Here we go Loop de Loop

No Races in February, just training runs.
Started out with a welcome back for my friend Chris as he returned to running on the heath with tales of The Spine Race, which he ran in January but sadly had to pull out of after 80 ish miles and a couple of days (correct me if it was more Chris!) due to injury. For those that don't know The Spine is a 268 mile non-stop challenge along the whole of the Pennine Way. In January.  To get 80 miles in the conditions the runners usually find themselves in is an achievement in itself. Never mind finishing it!
It had taken Chris a few weeks to recover sufficiently to run again, so luckily he was running slow and I was able to keep up with him! He had sure been in the wars though as no sooner than his leg injury was looking like recovering, his dog charlie headbutted him and took out several teeth!

just for you Chris!

Mileage was increasing and I had 2 x 20 milers to plan. The first one was to be the Larmer Tree 20 in March, the second I wasn't sure yet but was looking around, I find it better to do the really long training runs as events if possible as they seem so much easier than trying to find a route and then running it on your own.
Jenny was also booked into the Larmer Tree half race and was feeling a tad apprehensive as she had only done one half before and so as I had a 13 miler to do the first weekend in February we decided to take a Recce of the half route, taking it easy and walking the hills and just generally trying to kind of enjoy it!
Jenny had her own grand plans in operation and had booked into a half ironman in September so wanted to get some 13 mile practice! 

We dawdled, we opened and shut gates, avoided sheep with the dogs, stopped to take pictures, read the map, got the route a tiny bit wrong etc etc. and had quite a good run, although poor Jenny found the wheels fell off a bit with 2 miles to go and so was just following my feet towards the end as we found that due to the route going a tiny bit wrong, we had to do the 'run round the car park to make the distance up' run at the end. It did however help confidence in managing the hills.
Daisy was also pretty tired and couldn't wait to get in the car but Max the seasoned long distance runner just stood in the car park as if to say "is that it? only 13 miles, i thought we were going for a long run?"
We found a stray WSR sign on the way too.

we didnt go wrong on this bit!

The following week had 15 miles in the schedule and would be Daisy's first run at that distance so I decided to miss out the big hills and get in a little bit of tarmac practice interspersed with trails and do 'The Loop' a flexible circuit which is a good standby route, that goes from my house to, well, my house! The route takes in part of Canford Heath, Broadstone and Castleman trailway, Creekmoor heath, Upton park, and then Holes Bay and home.
By cutting out or adding in little offshoots on the off road sections I can make it 12 miles or I can make it 17 miles so its quite handy, and of course I don't have to drive anywhere to start with.
Jenny was going to join me partway as I went close to her house, and complete the last 9 miles with me all the way home.
We did have a good run but it seemed like a lot harder work than it should have done given that the previous year I did a slightly longer version in a quicker time!
Thankfully I had made Lemon Drizzle cake previously which made a great pick me up.

I found my second 20 mile event just after that, The Exe to Axe in Devon at the beginning of April running along the coastpath from Exmouth to Seaton. Sounds idyllic and lovely doesn't it? at least that's what we thought, surely it cant be as bad as our Dorset coast path, oh no siree.....
How wrong could we be. But more of that later. I mention 'we' as Neil had foolishly decided it sounded like a fun event too...Shortly after that there was the sound of a gauntlet hitting the floor as Neil said to Jenny 'why don't you join us'. Even though she had never done more than 13 miles before. And so with Kev roped in as support crew, we were to be '4 go mad in Devon'. What could possibly go wrong?
A full report on the effects of Murphy's Law on the unsuspecting will be featured in the full race report in April's post!

Meanwhile, back in February, we received the news that the grandbaby was in fact to be a grandson!
Hazel and Alex had decided they wanted to know what make they were expecting and found out at the latest scan. Here you can see the top of his head and his arms and hands.

The next long run was a 17 mile. So rather than try and work out another route I did a version of The Loop again, but this time, since I didn't want to take Daisy over 15 miles and it would have been unfair to take Max and not her, I did it without the dogs, but added a Chris instead.
Yes Chris had worked his way back up to some good mileage again so he met me shortly after the start and then we also picked Jenny up on the way too the same as last time although she was to turn for home at some point and not finish the whole thing.
Its surprising how much quicker you can be without having to stop every 5 or 10 minutes to chivvy dogs along, put on leads, take leads off, pick up doggy doo, etc etc, and so we managed a reasonable turn of speed along most of it, although it was my turn for the wheels to fall off a bit in the last couple of km, although in my defence they were mostly uphill!

Unfortunately though i may have overdone things somewhere along the line as in the final week of February I picked up a sinus infection of some kind and instead of a long run managed only a somewhat congested 5 miles. Cue a couple days off for recovery.

One thing I forgot to mention in January was that I felt very honoured with a request from a friend Anthony Clark (who is an incredible long distance runner) to write up a profile of myself about my nutrition and training tips for the Mont Blanc race, for the website of his new venture XMILES. In February my write up went online, see it here, have a laugh at me being next to some REAL athletes, and please take a look round the rest of Ant's website :-)

Next stop March, which includes a race report on the Larmer 20, a bit of cycling, I start grandma shopping, win something (not a race!), run somewhere different, and most importantly The Clocks Go Forward!

River Deep, Mountain High..

So, January.
The official start of London Marathon training.
I had already decided that given the issues I had with road marathons before, that I would concentrate on:

A. getting to the start line in good shape and in one piece, and

B. getting to the finish line in good shape and in one piece!

A decent finish time was to take a back seat, and in my case as I am not a quick runner, a decent finish time would mean under 5 hours. If this happened it would be a bonus but I would not obsess over it.

In addition I also decided that I would take better notice of what my own body was telling me, and although I was following a training plan (I find it easier to do that than to think what I should be doing), I would make allowances for feeling tired, having an off day, having an especially good day etc and so hopefully avoid injury such as I got in the build up to Paris partially caused I think by sticking to a training plan too rigidly.

Of course also in January 2 new things in my life were announced.
One was of course the enormousness of the official announcement of Grandparentness, which is extremely exciting, I do hope I can be a good one. More about that later!

And the other was the start of Poole junior parkrun.
Jenny had been working on starting a junior parkrun for some time and the first event happened on January 3rd.  A 2km course for 4-14 year olds in Poole park on Sundays, and just like the main parkrun, at 9am.

I don't remember If this was the first one but there were 62 juniors running their little hearts out on the first day. I can really recommend volunteering at a junior parkrun, it is so much more rewarding even than the normal 5km version.

Oh and nearly forgot, I also started a 365 day (which turned into a 366 day when i realised it was leap year this year) photo a day blog. Its proving more difficult than I thought but if you would like a look its here
http://deniseday366.blogspot.co.uk/

Anyway back to training, the plan I was following was one by Martin Yelling, available online, a lot of his training plans involve time rather than distance, except for the really long runs and I do like those as they make allowances for the times that you are feeling a bit off, you can do a bit less miles in the time. Or if you are feeling really good you can end up doing slightly more!

January's plan consisted of mainly 1 interval run a week, 3 or 4 shortish runs of up to an hour, and a longer run. Starting with a 6 mile, then an 8 mile, then an 11 mile which should have been 10 but 4 of us decided to do a run across Black Hill in Bere Regis which i had done before, and there seemed to be more of it than I remembered. Also poor Max had flashbacks to a time in the past when he disappeared under water as thanks to the rain one of the fields we had to go across looked like this

Yes although Daisy thought it was amazing and bounced like a gazelle through the water, Max decided he was having none of it "for goodness sake mum you cant see the bottom!" and stood his ground, so Neil had to carry him across!

Talking of the weather we seemed to have been through the mill with it in January, my training log records mud, torrential rain, cold, ice, wind, water, and more mud again. Testing to be sure.
The last longish run of the month was back down to an 8 mile but as the heath tracks had been chewed up by the Caterpillar tracks of 'heath maintenance' vehicles, we decided to run 8 miles of the Larmer Tree half route, firstly because Jenny would be running it in March and also because Kevin wanted us to check out some of the course as it had to be changed from last year. So from 4 go mad in Dorset, we were 4 go mad in Wiltshire!

No races in January which was a nice rest, although I did add another interesting one to the Calendar. The Snowdonia Trail marathon.
They have a road one which goes around Snowdon but this one goes over the top! Here is the route and profile.

looks a tad hilly!

Looks a bit tricky doesn't it? Why am I tackling this as well as the Coniston one this year? well I have it in my head that I would like to make at least one attempt on the Mont Blanc Marathon in the next couple of years and so i figured I needed the mountain practice!

See you in February's post.

And the rest of the year went like this....

Yes, i know, incredibly lazy of me but conscious of the fact that it is now April (how did that happen?), I'm lumping the rest of the year into one post or I will never catch up!
September was a bit of a race fest as it happens. Full on Purbeck Trail Series (well most of it) with a mini triathlon thrown in for good measure.

week by week it looked like this:

Week 1 - few shorter runs followed by, on Sunday, the Beast race. Well named for sure. I first did this race last year and it was just as tough this year, although I did manage a small course PB.

Here's a reminder of one of the delights this course has to offer, although thankfully this year I managed not to trip over a blade of grass at the top and so completed it relatively unscathed. Not sure about the baby pink tshirts at the finish though.....

those lovely steps!

Week 2 - Well I say unscathed but I ended up with sore legs for a few days, and tackled a couple of 'ow, ow that hurt' runs at the beginning of the week. Conscious of the fact that I was due to do my first ever attempt at a triathlon (albeit a mini one) at the end of the week, I thought i ought to put in a bit of cycling too, even if it was only to work and back.
And thanks to me being stupid enough to let Max choose the route for Saturdays heath run (something he does like to do) I found myself in a section I had not run in before and soon found out why. Let's just say it's a good job nettle stings aren't serious, or I might have died out there!
Sunday dawns and im off to Dibden to the Rose Road min tri, with my run/swim gear and bike in the car. I am joining my work colleagues on this charity event. Even putting my bike on the stand it it clear I have no idea what i am doing, unlike the rest of my work mates! The only swimming I have done this year is on holiday in June, so after we are separated into fast med and extreme slow swimming groups (guess which one i am in...) I am surprised to find out that I am still not the last out of the pool among my little group! So glad to get that over with, I'm not good in the water and it was only 200m but I was happy to get on the bike! Next was 8 miles on a 2 loop course, then just a 2.5 mile run, but I didnt know about the jelly legs when you get off the bike so that was a nice surprise!
Some of my friends are regular triathletes so the greatest respect will be awarded to them from now on! I think i would rather run up a mountain its easier :-

I'm smiling but I dont know why!

Week 3 - certainly not feeling the love on the bike rides, I was sure it was getting more difficult, but next up in the running was the Purbeck marathon. We picked Nicola up in the morning and it's clear from our faces neither of us were 100% ready!

hope we cheer up!

It was my 3rd time of running it and in the end managed a few minutes PB on my course best. Glorious scenery as usual, can't be helped on the Jurassic coast though!

I'm here somewhere!

Week 4 - Mostly not a lot of running apart from Black Hill 10k. Plus, seeing as how I was helping organise again, we did a bit of mileage putting out and taking in signs. We had introduced a junior 3km trail run into Black Hill and I had a bit of running about to do while organising that, so when it came to starting the clock on the 5k and 10k and actually running it, I just relaxed and jogged the route! I think the part that stuck in a lot of runners minds was when the canicross runners were started 5 mins after the main pack and all you could hear while running to the top of the hill was baying hounds following!

I managed to put together a little video but due to lack of organisation I forgot to pick up the video camera from Kevin before the start so it only runs from about halfway after I passed his marshall position!

The following week it becomes obvious that the evenings are getting shorter and headtorches will be required soon. :-( Not that i mind headtorch runs but daylight is so much better!

October brings some post - Well, you know i don't really like road marathons? I seem to have got a place in rather a large one, whoops....

Yes, you're right I do have a lot of explaining to do, well its like this see....

Last time (and the only other time) I completed the London Marathon I didnt finish well. With Paris marathon I had an injury beforehand.... anyway lets just say me and road marathons dont seem to get on. So there was a bit of unfinished business going on and so I thought lets give it another try. Opting to let fate decide whether I got in or not, I entered the ballot and waited.

Imagine my surprise when the bumble bee magazine arrived! Game on :-)

Not fretting about it in October though as I wouldnt start training until January and had a couple of races to concentrate on first.

The first being Studland Stampede, and the second being the Stickler 2 weeks later.

I do like the Stampede, no idea why, its just a great race, even when you are going along the beach towards the end and every time you look up, the finish is no closer!

My Garmin says I had a small PB but the finish results say different, poor performance at 1:20:03, no idea what happened there. I hope to do a better time in 2016, as i will be back, cant keep me away from this one!

The Stickler however was a completely different affair, 10 miles of hills makes for a difficult race, I would recommend this for any Dorset local who wants some hill practice, but still I managed a course PB of 1:54:29.

Not only that, but just before the race I was completely surprised with a presentation ceremony of a Rebel Scum shirt and entry into this very exclusive running alliance (never a club!) :-)

I dub thee...the owner of a red tshirt :-)

Awesome! so a dual member of two unofficial running, erm, club type um things, alliances then, Nifty Nanas and Rebel Scum. I'm honoured to be in both :-)

Back on the heath and the nights are getting pretty dark now, back into headtorch territory, and Max is delirious to see his true love Abbie the border collie again as Chris joins us for a run.

A week later and just into November I am struck down by the cough and snot fairy and dont run for nearly a week, just about making it back into the land of the living to attend the first Moors Valley parkrun, in Verwood. Lovely route through the forest trails. Me and Jenny ran with the dogs and they loved it.

Took another couple of weeks before I was well again though, and in the middle of those weeks was the Wimborne 10. Heaven only knows why i decided to go ahead with this run, I certainly wasnt up to racing it, but I had promised Jenny I would run with her and so we did it together.

We had decided that to get through it we would add a swear word every mile and towards the end it was getting quite inventive. I cant remember what combination we had got to by the finish but I believe it got Jenny a 10 mile PB!

We had a bit of a restructure at home around this time as my Dad had decided that he wanted to venture out on his own and was looking at renting flats. He quickly found a great one not too far away in Sandbanks area in a lovely developement of retirement properties and moved in. I am very proud of him for doing this.

I'm puzzling over my training log next as to why I was doing intervals in November but it seems to have been part of the run up to the Round the Lakes 10k on Boxing Day. Looks like I might have actually been doing some training for it but for the life of me I cant think why as given the recent races I was not looking like I could get a PB.
For most of December I also signed up to the 'Marcothon', one of a few challenges where you run every day in December. The rules are you have to run 25 minutes minimum or 3 miles whichever comes first (in my case of course it was very clearly going to be the 25 mins!) On the days I normally didnt run I just did the barest minimum at a very easy pace.
So does running every day for a month have a detrimental effect? Well to general well being I would say no, at the end I felt slightly stronger than before, however for general speed I would say it does affect as I missed out on a fast time for the 10k.

However, all paled into insignificance with an important announcement just before the end of the year. My daughter Hazel invited us round to dinner and there gobsmacked us with the news that in 2016 we would be Grandparents :-) She didnt announce it in public until the New Year but we had the sneak preview!
What an amazing end to a packed year. I can only hope 2016 is as good

First Grandchild!!