Sunday 15 July 2012

(Not quite a) Fun Run

Back in mid April when me and my Mum started running. We set ourselves a little goal of doing the 2mile village Fun Run and today was the day!


First things first, it was off to the Village Green to sign on.  I was surprised to see that over 30 people had come out to take part.  Mainly families but some more serious looking athletes too. It was then time to walk up to the start. Yes up! The start was at the top of a steep hill.  Me and Mum stood near the back of the pack, as we knew we'd be among the slowest, as we are still only used to doing interval training - our longest run to date is only 9 minutes. 


After a quick briefing the Mayor blew his whistle and we were off.  Mikey had to weave through the kids and families but by the time he was at the bottom of the hill I could see he was in 2nd position (that was the last I saw of him till the end).  Me and Mum were still near the back with about 10 people behind us.  


Down into the village and the crowds and our neighbours were out in force. Heckling already. Then it was up through the village and down the next dip back out. Things so far were feeling OK but I realised I had forgot to start the Garmin. Oops!


The next bit was a very steep climb. It's not long but its steep so me and Mum had decided (pre race) that we would walk it.  Whilst walking we were overtaken by a man and his young lad.  At the top we started to run again but I soon started feeling slightly breathless and my legs were already empty.  I couldn't maintain the jog. I had to stop.  I told Mum to carry on and I walked behind her.  I glanced at my Garmin. It was stopped.  Noooooo! It was all going horribly wrong!


When I felt more composed I chased her back down, putting on a sprint to catch her.  Thankfully by the time I caught her she was ready for a breather.  We had now overtaken the chap and his son. We walked for a little while, being heckled by the marshalls - one of whom even tried to send us the wrong way! 


A glance at my Garmin.... again it had stopped! Grrrr! 


Another little jog and again we were spent. This was far from fun, my chest felt tight and I was really struggling. I really hadn't prepared myself for this. My lungs have never really been a problem so far in my running adventures, but I was gasping for breath. I guess we don't usually have people to chat to along the way so I wasn't getting adequate oxygen. (I had a chat to all the spectators, marshalls and any other people we passed.)


Right! Now we were back on our usual running patch. I could do this! A concerted effort was made to keep running. But this time my Mum was ready to stop. A brief stop and then it was all downhill to the last field. The marshalls were now doing a great job at encouraging.


The finish line was on the field of the Village Hall - but first we had to do a lap of the field. I have never run offroad before.... but apart from it being long grass with a slight climb, it wasn't too bad.  People were cheering.  Mikey was waiting and he ran alongside egging me on to sprint but I didn't have any sprint in me. My Mum was now about 30 secs behind me. (She had stopped but I had spurred her on telling her we had never run this far).


Just before the line everyone was cheering for me to sprint. I couldn't. My lungs were in serious pain. I could taste blood in the back of my throat. I could only just muster the energy to continue my plod.


I made it though!
Our Medals. (Mikeys shoulda been silver though!)
As my Garmin had been so temperamental and Mum's had failed due to her pressing the stop/start button, instead of lap we have absolutely no idea how we did. All I know is the official timing. 26mins! Double Mikeys time (Who incidentally came an amazing 2nd!) but I had done it. I didn't finish last. In fact there were 10 people behind me! OK, we were probably pretty much last of all the people that actually did any running, but still, we had finished.


At least there is room for improvement next year. ;-)

Sunday 1 July 2012

June Round-Up


June has been another rubbish month for riding mileage. I appear to have let life and miserable weather get in the way.

The wind has been shocking - just too strong to make riding comfortable, with wind speeds averaging over 20mph for the majority of the rides. (There was only one ride that had very little wind.) The wind has also been hideous whichever way we turned. On one 20 mile ride we only 4 miles with a tail wind, the rest of it involved battling against it. Unsuprisingly this has left me very unmotivated to ride.  The last two rides had to be done on the turbo - just so I could get some pedalling in. 

My mileage has also been down due to attending weekend bike events with Mikey. Why was my mileage down when at a bike event?  Well as odd as it sounds, I didn't have my bike at either.  I was just there to keep him company and do the driving on the ridiculously long journeys.   First up was Bristol Bike Fest and then there was Mountain Mayhem.  

Team VeloCake show off their Bristol BikeFest medal - won by junior rider Benji

Mikey  battles with the Mud at Mayhem.

Anyway, overall things have been ticking over slowly.... here's my June stats.

Ride Count: 8.  Distance: 101.18 miles. Avg Speed: 12.0 mph

I have continued running with my Mum and am still rather enjoying it. We are now up to Week 4 of the Programme; starting with a brisk walk - then 3mins running 1½mins walking - 5mins running - 2½mins walking - 3mins runningmins walking  - 5mins running.  The programme then stops but more often than not as we always do a longer warm up walk than suggested so we can then squeeze in a further 3 or 5mins run before getting home.

The weekends away have sadly also impacted on the running schedule and I missed one run.  We have had to run in some really vile weather, but oddly -  probably as it is all over in 30 mins or so - it is easier to tolerate and the weather hasn't hindered us at all.


Anyway this month we have done 12 runs and covered 33.93 miles (including walking mileage).  For a couple of runs I have worn a heart rate monitor and found that my heart rate isn't too bad either. Averaging around 122bpm and a maximum of 187. Not too bad for a 30 something overweight asthmatic. ;-)


In other news. I don't think I mentioned last time that Mikey purchased a Garmin Forerunner for me to use whilst running. It has made a huge difference.... The autopause on the Edge had been driving me scatty as whatever setting it was on.... whether it was set to "off" or custom set to the lowest setting of 0.1mph, I would find it had often autopaused during a run! My new forerunner is excellent indeed and has made things much simpler, there's nothing extra to carry and doing splits/laps are much easier to quickly press. Highly recommended!


Anyway, lets hope the weather improves and that the wind drops so that I can squeeze in a few more rides this month. With the start of "le Tour" I am sure I will get lots of inspiration to get me out there. =D