I had 2-and-a-half weeks off work and away out of London
over Christmas. I went back home to Northern Ireland, with the intention of
keeping myself ticking over, doing a few swims, a few bike rides, a few runs, a
couple of races, some stretching and weights, eating sensibly and not drinking.
For the past month or two I had been doing some high-intensity running
training: hill repeats and fast tempo runs, in an effort to be fit for the
Christmas racing in Northern Ireland.
The hill repeats are tough. You go and find a big hill, sprint up to the top, turn and jog back down, and repeat up to 14 times. You’re smashing yourself, by the end you are in pieces. It’s dark and freezing and the lungs and legs really burn. But to be able to race well over Christmas, I did a good few hill sessions in November and December.
I got home late on Thursday 19th December. I dragged myself out of bed on the Friday morning and went for a swim. I literally had the whole pool to myself, it was awesome. There’s something cool about getting into an empty pool and breaking the stillness of the water. I was soon ploughing up and down, and I hammered out 2.6km, with no-one in my way. I saw the town's tree as well...
The next day was the North West Cross Country in Derry. I did this race last year in 19:38. I had been surprised to be running right at the sharp end throughout the whole race last year, but in the end my lack of speed told and I finished 6th. Still, I was only about 10 seconds off the win, so I had been really buoyed by this. Going to the race this year, I was annoyed I had left my red club vest behind in London. From the off, it was clear I wasn’t going to be running at the very sharp end, and it was a tough slog of a race. I didn’t feel strong at all, and finished over a minute behind the winner, and 20 seconds slower than last year. I was a bit disappointed with this.
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My next race was the Greencastle 5 mile road race in the Sperrin mountains, on Boxing Day. It was forecast to be freezing, with possible snow. It’s a hilly, tough course, attracting up to a thousand runners. It’s a great event. This was my third outing to Greencastle. In 2012, on a horrible cold and wet day, I ran 27:00 for 5th place. In 2013 I was a bit disappointed to run 27:42 in what were much better conditions. However, this was still good enough for 4th place, for which I picked up a nice trophy and pocketed a few pounds. I had mixed feelings about the run this year, having been a bit disappointed with my showing at the cross country a few days previously.
I tried to work out why I hadn’t been running well. I thought I was in better shape than my performances showed. My legs weren’t fresh, there’s no doubt about that. Maybe the Ironman training over the past couple of years has really sapped my speed and sharpness for these shorter distances. Also, in the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that my breathing hasn’t been quite right. So much so that on Christmas Eve, I went to the hospital to see what they thought. After a quick examination, I was told that my chest sounded clear, but I will be pursuing this when I get back to London, because something doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe 3 years in London’s polluted air is catching up with me. It won’t be too much longer before I’m out of there for good.
The next few days were really easy days. On the 27th I had a rest day. On the 28th I did a short 90-minute bike ride. On the 29th and 30th I rested. I say “rested”, but I was still stretching and doing weights in the garage. I got my old turbo trainer down from the garage rafters, but I decided I was better off just resting my legs. There were a couple of races on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day that I was eyeing up, and resting my legs was the smart thing to do. In the end, I decided not to race any more. On New Year’s Day I ran for an hour along the coast path and felt terrible: sore and sluggish legs and no zip or spark at all. The next day I went out on the bike again with my dad, we did another 2-and-a-half hours. We went out along the coast for about an hour, battling swirling, gusting winds. I crested a hill at 10mph, and then sat up and let the wind take me. Without pedalling, and within about 10 seconds, I was up to 25mph. We took a pit-stop for coffee and cake. This was the only cake or dessert-type thing I ate for the whole holiday. It powered us home, and again we had done well to dodge the weather. We even had some sunshine, and it almost even felt warm on my face.
I wanted to do one more hard run, to see if I really was at such a low level. The only thing for it was the beach. I decided I’d go down there and hammer it as hard as I could. Then I’d really get an idea of where my performance was. I first timed myself on the beach in 2001. My first run was 23:49. I remember breaking 20 for the first time and being really happy with the 19:54. I got down to 19:13 and couldn’t improve on that for ages. I remember my first sub-19, finally. It was 18:48. I wondered would I ever see 17-something. Having moved away from home I had limited opportunities to try, and even then, on the occasions when I was back, conditions on the beach are rarely perfect. You need a calm, windless, dry day, the tide needs to be out and the sand needs to be hard. I managed to do a few more 18s, my times got a bit faster, and one day I finally got my sub-18. 17:47. A great run. Probably done in the days when I was running 15-minute 5k races and 71 minute half marathons.
So I found myself jogging down to the beach. The tide was halfway out, and the sand was reasonably firm, but not quite perfect. There was a breeze coming off the sea, slightly from the west. It would be into my face on the way up, but blowing me back down. I thought I would get under 20. I wondered if I’d get under 19. I wouldn’t have been surprised with something like 19:30. I would have taken 18:55. I ran. I didn’t feel fast, but I told myself to hold back in the first 5 minutes. Maybe that’s another fault on my part. I used to be a faster runner than I am now that I’ve started doing Ironmans. I still want to think I’m a faster runner than I am, so maybe I still go out at the pace I feel I should be able to maintain, or that I used to be able to maintain. And I end up wrecked, struggling in the second half of the race, with no strength and the damage done by poor pacing discipline.
So I started off easy on the beach. There was a bit of a headwind. I got to the far end in 9 flat. I’m usually slower on the way back down, but I thought I was on for at least a sub-19. I kept running. I didn’t feel at all fast. It was strange. My breathing was laboured but I didn’t feel my pace dropped too much. I could see my footprints from the way up, and I could see that my stride on the way back was longer than it had been on the way up. Due in part to the tailwind, and possibly due in part to feeling reasonably good. With a couple of minutes left, I knew I was close to sub-18. My pace hadn’t dropped. Come on. I managed to lift it, and hit my finish point, stopped the watch, and collapsed onto the barrier. Wrecked. I looked at my watch. I saw the 17. Wow. Almost a PB! Where did that come from?
Footnote:
I wrote this in the airport and on the plane. When I finished writing, we were circling over London. We were due to land at 7:05pm, and I thought I'd be back in the house by 8:30pm, with time enough to unpack, do my ironing, make some dinner, eat the dinner, take a shower, publish this blog post, and generally get organised before getting to bed at a reasonable hour to be fresh for work the next day.
After much circling, I started to think we might be getting low on fuel. It's an hour-long flight, and we'd been in the air for coming up to two hours. All of a sudden, the plane lurched forward as the pilot put on full power. Great, I thought, we're getting onto the approach. Then the pilot came on the intercom and said we were diverting to Bournemouth. Bournemouth! There are 6 London airports, and we diverted to Bournemouth, a 3 hour drive away. As we were coming in to land, we were then told we were landing at Southampton. On landing, we sat for ages on the plane while the airline and the airport tried to work out what to do with us. Finally, we got onto a bus back to London. I got to bed at 2am. Grrrrr.
That's the second year in a row this has happened. Last year I was due to fly to Gatwick, got diverted to Southend, got to within about 10 feet of the runway, then the pilot aborted, and ended up hot-footing it to Stansted.
Anyway, I'm back, I'm tired, I've got one day of work done, I've got my food made for the week ahead, I will start serious Ironman training tomorrow, 28 weeks to go. Now I will go and unpack and be an iron man and iron my shirts...
Finally, some images from Belfast City Airport - the iconic David and Goliath dominating the skyline...
The hill repeats are tough. You go and find a big hill, sprint up to the top, turn and jog back down, and repeat up to 14 times. You’re smashing yourself, by the end you are in pieces. It’s dark and freezing and the lungs and legs really burn. But to be able to race well over Christmas, I did a good few hill sessions in November and December.
I got home late on Thursday 19th December. I dragged myself out of bed on the Friday morning and went for a swim. I literally had the whole pool to myself, it was awesome. There’s something cool about getting into an empty pool and breaking the stillness of the water. I was soon ploughing up and down, and I hammered out 2.6km, with no-one in my way. I saw the town's tree as well...
The next day was the North West Cross Country in Derry. I did this race last year in 19:38. I had been surprised to be running right at the sharp end throughout the whole race last year, but in the end my lack of speed told and I finished 6th. Still, I was only about 10 seconds off the win, so I had been really buoyed by this. Going to the race this year, I was annoyed I had left my red club vest behind in London. From the off, it was clear I wasn’t going to be running at the very sharp end, and it was a tough slog of a race. I didn’t feel strong at all, and finished over a minute behind the winner, and 20 seconds slower than last year. I was a bit disappointed with this.
On the go on the country
On Sunday 21st I went out for a nice easy bike
ride along the coast. I had sore legs from the previous day’s race, so I only
clocked about 30 miles. It was great to ride outside in clean, fresh air. On
Monday 22nd I went down to the beach to do some long interval
running. I’ve ran that beach so many times. Several hundred times, I'd say. My PB from a long time ago was
17:47, long before I was doing triathlons and Ironmans. I’d have said I was
pretty fit when I did 17:47. I’ve only been sub-18 once. In recent years, I
have tended to do the long intervals on the beach – sprint up to the far end
(anything from 8 minutes to 10 minutes depending on the wind, tide and sand
hardness), take a 5-minute recovery, sprint back, take another 5 minute
recovery, then sprint up and down again. These are tough sessions. This time
out, my legs were stiff and sore and I only did two repeats, up in 9:34 and
back in 8:53. It was a windy day and a rough sea.
The next day, I went in for another swim. Christmas Eve was a longer bike ride of about 2:30 with my dad. The man is still fit! We went out past the Giant’s Causeway to Whitepark Bay, being blown out by a strong westerly wind. We then turned back inland to avoid the worst of the headwind, but it was still tough going. A big sting came with about 5 miles left to ride, up a steep incline that must have been about 20%. By and large, we beat the weather, having only had a couple of short showers to contend with. A good spin.
The next day, I went in for another swim. Christmas Eve was a longer bike ride of about 2:30 with my dad. The man is still fit! We went out past the Giant’s Causeway to Whitepark Bay, being blown out by a strong westerly wind. We then turned back inland to avoid the worst of the headwind, but it was still tough going. A big sting came with about 5 miles left to ride, up a steep incline that must have been about 20%. By and large, we beat the weather, having only had a couple of short showers to contend with. A good spin.
Whitepark Bay, Christmas Eve...
On Christmas Day I tried so hard not to eat too much. It was
about 3pm before I got away on the bike. I had to get out, to burn off some of
the dinner. I knew I was going to race the next day, so I didn’t want to do too
much, but I had to do something. I did an hour and a half, out through
Portrush, lapping the town. It was surreal to be out with no-one about and no
cars anywhere to be seen. I made it to Portballintrae and Bushmills, then the
weather closed in and it started to rain. The ride home was into a strong headwind
and driving rain. It got dark before I got back, but the last few miles were
streetlit. Job done, calories burned.
Dunluce Castle, Christmas Day...
Chasing Legends DVD, Christmas Day...
The best thing I have ever watched, highly recommended
The best thing I have ever watched, highly recommended
My next race was the Greencastle 5 mile road race in the Sperrin mountains, on Boxing Day. It was forecast to be freezing, with possible snow. It’s a hilly, tough course, attracting up to a thousand runners. It’s a great event. This was my third outing to Greencastle. In 2012, on a horrible cold and wet day, I ran 27:00 for 5th place. In 2013 I was a bit disappointed to run 27:42 in what were much better conditions. However, this was still good enough for 4th place, for which I picked up a nice trophy and pocketed a few pounds. I had mixed feelings about the run this year, having been a bit disappointed with my showing at the cross country a few days previously.
Snowy start line
Just before the race began, it started to snow. Quite
heavily. I ran the first mile in 5:00 – it’s downhill all the way. The second
mile was 5:15 or so. By this stage I was dropping back, nowhere near the top 5,
not even in the top 10. I didn’t have the legs. Mile 3 flattened out a bit and
I went through in about 5:45. Then there’s a right-hand turn and the road rears
up. The famous hill. The awful hill. It goes on and on and on. Mile 4 was 6:50
or so. That hill. It really is like running through treacle. Then you reach the
top, the road turns right again and you have 1400m of downhill, straight to the
finish line. Every 200m is marked off on the road. 1200m to go. 1000m to go.
Flat out, hammering down the hill. 800m to go, what’s that, 2:20 or so left to
run, come on. 600m… 400… the gantry is there but it seems miles away. 200 to
go. 100. 10 seconds. Over the line. 28:12. 14th place. Pretty
rubbish. Followed by a long and snowy drive home.
I tried to work out why I hadn’t been running well. I thought I was in better shape than my performances showed. My legs weren’t fresh, there’s no doubt about that. Maybe the Ironman training over the past couple of years has really sapped my speed and sharpness for these shorter distances. Also, in the last couple of months, I’ve noticed that my breathing hasn’t been quite right. So much so that on Christmas Eve, I went to the hospital to see what they thought. After a quick examination, I was told that my chest sounded clear, but I will be pursuing this when I get back to London, because something doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe 3 years in London’s polluted air is catching up with me. It won’t be too much longer before I’m out of there for good.
The next few days were really easy days. On the 27th I had a rest day. On the 28th I did a short 90-minute bike ride. On the 29th and 30th I rested. I say “rested”, but I was still stretching and doing weights in the garage. I got my old turbo trainer down from the garage rafters, but I decided I was better off just resting my legs. There were a couple of races on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day that I was eyeing up, and resting my legs was the smart thing to do. In the end, I decided not to race any more. On New Year’s Day I ran for an hour along the coast path and felt terrible: sore and sluggish legs and no zip or spark at all. The next day I went out on the bike again with my dad, we did another 2-and-a-half hours. We went out along the coast for about an hour, battling swirling, gusting winds. I crested a hill at 10mph, and then sat up and let the wind take me. Without pedalling, and within about 10 seconds, I was up to 25mph. We took a pit-stop for coffee and cake. This was the only cake or dessert-type thing I ate for the whole holiday. It powered us home, and again we had done well to dodge the weather. We even had some sunshine, and it almost even felt warm on my face.
I wanted to do one more hard run, to see if I really was at such a low level. The only thing for it was the beach. I decided I’d go down there and hammer it as hard as I could. Then I’d really get an idea of where my performance was. I first timed myself on the beach in 2001. My first run was 23:49. I remember breaking 20 for the first time and being really happy with the 19:54. I got down to 19:13 and couldn’t improve on that for ages. I remember my first sub-19, finally. It was 18:48. I wondered would I ever see 17-something. Having moved away from home I had limited opportunities to try, and even then, on the occasions when I was back, conditions on the beach are rarely perfect. You need a calm, windless, dry day, the tide needs to be out and the sand needs to be hard. I managed to do a few more 18s, my times got a bit faster, and one day I finally got my sub-18. 17:47. A great run. Probably done in the days when I was running 15-minute 5k races and 71 minute half marathons.
So I found myself jogging down to the beach. The tide was halfway out, and the sand was reasonably firm, but not quite perfect. There was a breeze coming off the sea, slightly from the west. It would be into my face on the way up, but blowing me back down. I thought I would get under 20. I wondered if I’d get under 19. I wouldn’t have been surprised with something like 19:30. I would have taken 18:55. I ran. I didn’t feel fast, but I told myself to hold back in the first 5 minutes. Maybe that’s another fault on my part. I used to be a faster runner than I am now that I’ve started doing Ironmans. I still want to think I’m a faster runner than I am, so maybe I still go out at the pace I feel I should be able to maintain, or that I used to be able to maintain. And I end up wrecked, struggling in the second half of the race, with no strength and the damage done by poor pacing discipline.
So I started off easy on the beach. There was a bit of a headwind. I got to the far end in 9 flat. I’m usually slower on the way back down, but I thought I was on for at least a sub-19. I kept running. I didn’t feel at all fast. It was strange. My breathing was laboured but I didn’t feel my pace dropped too much. I could see my footprints from the way up, and I could see that my stride on the way back was longer than it had been on the way up. Due in part to the tailwind, and possibly due in part to feeling reasonably good. With a couple of minutes left, I knew I was close to sub-18. My pace hadn’t dropped. Come on. I managed to lift it, and hit my finish point, stopped the watch, and collapsed onto the barrier. Wrecked. I looked at my watch. I saw the 17. Wow. Almost a PB! Where did that come from?
Footnote:
I wrote this in the airport and on the plane. When I finished writing, we were circling over London. We were due to land at 7:05pm, and I thought I'd be back in the house by 8:30pm, with time enough to unpack, do my ironing, make some dinner, eat the dinner, take a shower, publish this blog post, and generally get organised before getting to bed at a reasonable hour to be fresh for work the next day.
After much circling, I started to think we might be getting low on fuel. It's an hour-long flight, and we'd been in the air for coming up to two hours. All of a sudden, the plane lurched forward as the pilot put on full power. Great, I thought, we're getting onto the approach. Then the pilot came on the intercom and said we were diverting to Bournemouth. Bournemouth! There are 6 London airports, and we diverted to Bournemouth, a 3 hour drive away. As we were coming in to land, we were then told we were landing at Southampton. On landing, we sat for ages on the plane while the airline and the airport tried to work out what to do with us. Finally, we got onto a bus back to London. I got to bed at 2am. Grrrrr.
That's the second year in a row this has happened. Last year I was due to fly to Gatwick, got diverted to Southend, got to within about 10 feet of the runway, then the pilot aborted, and ended up hot-footing it to Stansted.
Anyway, I'm back, I'm tired, I've got one day of work done, I've got my food made for the week ahead, I will start serious Ironman training tomorrow, 28 weeks to go. Now I will go and unpack and be an iron man and iron my shirts...
Finally, some images from Belfast City Airport - the iconic David and Goliath dominating the skyline...
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