Meltham 10k - 54:12 - Race 1

Pre Race written night before, post race written after race

Pre Race

I’ve just climbed into bed after a shift at work, two trains and a bus home. I get up at 5:30/6 tomorrow for breakfast, bath and warm up, before leaving at 7:30. The race starts at 9:30 but I want to be there in good time as I’ve never ran a race before and don’t want to miss it or anything!

Without a doubt, I’m nervous, but I’m more nervous about getting there, waking up in time etc, and not about the actual race. I’m absolutely excited about the race. Once we start off I’ll be pressing play on my ipod and starting on the song Keep Your Head Up by Ben Howard, which will leave me bouncing.

I just want to finish the race, but I’ve got a highly competitive nature underneath this quiet exterior and would love to run under 60 minutes in a competitive race. If I hit that it’d give me something to build on.

But for the time being I am positively on edge, so I’d best try this sleeping malarkey as I’m terrible company like this!

Post Race

Well, I’m pretty knackered right now! I logged a time of 54:12.

I got up at 6:30 ( I was a little lenient on myself), had two hot cross buns and a coffee. Set off about 7:30, got a little bit lost on the way and arrived at 8:30. We arrived early, as advised, to find we were just to be left for an hour before anything happened, which wasn’t great for me, feeling restless and all.

There were around 300 runners today, the vast majority of them what seemed to be very keen runners, taking carb gels, drinking sports drinks, wearing numerous outfits, including some showing up in shorts. It’s at this point I point out that there was snow and ice etc around the course… shorts? Seriously?

Anyway, we set off and for the first 200m the course was really flat, luring me into a false sense of security. As I turned the first corner I saw the first hill and started to realise just how bad this was going to be. These were very steep hills, worse than what I recall from my last visit to Huddersfield and I hadn’t trained for them at all. The first mile was horrendous, I just couldn’t get my pacing right for these hills and I was struggling. Finally, after that (and having to stop to tie my shoelace) I managed to find my feet and got on the pace.

The course was pretty much never flat, either inclines, which made up the majority of the course, or steep declines. So I’d painstakingly slowly jog up the hills and then use gravity to go flying down the hills.

Anyway, as I headed back to the car my Mum asked me if I knew what day it was and I was like ‘Yeah, it’s Sunday…’. Anyway, after me looking confused she explained that it was my Dad’s birthday, which we figured out to be his 52^nd. It was all by complete coincidence, my decision to run at the last dates in the month was made through more time to train. I’m glad it landed this way though.

Apologies if this blog is somewhat laboured, I am one sleepy boy right now.

Here’s some changes I’m looking to incorporate in the next months training:

Cross training (Swimming)

Sleep Improvement (7 Half Hours, rise same time every morning)

Switching training to the mornings

Cut down on junk food and beer (though you’ve got to enjoy a few drinks!)

Lose more body fat

Start hill training (lesson learnt!)

Next Race, BARNSLEY!

Meltham 10K Playlist

Just compiled the playlist for my 10k race in Meltham next week, i'm just hoping to finish the race as i'm worried about the hills, but i'd like to hit around 50 minutes as this is around where i'm at currently.

I started the playlist with some easy acoustic ones that will cover my first two miles

- Keep Your Head Up - Ben Howard
- Sink, Florida, Sink - Against Me
- Soco Amaretto Lime - Brand New
- Parting Gift - InMe

Then we cross over into a stage of Indie

- Lostboy - The Subways
- That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore - The Smiths
- The Racing Rats - The Editors

Then, for the final push where I pick my speed right up, we cross the line into some really brutal music

- The Blister Exists - Slipknot
- Our Song - Reuben
- Dear Father - Defeater
- Will Someone Shoot That F*cking Snake - Gallows
- A.M.E.R.I.K.A - Killradio
- Welcome Home - Coheed and Cambria
- Such Small Hands - La Dispute
- Said The King To The River - La Dispute

The shorter, punchier songs, should help me really pick up my speed at the end when i'm ready to.

A Week To Go Before The First Race...

...and i'm hungover. Booze is now off the menu until after the race, but getting as drunk as I did last night was not a wise idea, still, I had fun!

The nerves are slowly starting to come into it a bit, well aware that the course I am running has some serious hills and inclines, and it's a struggle to train for that in York.

As it's the week before now, I will be cutting my mileage down to somewhere in the region of 10 miles, this week is my 'taper', and should hopefully have me fully prepared for the race. I hope!

This week I will be a lot stricter on what I am eating too, no office based biscuit binges, no booze, no fast food.  Going to extend my weekly shop budget this week so I can afford key ingredients and make great food that's easily accessible. There will be lots of carbs, like pasta, and sweet potato, superfood salads for work, some cherries and berries in my porridge on a morning, and so on!

I've just been editing a photo of a news article, written by the Barnsley Chronicle, on the big challenge I am taking part in. Then posted it on facebook and got a few likes, and the thoughts of my Dad, coupled with the support made me quite reflective. And it made me think more about my dad, and I just wanted to share a couple of memories with you, of which (sadly) I have very little. A lot of the things I tell you over the course of this blog have in fact been told to me by my mum, or another family member.

I'm going to for for one of my favourite memories of him though. Obviously, you look up to your dad as a child, and you want to be like him and do everything he does, including shave... One night I was having a bath, back in the days when I had toy boats to accompany me too, when I spotted my Dads razor left on the side. Now, this was a very very sharp razor, far sharper than most around today. And I took it on myself to start shaving with this razor, using the bubbles from my Matey bubble bath to give myself a beard to shave. The inevitable happened and I cut my cheek really badly. Sheepishly I climbed out the bath, towel wrapped round me, and went downstairs to see my dad on the computer, holding the towel against my cheek the whole time. My Dad then asked me if I wanted drying off, at which point I revealed the cut on my face. That's about the point I remember up to, but apparently not long after my mum said 'I've told you before you need to put that razor out of his reach'.

I cut myself with that razor at least twice, because I could never stop wanting to imitate my Dad.

Thanks for reading,

I appreciate it

An Introduction

Hello All!

This is just a short introduction to the whole thing. The bottom line, i'm running 12 races this year, for 1 charity (British Heart Foundation), in the memory of my Dad (also called John). Over the course of the year I will be updating about my progress, my results in the races, money raised, training tips etc.

I've ran on and off for a few years, started at first as just a way to get in shape. As the years have gone on my love for it has grown, to the point now where it has become my biggest hobby outside of work. Normally, my first thoughts would be guitar, relaxing in front of the TV, computer games, writing etc. Now, without fail, I think about training, I go running, or on rest days, I plan what I am going to work to improve. Exercise does make you feel fantastic, and helps me deal with a full-time job and start-up business and the stresses that come with it.

I spent alot of the second half of 2011 thinking about taking running more seriously, considering marathons and so on, and made the decision around then to run races in 2012. Though, in November, I slipped and fell. At first I thought I was uninjured, and managed to run another 7 miles on it, though the final 4 became increasingly painful, to the point where I realised I had to stop. It turned out I had thigh strain, which set me back 4 weeks and I had to change my training to rehabilitate it. During this time, when motivation threatened to wane, I indulged myself on the idea of a race a month challenge for charities. After a few weeks, and discussions with people, I realised that to do it in memory of my Dad would be the most valuable thing for me.

I got back to proper training at the beginning of January and found my feet pretty quickly. This week is my biggest week for training, and most pivotal, as next week I begin tapering off my exercise. Tonight I am going for a 90 minute long run, with some sprints in between, my favourite part of it. I've fueled up with an egg mayo sub, and a large mixed salad, it's not my preferred fuel up by any means, but it normally does the job for me as long as I follow the run up with a good recovery meal. Which I always do!

Keep reading

John