed to. But wait! The text I received from parkrun central tells me I am second in my age range. If Kerry becomes promoted to known known, I am demoted to third in my age category (behind Kerry). This is a test of my integrity. My integrity remains intact. I spend most of the night tirelessly working on Kerry’s behalf to get him the justice he deserves.

 

 

 

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Aliveandrunning August 28 2014

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This shocking, non life threatening injury was sustained at my local Tesco supermarket. I can’t lay claim to seeing off a gang of thugs who were menacing a hard working but meek and elderly tax payer. I didn’t fight a duel in the carpark to prevent my honour  being besmirched. But I can confirm that one of their trolleys has got a mean attitude. I usually take one of the smaller, shallow trolleys which stack together and should pull out easily. Sometimes the metal panel which swivels to allow them to stack gets stuck. Through experience and the application of hard won technical wisdom, I have learnt that a short, sharp knock will free the swivelling panel and allow me to wheel the trolley away. Not sure why but this expected outcome didn’t take place. Instead I thumped it too hard and the panel flipped over and hit me on the bridge of the nose. Blood was dribbling down my face and I had to seek first aid at the customer services desk. Following a Code One call over the PA system a first aider appeared, quickly, accompanied by an assistant and, I think, the duty manager. They suggested I move away from the public gaze while they cleaned me up and wanted me to sit down. It was my minimal expectation that a running god like myself would be ushered into a side room with discreet classical music playing and offered strawberries while I reclined on a chaise longue. This didn’t happen. Instead I walked 3 metres and sat on an electric store buggy while the three Tesco people worked on my nose and the queue of people waiting for customer services gawped at me. Still, I got prompt attention despite their lack of recognition that I am a running deity. I wouldn’t be surprised that, had I gashed my nose deeply, they would have publicly stitched me up.

Out running with the club two days ago. We ran the course for the 5K interclub run next week. There weren’t many of us and the course wasn’t familiar to me. I think I was still feeling tired  from running a training 13 miles two days previously. As a result, despite a feeling I was flying like the wind, I did a slow time. It was even slower because I went the wrong way three times. Interestingly, the warm up and warm down exercises were as demanding as the 5k itself (almost). After the session, I drink 500 mls  of water in the car and tonic water with my evening meal on my return.This regime is keeping the cramp at bay.

I cooked a dal this evening. Unfortunately I put in a large spoonful of extra hot chilli powder instead of turmeric and didn’t have yogurt to cool it down. This job was left to the radish, red onion and cucumber salad accompanying it. Still too hot but edible!

Still waiting for Cambridge MIND to contact me regarding my proposal for a gardening ecotherapy project in the field behind my cottage. They said they were interested and I’ll hopefully meet up with them soon.

Inside Health, BBC Radio 4, is well worth catching as a podcast on iTunes. The programme takes a critical, weekly look at health issues and has just completed 3 editions devoted to conflict of interests by drug companies, researchers, the medical world and the public. Very interesting. Forget transparency!

 

 

 

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Aliveandrunning August 20 2014

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Victoria plums, grown on an actual Victoria plum tree, near the cottage. How fecund nature is! My tomatoes are doing reasonably well despite having their branches splayed all over the place and mainly on the ground. Apart from drinking enough water to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool, they also need industrial scaffolding to hold them up. Too fecund by half.

Out with the running club last night. I opted to do the fartlek  around Granchester Meadows rather than the 8 x 1 minute with 3 minutes recovery time between each minute running. I’ve done this before off track. It doesn’t sound like much running but I found it demanding. However, out of choice , I usually prefer distance to pure speed work and fartleks combine both. This particular fartlek requires courage and faith. At this time of year we frequently meet a herd of cows blocking our path. Yesterday the coach asked if anyone was fearful of cows. No one admitted to a specific fear so we ran through them. These cows, living in the shadow of the University, are very intelligent and thankfully familiar with idiot humans rushing towards as if they were as insubstantial as vapour. They simply stepped out of the way (on this occasion) rather than scatter in all directions you don’t expect them to go in.

We do plenty of warm up exercises and plenty of stretching exercises post run. This contrasts with me typically forgetting to do warm up or downs after a long run. I do them occasionally but there is no correlation between lack of excercises and injury or cramp. At least on runs up to 10 miles. I had some calf problems at mile 12 during the Edinburgh half marathon a couple of years ago but apart from that, I’ve been injury free. Except when I’ve decided to lift something heavy in the full knowledge that I’m taking a risk. I dare myself to do it and I’m the loser. It’s so difficult being super sensible all of the time.

Adult parkrun on Saturday and junior parkrun on Sunday. I only need to do 9 more adult parkruns and I’ll have completed 200 since I had my heart attack 5 years ago.

 

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Aliveandrunning July 21 2014

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Following last weeks wildly successful parkrun at Brighton, when, as a Cambridge parkrun tourist, I unnerved the local opposition by storming the finish line at position 96, this week I again donned my tourist hat and ran parkrun at Gorleston, with Lorna, just outside of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. I came in at number 51, so (maybe) twice as successful as the previous weekend! A very nice course along the cliffs and lower coast promenade. The start began on the cliff top level and finished on the promenade. It comprised two loops with one steep but short incline. The weather has been very stormy in recent days and we were lucky it held for us. Or rather, luck played no part. I made various sacrifices to the rain gods and my mortal interventions successfully resulted in a rain free race.

By good luck, at Gorleston I bumped into the two daughters of a man whom  I met in Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge five years ago. We both had heart attacks and we were both marathon runners ( the doctors mentioned I was the second marathon runner that day as they put the stents in). Roy also ran Cambridge parkrun but has now moved away to Norwich. He’s still running and is now concentrating on cycling.

Great Yarmouth! What can I say? At the very least it was a cultural shock. Like a lot of British coastal towns, it has suffered substantial decline and neglect. This description could also apply to many of the residents and visitors. Its both shocking and sobering to see such large swathes of people who are grossly overweight, smoking and eating rubbish, often accompanied by children. If they are  able to obtain employment, it will be in low paid, insecure jobs. The town itself had many fine buildings, now  sorely neglected and disrespected. I took a number of pictures on my phone which will feature in a subsequent blog.

We stayed at Winterton on Sea, about 10 miles from Great Yarmouth and lived in one of these Hobbit Houses for a few nights. They overlooked sand dunes and the sea beyond. Lovely, little, basic, quirky accommodation.

 

 

 

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Aliveandrunning July 13 2014

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Brighton, Sussex. This pic was taken as the sun went down. The light was fading and people were becoming silhouettes. The beach had a dreamy and languid feel which gave the remnant of the the destroyed West Pier a romantic aspect. We were in Brighton for my daughter’s graduation and to collect belongings  from her accommodation. This went well, despite the poor weather, although very emotional for her.

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The bonus to our little trip to the South coast was being able to take part in Brighton parkrun (Preston Park) on Saturday morning. Unlike Cambridge parkrun which is along narrow woodland paths, the Brighton course is on tarmac paths on open park grass land, with 3 loops. Very enjoyable.

I arrived alone and maintained a cool insouciance throughout. They knew I was an unknown quantity, a stylish outsider that possibly had what it took to blow the local running talent to smithereens. I took my place on the front line and saw the fear in their eyes. Two of the young bucks had the temerity to look me directly. I faced them down with my steely alpha male stare, forcing them to lower their gaze in submission. A quick gesture by swivelling my eyes indicated they should move back to the secondary line behind me. They complied, ashen faced and shaken. I went off like a rocket and remained well ahead of everyone for an easy 20 metres before running out of steam and eventually coming in 96th out of 244. Oh well, you’ve gotta aim for the stars!

 

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Today was the inaugural Cambridge junior parkrun, a 2 kilometre run for children aged 4-14. It was very successful with 97 children ( plus some accompanying parents) taking part. It didn’t rain during the race but there were plenty of puddles to run through and the children clearly loved the whole thing. It took 25+ volunteers to stage it and the plan is to run it (pun intended) weekly which is quite an undertaking for the event and race directors who are, of course, volunteers. An added difficulty today was the Alzheimer’s 10k and 5k sponsored walk through the park which was scheduled to start at the same time as the juniors set off (at 10am). There were 500 of them! It got sorted. We delayed our start time by 15 minutes and this didn’t result in any problems. It’s wonderful to see the joy on the faces of the youngest children as they put everything they’ve got into running. I’m sure  it will continue to be very successful.

If the Daily Mail was to cease publication overnight, the mental health and well being of the nation would increase significantly with immediate effect. It’s raison d’etre is to cause maximum angst and existential stress in it’s readers who can’t get enough of its dystopian outlook. And that’s putting it politely.

The Sunday Express headlines? The Queen is worried about the possibility that the Red Arrows team  (acrobatic aviation jets) will be disbanded. Our Queen must not experience this kind of perturbation. Mr Cameron, please allocate an increase in funding to safeguard these brave flyers and prevent our monarch from suffering continuing mental unease. After all, there’s plenty of money sloshing around in the mental health services budget and they can’t shout very loud. And libraries, too, when I come to think about it.

 

 

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Aliveandrunning July 7 2014

DSC_0959 This is a picture from one of the bands at  the Cambridge Big Weekend held on Parker’s Piece and performing yesterday.Tomorrow, the Tour de France commences from Parker’s Piece and the city centre will be full of excited people wildly cheering them on as they depart for the London finish in the afternoon (minus the moody but brilliant Mark Cavendish who tried too hard and crashed out on the first day of the Tour, silly boy!).

I’ve now had some rest days since the end of Juneathon and I’ve only run two 5k races, one of which was a club race competing with four other clubs over five runs in all. I still feel ambivalent about being a club runner. I do take running seriously (up to a point), I do try to be competitive (up to a point), I do make an effort to talk about running and socialise with other runners (possibly for minutes at a time if the subject is not wholly running based), I do enjoy the company of runners and the variation of club training. And that’s why, if the club asks members to turn up to support particular races for the glory and overall victory of winning the trophy, I will take part if possible. I will drive 45-60 minutes each way for a whole point which is added on to the other points contributed by the rank and file runners. I’d probably be more inspired if they gave out sticky gold stars which could be stuck in a little booklet. I do enjoy the runs but I can’t wait to get home to have something sensible to eat. I have noticed that before the start,  the individual club members, in their club vests, tend to group together. My club tends to stand in multiple small groups or stand alone. Actually I quite like that. It’s a Cambridge thing. It shows what a disparate bunch we are and reflects the different tribes.

Yesterday was Cambridge parkrun. I thought I was running fast but I was still over half a minute outside my personal best. Still, I enjoyed it. I commented to a pal that we are probably within the top 1% of running fitness for our age group overall which renders any feelings of disappointment in performance as missing the point.

DSC_0926 This chap was one of a number of vintage bicycle riders showing off their machines at the Big Weekend. They were very friendly and deeply appreciative of the interest shown in their hobby. DSC_0899   DSC_0010   This ska band was really good. I’m not usually a fan but I was today. I may be dong them a massive disservice but their appearance gave the impression they may be a little to the right of UKIP. Nothing they said supported this, however, and it was a great set. I think someone needs to reconsider calories in and calories out, though. DSC_0004

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Aliveandrunning June 29 2014 Juneathon Day 29

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I really had no idea that Rupert was an avid Brazil fan. Or was capable of hiding behind his paws during the penalty shootout yesterday. Or drank lager. Clearly he’s very much into World Cup football. He even ordered a hot dog to eat at half time! I heard him whisper to Isobelle  that Suarez’s bite is worse than his bark.Normally he has no interest in TV (apart from watching a certain Disney film) and as for supporting Andy Murray at Wimbledon, forget it.

I have only ever taken Rupert running on two occasions and today was the third. Running with Rupert is a mixed blessing. He is a highly skilled wee and poo merchant. He can’t trot more than  100 metres without stopping either to pee half a pint or leave a marker. He’s also a three poo a day dog. I suppose I have to count myself lucky I only had to pick up one. He’s got no road sense, randomly changes from left to right side and vice versa and is constantly on the lookout for something discarded to eat. Nevertheless, I enjoyed running with him. We ran around 9.5k which was enough for us both.

Today was the trial run for Cambridge junior parkrun and it went off with flying colours. Unless you are actively involved in the nuts and bolts of parkrun, it’s difficult to appreciate the time, effort and worry that goes into making it happen safely and successfully. 52 children participated, along with many parents and 25 volunteers. The inaugural run will take place in a fortnight and at least 100 children are expected to take part.

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This young girl smiled and giggled her way around the 2k course. Not surprising, really, since she is a veteran of the adult parkrun. Her father has whizzed her along in an off road buggy since she was a baby! She was accompanied by her dad and pictured here with  tail runner Julie.

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Finally, the first girl to the line and the first and second boy. A very enjoyable and uplifting morning. The weather just held until everything was packed away and everyone went home. The weather has been pants, as they say, for the last 2 days. But hold on while I place my gardening hat on my cranium. Wow, I just love this weather. I can hear the garden squeaking with delight at the amount of rain that’s fallen, helta skelta, out of a leaden sky. Thank you, rain gods.

 

 

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Aliveandrunning June 27 2014 Juneathon Day 27

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The madness of the off road runner. I was drawn to the on coming tornado like an iron filing to a magnet. I ran across uncharted fields, untrodden since medieval times. I felt an urge to embrace the tornado like some people hug trees and then to enter the centre of the funnel where Iwould experience a transcendent peace. As I raced ever nearer, I spied cows and pigs swirling around the vortex 50 metres off the ground. I sang Follow the Yellow Brick Road in my head. I was a few seconds away from being sucked in but at the last moment, it abruptly changed direction and at such a speed I was unable to follow. The heavens opened up and I got thoroughly soaked. I took it easy on the homeward journey but still got jogger’s nipple. It could have been a lot worse!

About 5.5k in all. The paths were very overgrown in parts. There was no-one around. The loneliness of the short distance runner.

Tomorrow we’ll go to Wimpole Estate parkrun as Cambridge parkrun is not happening.

Very interesting and thought provoking headlines in the Daily Star about a prediction by scientists that a new generation of rats will be the size of cows. The same paper tempted you with the front page description of another story inside : “Evil Savile Sicko Sex.” This is the level of a lot of discussion about Jimmy Savile’s decades long sexual abuse of men and women, adolescents and young children. It leaves you with absolutely no appreciation or understanding of how or why this behaviour might have come about, how a person might develop such proclivities. http://bit.ly/1mEcx8E This link to The Guardian’s Oliver James assists a more grown up view of what may be going on in this man’s head. Such a pity there is very little discussion at this level.

 

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Aliveandrunning June 26 2014 Juneathon Day 26

 

 

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Straight down the M XI to the outskirts of Londinium to see my mater and deliver this lava lamp to my daughter Shanti. It seems to be a Seventies original. It’s larger,more  heavier and more rocket like than new ones I’ve seen recently. I like it. I’ll look out for another similar lamp for Lorna.

I’m not being county-ist or anyfink but the standard of driving improved noticeably beyond Stanstead (out of Essex and into Cambridgeshire). On the positive side, you could say that the breathtaking swerving from lane to lane in fast moving traffic to gain a few metres is creative, courageous and visually stunning. Perhaps driving safely is ridiculously over rated and  boring. Perhaps driving in Essex should be kept to a minimum.

Anyway, having survived trial by boy racer I was glad to get back to Cambridge where we still drive cars preceded by a walking person waving a red flag. Mildly traumatised, I restricted myself to a 2 mile run accompanied by my pet butterflies fluttering in a subdued manner over my head and perfectly reflecting my jangled nerves.

Lorna is heavily involved in setting up a new junior parkrun in Milton Country Park where the adult parkrun is held. This Sunday a trial junior parkrun will take place followed by the first official run a fortnight later. A great deal of time and effort goes into getting a parkrun set up and staged, particularly when the participants are predominantly children. Well done. I’m sure it will be a great success.

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Aliveandrunning June 22 2014 Juneathon Day 22

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Who is this hopelessly ice cool dude? Why, it’s me of course. I’m wearing my uber fashionable Hoohaah hoodie allocated to me by the Hoohaah organisers of a series of 10k, 10 miles and half marathons for taking part in 3 of their races. This is my first ever hoodie and it won’t be my last. I might even get myself some shades to wear rather than borrow Lorna’s pair.

I picked it up at the Hoohaah Hatfield Forest 10k this morning. The weather was glorious, albeit a tad hot for running. The course was slightly undulating, over grass and shady forest paths. I stopped at the drink station and walked for half a minute which I think was sensible (I was in sensible mode). Despite being appropriately hydrated I still felt more tired than I expected at the eighth kilometre. I ploughed on, jumping nimbly over the runners laying on their backs gasping, having succumbed  to  the heat. Given that I’ve been cruelly  forced to run every day to satisfy the bloody Juneathon criteria, I was happy with my time. But then controversy broke out big time and I wasn’t the only one sent reeling by the disclosure that the 10k course was actually 10.3k. Not having a GPS device I was unaware of this but various people with Garmins confirmed it. Several of us fainted at this news and others found solace by hiding in their hoodies and  weeping. For myself, I took it like a man and assumed a sardonic smile.

The Hoohaah series is a great addition to the increasing number of paid for runs. Well organised, well marshaled, lovely courses and friendly people putting it on.

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This is what I looked like during the run (I ran with unfolded arms, obviously). Why do I look as if I’m wearing a skirt? (I’m not). You see I have that air of quiet determination and understated strength which allowed me to storm across the finish line after 71 runners who got there first.