During
2013 I had been saving up my holidays, because I had been hoping to go to
Hawaii in October for the Ironman. It would be pointless qualifying for Hawaii
and going out there for a few days. Hawaii is the sort of trip that I would
turn into a 3-week “holiday”, if it’s possible to allude to an Ironman as a
holiday… This meant by the end of 2013, I had quite a few holidays left to use
up. So I was able to take a longer-than-usual Christmas break, spending almost
3 weeks at home in Northern Ireland. It was a good break and a good length of
time to be away from the pressures of London and Essex where I work and live
respectively. With where my work is located in London, Essex is the best place
in terms of offering the easiest commute to work. Although it is still an
expensive and time-consuming pain in the ass.
Living in
London isn't really an option for Ironman training because I find it is too
busy, too crowded, too polluted and just too difficult to do any sort of
outdoor cycle training. I'm sure I'll blog more about this in future, but
anyway, during my time at home, I planned to do three running races with my
club, City of Derry Spartans AC: the North-West cross-country championships in
Gransha just before Christmas, the Greencastle 5 mile road race in the Sperrin
mountains on Boxing Day, and the IAAF International/Northern Ireland/Ulster/
cross-country championships in Antrim on 4th January, Ulster being
the northernmost province in Ireland.
After my
Ironman racing season finished in September, I took a bit of a break from
intense training. I also came off all of the dietary supplements I had been
taking, thinking that this would give my body a break. The abrupt drop in
training, cessation of taking dietary supplements, and a lack of discipline
with my eating in general after the racing season left me feeling really
sluggish. I had the flu jab for free at work about 6 weeks before Christmas, having been
assured that a supposedly young, fit and healthy person like myself would
experience no side effects. My thinking was that it would help me to avoid
picking up a dose of the flu later in winter, as happened to me this time last
year. In my sluggish state, the flu jab completely knocked me for six and left
me totally listless and lethargic for a few weeks. During this listless and
lethargic period, I spent a week on Tenerife, where it rained most of the time
and where I crashed off my bike on a wet, slippery road, leaving me a sore,
bruised and with a good dose of road rash for my troubles.
All of
this meant that when I got home I didn't go into the first race too full of
confidence. The NW cross-country was a short 6k blast, with 3 fairly flat laps.
I had no idea what to expect, but I was surprised to run most of the race at
the sharp end in the top 3 or 4, not far off the lead. On the final 300m home
stretch my lack of fitness and my lack of training really showed, and it began
to feel like running in quicksand as I was unable to raise any sort of kick for
the line. I lost a few positions in the final minute to end up finishing 6th.
However, I was still only 11 seconds off first place and was fairly pleased with
this. I think that although I was lacking in sharpness, my legs still had good
strength in them, and cross-country requires good strength, so I got away with
it. This race gave me a good confidence boost going into the next one on Boxing
Day.
I tried
to be as sensible as possible on Christmas Day and not eat massive quantities
of food. No easy task when there is, literally, an endless supply of amazing
food. I managed to get out on the bike for about 2 hours after my Christmas dinner,
which helped to burn a few calories. The empty roads were great. Boxing Day
dawned cold and icy, and the drive through the mountains was somewhat
hair-raising and slow. I made it in one piece and got myself registered. By
now, the sun was out, and although cold, it was a good day for running, with no
wind. The Greencastle 5 is a great event, methodically organised, very friendly,
and attracted almost 800 runners, an amazing turnout for Boxing Day.
I ran
last year at Greencastle, on a terrible wet and windy day, and ran 27:00. The
course is renowned for its hill, with the event slogan being: "It's just a
hill, get over it!" This is easier said than done as it is a brutal and
long hill. This hill makes the 4th mile split about 1:20 slower than the other
miles on the course. I had high expectations for this race after the Gransha
cross-country, thinking that something like 26:30 to 26:40 was possible. I got
my pacing completely wrong, ran the first two miles far too fast and lost a lot
of time in the final three miles. The first two miles felt great, but a tough
skill to learn in racing is to run well, well within yourself in the first half
of the race. There’s a fine line – go too hard in the first half and you will
suffer and lose bags of time in the second half. Go too slow and you won’t
achieve your overall potential. Get it right and you will relish the second
half, feel strong, and despite it being tough the legs will respond to the mind’s
demands to keep the pace.
Greencastle start
With my
fast opening two miles, I struggled through the final three. On the hill I was
hit by the awful feeling of running through quicksand, with legs and lungs
burning, knowing that your pace is pitiful but unable to force the legs to go
any faster. I ended up coming in 4th position in 27:43. I was
pleased with 4th but there was no hiding the fact that the time was
disappointing, 43 seconds slower than last year. Because of my lack of
conditioning for running on the roads, I ended up with a very painful blister,
and even more painful leg muscles. My legs and feet were not used to such
pounding and they painfully protested.
As I
said, I had good leg strength but poor muscle tone, having done very little
hard running on roads for a long time. These sore legs were in spite of wearing
my calf compression tubes and perversely it was my calves that were the sorest
of the lot… An ice bath followed the next day in an attempt to provide some
relief. This was obscenely, painfully cold, and for a while, through gritted,
chattering teeth, laboured breathing and grunting, the air spontaneously turned
a bit blue. If I hadn’t announced I was having an ice bath then people would
have been wondering what on earth was going on in the bathroom… I spent the
rest of the day limping around the house wearing a hat, gloves, coat and about
5 layers underneath.
The legs
took a lot longer than I expected to recover, so all I could manage was a bit
of easy swimming and cycling. Just before New Year, I saw my dentist. I had a
bit of bother with a wisdom tooth in 2013. The tooth in question was partially
through and was impacting on the tooth in front, meaning it would never fully
come through. Bits of gum were flapping about and my dentist recommended that
it was taken out, to avoid what he anticipated would be imminent problems with
infection and decay.
Because
the appointment to remove it was at such short notice, general anaesthetic or
sedation weren’t offered, only local anaesthetic. I’ve never had much dental
work done, and had heard plenty of wisdom tooth horror stories, so with
trepidation I found myself in a dentist’s chair being read the last rites about
potential worst-case scenarios, nerve damage and whether or not I was happy to
go ahead with the extraction. Talk about a silly question. Happy?! I was crapping
myself! Three injections and ten minutes later the tooth was out. “Great”, I
thought, “that wasn’t so bad.” It was only after the job was done that I asked
them how they had done it. They had sliced my gum, and gone digging with a
vibrating chisel-type thing until a big enough hole had been made to pull the
tooth out. I’m not sure that hearing this beforehand would have helped…
After the
extraction work was finished, I thought the worst was over. I was warned that
it would be sore, but I thought, “No problem, I can deal with a bit of pain.” I
was given a prescription for all sorts of painkillers, antibiotics and antiseptic
mouthwash, but I intended not to take any of them, given that the biggest race
of the cross-country year was only a few days away, and given that taking
antibiotics and painkillers is not conducive to good athletic performance.
Anyway,
the local anaesthetic soon wore off and the pain was bad. So bad that I couldn’t
sleep or eat or do anything other than resort to the painkillers, which allowed
me to sleep fitfully for a couple of hours at a time before wearing off. On top
of this, my legs were still very sore from Greencastle. So it’s fair to say
that I was in bad condition going into the Ulster championships – in pain, with
sore legs, a sore mouth, very tired, lacking in sleep and being unable to eat
properly.
I still
wanted to run though. The Ulster championships is an important race and I
wanted to represent my club. I also wanted to toe the line with a reigning
world champion, something I’ve never done before. This race in Antrim is an
annual event, and is effectively three races in one. It is an international IAAF
event with a handful of top class African runners, including Kenyan Japhet
Korir, the current world cross-country champion. It also doubles as a British
and Irish series with top-class runners from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
England and Ireland competing in a national competition. Finally, it’s also the
Ulster cross-country championship, and winning this is a prestigious addition
to any club’s CV. Teams can enter up to twelve runners, with the top six to
score. The finishing positions of the top six runners on each team are added
up, and the team with the lowest total are crowned champions. Good squad
strength in depth is needed.
I’ve
competed three times before, in 2006, 2007 and 2008. We won the event in 2006,
came 2nd in 2007 and 3rd in 2008. From 2009 to 2013, I
didn’t compete, being either overseas or injured. It’s an epic event, attracting
quality athletes, it’s always really well supported by the various clubs
shouting on their athletes, and it’s one of the few events in which you run for
your team rather than for yourself. It’s also a tough, tough event, a
relentless and demanding 10K in the mud with no place to hide. The
encouragement from people on the sidelines spurring you on carries you to the
finish, and the fact that every position counts for your team means that your
tank is well and truly empty at the finish line.
Anyway,
despite wanting to run, I had reservations about whether I would be able to
finish, and even if I did finish, I didn’t think I would be able to finish as
one of the six scorers on the squad. This was purely circumstantial – if the
mind is willing but the body is not able, then no matter how mentally strong
you are, there is nothing you can do.
It was a
five-lap course, so my plan was very much to see how it would go. I would take
it easy on the first lap, not get carried away by the fast starting elite
athletes, and take it from there. I paced the first lap well and by the second
lap I had started moving through the field and picking people off. Four or five
of us from City of Derry were running within a few seconds of each other and
feeding off each other, which helped. Lap two passed, and I had begun to learn
the course and I found that I was going well. The course was fairly firm grass
for half of it, and ankle-deep mud for the other half. I was surprised to be actually
running well despite my legs feeling tight and my gum throbbing. I told myself “20
minutes to go”, and hoped I wouldn’t fade. It’s one thing to be going well when
you are not even halfway through a race, it’s another thing altogether to hold
it together for the final half.
On the go in Antrim
However
as the laps passed I didn’t fade, I picked off a couple of people per lap, and by
the final lap, supporters on the sidelines who had been doing the maths while
also yelling us on were telling us the gold medals were ours for the taking. I
crossed the line as 3rd club scorer and the club took the team title
for the first time in 8 years. Brilliant. It was a great day for the club and I
was happy and surprised I had managed to contribute. I finished in 33:56, and
the world cross-country champion didn’t disappoint, winning the race in 28:40.
Finishing straight in Antrim - 3 "red vests" in close proximity
In the
aftermath, it quickly became apparent that I was really depleted and tired. Cross-country
is tough at the best of times, and in the run-up to the race, I certainly hadn’t
had the best of times. I drank a litre of banana milkshake on the way home and
it nearly made me vomit. A gold medal and a 12-hour sleep were good medicine,
and after waking up disgracefully but deservedly late the next day it was
straight to the airport to fly back to London…
Ulster Champions 2014
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