Housman 100 cometh..

Only a few day's now till I run the Housman 100 mile LDWA event. 9 in fact if you count today. I'm going to do quite a large tapper next week as I don't want to turn up with anything wrong with me as I'm sure at some point in the race I'll think there's something wrong with me.. If any one wants to sponsor me that would be great: http://www.justgiving.com/roger100/

I've been told from a friend who did the marshall's walk "it's tough and quite allot of hills" She said to get allot of hills under my belt. And I have, well I think I have basically most day's if I've been running it's been up and down a hill. The downs always seem to get me more than the up's. Although after last year's Long Tour of Bradwell I where I got shin splints from both I guess both are just as bad. But we'll see, I will want to take it steady, get to around 65 feeling good and with plenty of fuel and generally enjoy the route and have a good time. I see these events as holiday's. The immense view's and vista's keep me going and motivate me to carry on. This is probably why off road appeals to me. If I'm running around a housing estate or city scape at max efforts I tend to get bored. More rolling hill's please. 

Marlborough Downs Challenge (33 miles, run further #1 short)

For my birthday this year (not yet happened till the 19th) I asked the gf if she'd kindly give me a lift to Marlborough for the Marlborough downs challenge. My first race in the runfurther series: http://www.runfurther.com/ I thoroughly enjoyed it, I went out quite fast and some how kept it going, I could see the top 3/4 runners most of the way, well up till the 17 mile mark. The great thing about this race is the field of view. I'm sure I could see near a mile in front of me at some points so it was easy to track my position in the race. The route was well marked in places but they did say this would be the case so for some parts you really had to find your way and others not so. I mainly relied on my new found love in navigation terms which is my garmin 205 and route description when of course a small digital map with a line just doesn't cut it at a two way path.. Fortunately I didn't run into any hedges trying to read this time.

I was really impressed with the more or less everything on this run the Marshall's were mega friendly. My favorite thing said by one Marshall was when I passed a turning point by a few meters then went back on myself, they said "would it help if we put a marker there for that turn?" I said "it's a bit late now I think". They weren't too offended I think/hope :) The finishing mug was fantastic, a locally hand made mug by http://www.whitehorsepottery.co.uk/ The end meal was also great: I chose pasta, pesta with salmon! My end result was 4:31 (although my garmin read 4:24 but it did die at one point so probably was wrong) and 5th overall. Probably worth mentioning Dave Jelley who came 4th who runs/organises runners holiday's: http://www.jelleylegs.co.uk/ Also I can't believe how great my socks are, after numerous testing as most runners seem to have to go through with gear. I'm using running bear socks and they're awesome for these events. They don't seem to retain water when wet and are really comfy, another blister free run!

I only hope this is the start of things to come with regards to my position and time for this event :) Awesome, awesome run, I'd recommend it to any one. Most hills were runnable and definitely not boring.

Garmin seemed to mess this up but thought i'd add it any way:

The Stone Circles GPS

Just thought I'd share my GPS route of The Stone Circles I made:

http://www.eth3r.co.uk/TheStoneCircles.tcx
(May need to right click and save, this is for the Garmin forerunner series but can be converted to other devices.)

Note: There's a part near the Holy Bush Inn in Salt where I went wrong but it's pretty obvious when you see it on the GPS device, just stick to the route. I basically go back on myself any way at that point and it's only a few meter's out so you won't get lost. I may figure a way to correct this in the future or republish a new version when I get time. 

The Spring Treble and Market Drayton 10k

Going short again with race distances and this was a first: I raced twice in one week. I always wanted to do the spring treble as it's run by my club and it's cross country, also the last race is a mile from where I live so great to get to. They were all superb apart from being savaged by the mosquitoes! Any who each course was pretty tough and everyone had trouble deciding which was the toughest, personally I'd say the first and last but then some thought milford (the middle one) was the toughest. So I'll go with they were all pretty damn tough! But fun, 5miles and great support. Market Drayton was interesting, I more or less stopped racing 10k's but Muller was my favourite when I did and as the Market Drayton 10k is more or less the same I thought I'd give it a go. They managed to pull of just as good turn out as last year if not better in terms of the technical t-shirt which I actually prefer to the cow from last. Over all pretty sweet, great weather and a 9min pb :)

The Spring Treble 12 overall for the series 32.20 was my best race time and Market Drayton 10k 28th: 38:02

Here's my grr face at The Spring Treble on the last lap of the Kibblestone race, note here Ray is next to me who seemed to keep up with me on each race then beat me at the end of each by a few seconds. He won his age group:

Awesome t-shirt from The Spring Treble with a map of each race on it:

Back to the long efforts this week, 33 miler at Marlborough Downs on Sat (my birthday treat)

In the begining and The Stone Circles

Hmm where to start, ok I've been running for 2 and a half-ish years mainly 1 serious-ish year. I still don't take it that seriously but seem to do an awful lot of it. I do find myself in odd debates at times which makes me think I take it more seriously than I do but at the end of the day I run because I like running and know perfectly well I'll never be a high end runner but that's not to say I don't win a few things etc (so please don't leave the page just yet, I kind of have goals honest). My aim here is to document my training and racing.

Which un-neatly leads me to my most recent bit of training: The Stone Circles, this is a route developed/organised by the Stone Ramblers: http://www.stoneramblers.com/ They have a great book on there for only a few quid with this route in it. Any way the route is part of my 100 training, at the end of this month i'll be running the LDWA Housman 100! (my first 100) So I'm basically trying to do a few long runs close together while managing to hold down a job, relationship and not die from exhaustion. Which usally works out that i'm running between 80 - 105 miles a week and cycling 90.. Any way the Stone Circle is 34miles in total I think in the ramblers guide it is down as 36 and highlights pubs, bus stops and such of which I never seem to get to enjoy but do like smiling to myself about in a kind of "one day I'll really enjoy the beer there" and never actually do. It might be worth mentioning I made it 36 as I had to run to where the loop started so I added some and took some off at the end which still made it more although I wasn't that bother. I've done this route 3 times now and this is the first time solo. Also the first time I've used my garmin 205 to navigate with the course training option and it worked great, although it did grate on me somewhat when it kept beeping to say I was off course when i wasn't and thus ran up a hedge talking to my garmin saying "happy now"! Some good friends and injured gf met me at around 26 miles for the last leg which was great to see.

Fun fun stats (fastest time I've done The Stone Circles so far :D )

Look I made a heart ^

Also I had some lamb chasing me

And a shy peacock

What's next: Thursday: Spring Treble: Kibblestone Clamber, Sunday: Market Drayton 10k

I sware tough 5 milers and 10k's can hurt more than ultra's but it's a different pain etc. Plus the biscuits and cake on the ultra's make me forget..