Race report: Tough Mudder (full) South London 2016

This really isn't something I would have signed up for myself...

I’ve always viewed obstacle races as something that “people who don’t understand running” or “people with short attention spans” do.  Not my bag at all.  Having concentrated on running longer and longer and getting physical endurance and mental fortitude tested, stretched and grown, getting out of bed for a race shorter than 13.1 miles (a tough sprint!) doesn’t really work for me.  So when I was offered a place by Merrell to take part in the South London Tough Mudder I was on the fence quite a bit.

Spectator map

I looked it up and, in my haste, saw it was a 5 miler with some mud, some walls, an ice bath and some electrocution.  (Hm, attention to detail - 2/10.)  No worries for 1 week after managing 25 miles of CW50 and 3 weeks out from A100, shouldn’t be a problem at all, but I doubted I’d actually enjoy myself.  And the offer of a nice new pair of Merrell shoes to run it in with the rest of the Merrell team tipped it over the edge, I have to admit.  After a few days I was moseying around on the Internet, having a bit more of a look at Tough Mudder and I realised I’d been looking at the details for etc one on 17th Sept instead of 24th.  The one on 17th was indeed a 5 mile jaunt with some obstacles to negotiate.  The one on 24th was actually 10-12 miles with twice the number of obstacles.  Hm.  More of a thing but by then I’d agreed and my shiny shoes were on their way!

Merrell All Out Crush - Tough Mudder Edition

Cue 06:00 on 24th - my alarm goes off so I can get up and cram some tea in me, make a second one to drink on the way, feed kitties, haul on some shorts and a t-shirt and my lovely new shoes (which were really surprisingly light so I wasn’t expecting much out of them on the terrain) and my glorious Dry Robe.  A little amble to our nearby tram stop with a nice dry bag full of clean stuff (full change of clothes plus a  warm jacket - doesn’t matter how warm it is on a race day, I almost always need a warm thing to put on to put on afterwards) and a tiny towel to dry off after my shower (again thanks Merrell for the hospitality - a warm shower was very welcome vs the cold ones outside the corporate hospitality areas).  Changing at East Croydon onto the 0753 to Horsham (Crawley is quicker, but not for the time I wanted to be travelling) I had a nice sit and my tea while I wondered whether I’d actually find the other person who was running for Merrell and coming by public transport too.  We’d arranged to share a cab from the station to the event and I’d no idea what she looked like, so a quick message and I was identifiable by my huge Dry Robe when we got to Horsham.

The cab driver did the right thing as we got close to the event venue - one lane of coned off traffic being filtered into the venue with the right hand lane for the rest of the traffic, he took the right hand lane and dipped through a gap in the cones just after the venue entrance to chuck us out onto the grass verge.  At that point it was pretty clear that the reverse journey would be *interesting* but not worth worrying about until after the mud-based fun.

Me and some of the Merrell crew

Lightly foxed wrist bands post-event

Registered, liability waiver form handed in, and now covered in various wrist bands (participant, media and corporate hospitality) we headed to the Merrell tent to finish getting ready for our 10am wave.

120 Merrell runners!  Covered in fluorescent orange face paint, orange hair spray-dye, one huge guy in a dress and another in leopard print hot pants, we followed the team flags down to the start area for the pretty cheesy motivational speech, a little bit of safety stuff (don’t attempt the water obstacles if you can’t swim; if you see someone in difficulty, stop and make a sign with crossed forearms in front of you) and then reciting the Tough Mudder “pledge” (*eyeroll* - sorry but this was a step too far for me).  And we were off!

Pretty woodlands!

The team mainly trotted off ahead of me like any parkrun - cue internal monologue about the fact they’d not be able to keep that up and I’d see them again later.  The ethos of Tough Mudder is that it’s a team thing, it’s about team work and camaraderie, but having met none of this team before that morning I wasn’t really feeling it, especially as there were sub-groups within the team who already knew each other.  I felt like an outsider and didn’t really expect that to change during this event.

Kiss of Mud 2.0

The route wandered mainly through very pretty woodland with a few little sections out into fields.  I don’t really remember the first two obstacles; 1 - bale bonds (I assume something with hay bales?) and 2 - skid marked (nope, doesn’t ring a bell at all). Obstacle #3 was the first one that registers - Kiss Of Mud 2.0 - a mud pit with barbed wire suspended about 18” above it that you had to crawl under.  Thankfully I’ve watched a few races like this on TV before and the advice on those programmes was still clear in my head; don’t go down on your belly and elbows, but get as flat as you can on elbows and knees and crawl.  Oh boy was that effective!  I did catch my shorts on the barbed wire a couple of times but otherwise progress was easy and quick like that.  More jogging through woodland for a bit to get to the 4th obstacle and I’d caught up with the back markers from the team.  

Hero Walls

4 - Hero Walls; wooden walls with a ridge along the side facing away from the approach.  Even if you’re super tall, you can’t reach the top of the walls without a huge leap and then hauling yourself up, so I took the tactic of using the side support, which was angled, as well as proffered hands for a leg up, to get half way up and high enough to grab the top and haul over, yelling back to team mates who’d not gotten up yet about using the supports.  I hung around to help pull other folks over the wall and promptly lost the rest of the team.  Didn’t really see them again after this obstacle.  I had no idea if they were in front or behind me, but given the start of the race I assumed in front so kept trucking to try to catch up again.

Pyramid Scheme

Obstacle 5 - Pyramid Scheme - came after more lovely trotting through woodland and seeing various people in road shoes skating all over the place in the mud - those super light shoes I was wearing turned out to have impressive grip and I was trusting them pretty much like I trust my La Sportiva Helios SRs!  This obstacle was fairly easy in teams as it’s a hard neoprene slope - too steep and slippery to run up - with a ridge part way up.  Folks basically form a human ladder and help haul people up to the ridge and then to the top.  I found a couple of the Merrell team here, but nobody I recognised and again got split up straight after the obstacle.

Ice. Lots of it.

The 6th obstacle - Arctic Enema - I thought I’d be totally OK with.  It’s the first proper water obstacle and I’m not only a strong swimmer but I’ve done a fair few swims in pretty cold water so I wasn’t worried about it.  It’s basically a great big, deep tin bath full of water with a lot of ice cubes in, with a bar half way across that you have to swim under.  Watching race marshals dumping a few more industrial bags of ice into the tubs, I climbed up the steps to the chute area where as a group of 3, we were counted down to drop down the slide into the water.  Smug as all heck and full of bravado I was talking with the guy behind about what a relief the cold would be after getting a bit warm jogging about beforehand.

Muddy water full of ice - Artic Enema

I dropped into the water and OH BOY was it a real physical shock.  As I surfaced, I simply couldn’t breathe - the cold had knocked the breath out of me and it took a couple of minutes to get it back.  The race medic next to the tub was trying to be reassuring; I was fine, just needed to get my breath back!  He then counted me down and shoved me under the bar to the second half of the tub where it was quick and easy to get out.  I was pretty cooled down by that so upped the jogging pace to warm back up again and got yelled at, by a fellow participant that I passed, to slow down (um, OK, how about no and I’ll run my own race - yes it’s not a race, but you know what I mean).  It took a little while to warm up but I was actually starting to enjoy myself!

Muddy water full of ice - Artic Enema

The log carry - Hold Your Wood - was the next obstacle (#7) and that was a breeze.  The logs were totally manageable even though I’ve not done any upper body strength work for a year now.  Obstacle number 8, though fairly easy, proved the most damaging of the day.  

Mud Mile

The Mud Mile - a set of 3-4 mud and water filled trenches with steep sides up to mud hills that were slick with slimy mud.  There was no way to control your descent into the trench and no idea how deep they were.  I started to regret wearing shorts as sliding down the mud banks into the water meant moving fast over hidden sharp stones which raked the backs of my thighs.  I couldn’t see how bad it was at the time, due to the layers of mud over me, but it sure stung and a week on, the deep gouges are still sore and scabby!  If I ever did one of these again I’d likely sacrifice a pair of capri pants under my shorts, to protect my upper legs.  The fun was in the mud and shoving on other peoples’ bottoms to help them up the hill out of the trench :o)

Very very sore gouge on my thigh

Two tube crawls next - obstacles 9 and 10; Sewer Rat and Prairie Dog - big, slightly ridged plastic tubes to crawl through.  The first flat and into knee deep water, the second angled downwards a bit and onto firm, dryish mud.  Again, if I was going to do this kind of event again I’d think about a long sleeved top to protect my elbows from the burns I got crawling through these, but probably not bother with longer tights to cover my knees despite how scratched they got too.

Messed up, swollen, scraped knee

Lumberjacked - the 11th obstacle, was a bit weird.  A rotating wooden pole at about head height, supported at each end.  The aim simply to get over it.  OK, it’s pretty high so you need help, but fairly straightforward.  Again I was pleasantly surprised by random strangers offering to help out of nowhere - despite having lost my team and feeling quite like I wasn’t 100% with the spirit of this event, it was great to be a part of that sort of overall camaraderie and I ended up jogging with these guys who helped at this obstacle for a while before losing them as well.  The woodland trails were so pretty and great running that I was really enjoying that part too - I’d expected a lot less running, so I was pretty happy to trot through the trees and enjoy the moderate amount of trail specific experience I have paying dividends in making progress with joy rather than trepidation about falling over.

Lumberjacked

I skipped the 12th obstacle - Funky Monkey 2.0 - having had bad experiences with my plated collar-bone and previous similar gym work (pull ups etc.) I wasn’t about to have a really unpleasant experience with crunching, clicking, popping and horrible sensations that have made me feel pretty sick in the past.  I did, however, help pull someone out of the water when it was pointed out that they couldn’t swim and they’d fallen off the bars (almost everyone fell off the bars so it was inevitable to end up in the water).  

Cage Crawl

The Cage Crawl - obstacle 13 - was great fun.  Like the Kiss of Mud earlier, only a water-filled pit and a wire fence about 6” over it so you had to slide in on your back and pull yourself along in the water on your back.  Super super quick and easy, so I wasn’t sure how the folks ahead of me ended up being so slow that I had to tap the guy following me on the head to slow down so he wouldn’t end up head-first on my feet while I waited.  At least the water in this obstacle was a lot warmer than the ice bath so it wasn’t a horrible shock to the system getting into it, and it washed a lot of the mud off!

The alternate obstacle for experienced Tough Mudder participants was - Rain Man - I’m assuming something water related but that’s all I’ve got as I didn’t get a good view of it.

Glorious trails!

Coming into obstacle 14 - the Hero Carry - I’d been steaming through some lovely woodland trail. Lots of fast shallow descents, flat sections with pretty difficult ruts and roots underfoot and twisty switchbacks that were really slowing down folks more used to road running (or not running much at all).  I arrived at the obstacle in a bit of a gap; nobody ahead of me waiting so I turned to see behind.  Spotted a bloke who looked like a handy victim and invited him to get on my back for the first half of the piggy-back.  He was thankfully pretty small and light - about my height and 76kg (I asked!) and way stronger than me so at the half-way changeover point of the Hero Carry, he picked me up and we moved a lot faster!  Fun!  Really enjoyed that!

I pinned this bib back on after every obstacle - given it's state I'm not sure why...

The 15th obstacle was the most innovative - the Birth Canal - a long wooden frame with multiple chute entrances, over each tunnel a tarpaulin filled with water such that it hangs down into the tunnel.  Not a lot of clearance in the tunnel - you absolutely have to lie on your belly and get your head to one side to fit - the water is so heavy that you can’t push it up other than with your body existing so it’s really hard to make progress. The trick turned out to be to turn your head to one side, stay to one side of the tunnel where the tarp was a bit higher (not much though!) and use the batons of the frame, which were about 3 feet apart, to drag yourself along the ground with your hands and push on them with your feet.  Ideally, someone helps to pull you out at the other end, but being not with a team and the teams ahead having moved on, I had to sort myself out.  Not too bad really, but I did wait for the guy behind to be near enough the end to start pulling him out.  All part of the fun and sense of achievement to help others out!

Birth Canal

The most pointless obstacle of the event was the Devils Beard - obstacle 16.  A cargo net stretched over some hay bales.  It slowed you down a bit, but nothing to write home about.  The only obstacle that required no upper body strength, and had neither mud or water involved.  I guess it was there to up the numbers?  

The Liberator - obstacle 17 - was pretty hard.  A pretty much vertical wooden construction with parallel, vertical wooden poles, about 2 feet apart, with diagonal notches cut into them, and 1.5” holes drilled into the panels in between those poles into which you were supposed to insert wooden pegs.  The intention is to haul yourself up the wall using those wooden pegs and using the notches in the poles to perch your toes.  It was super, super hard to use the pegs and I’d got about 12 feet up before getting a bit wobbly and worrying about losing my grip and falling back down the wooden panel, filling myself with splinters and grazes.  So I ditched the pegs one by one and used those notches in the poles for my hands to climb up.  Waaaaay easier!  So I yelled across to a woman having the same trouble and advised her to ditch the pegs - to similar effect!  It’s all about ingenuity and team work, right?

The Block Ness Monster

My favourite obstacle of the day was number 18 - The Block Ness Monster.  Really something out of Takeshi’s Castle or It’s a Knockout; a big ditch full of water with pair of square-sectioned tubes that rotate barring the way.  They’re huge and rotate enough that you can’t simply climb over them to get by, you need to work as a group with some on one side pushing to rotate them, some already across that one to pull from the other side and one or two folks grab onto an edge and rotate with the tube to land head-first in the grubby water on the other side and then help to rotate the tube for the next people.  Great fun yelling at people to push together and get those really heavy tubes moving with people on them!

King of The Swingers

I skipped obstacle 19 - King of The Swingers.  With an iffy shoulder for that sort of activity I didn’t much fancy it.  It’s a very very high construction over a pit full of quite deep water.  You climb up one side and there’s a free-swinging pole with a t-bar at the bottom that you have to jump to grab and then swing forward with enough momentum to jump further at the end of the swing to hit a cow bell before dropping into the water and swimming to the exit.  Many many people didn’t make the jump for the bell, some even didn’t make the jump for the t-bar.  Hey, at least the water wasn’t full of ice cubes this time!

Everest 2.0

Everest 2.0 came up next and I’d found some of the Merrell team on the other side of obstacle 19, finally!  We reached the 20th obstacle together and was really going to need team work to get over it.  This one is a curved slope made again of that super hard and slippery plastic; you need to run up it as hard and as far as you can to reach the top and haul yourself over onto the ledge at the top of the obstacle.  It’s really very difficult to do that under your own steam, so what you really need to do is run at it really hard, aim for the bars behind the top ledge and reach out for your team mates’ arms to haul you over the top.  Which I failed to do at the first attempt and bounced and slid back down the slope - burning and bruising more bits of me.  I was pretty sore by this point and most of the mud had washed off in the water obstacles.  

Me, being hauled up Everest 2.0

My second attempt, on of the guys at the top managed to get enough of a grip on one of my hands that with some hauling and getting one leg high enough for someone else to grip, I was 100% man-handled over the ledge.  No mean feat for those guys at the top, I’m not exactly at fighting weight at the moment!  I turned around to help another guy up by grabbing him under the arms, but he was pretty strong and managed a lot of the work himself.  Still, it was nice to have helped a bit!

Somehow I missed obstacle 21 - Frequent Flyers Club - I think I thought it was an alternate obstacle for folks who’d done a few of these. And having seen a video of what it is, I’m a bit miffed that I missed it!

Frequent Flyers Club

The last obstacle came up pretty quickly and it was the one I was never planning to have anything to do with - number 22, Electroshock Therapy.  Having initially assumed the shocks would be like little jelly-fish stings, over the course of the event I was hearing more about it, that folks end up knocked to the floor with the shock and it’s not only not advised if you have a pace maker, but also if you have any metal implants.  I’ll take that, a titanium plate in my collar-bone is enough of a get out of jail card for me!  So I jogged around the side of it, only to see the finish line a couple of feet afterwards.  Bah!  I was hoping for a bit more of a run into the end, but there it was.  Anyway, over the line in 02:45, way quicker than it should have been because I’d spent most of the event thinking the whole Merrell team was ahead of me when it turned out that the majority were actually behind me!  Off to the hospitality tent for some hot coffee, hog roast and a quick shower to scrape off the worst of the mud.

Heading home was going to be tricky, I knew that from how the taxi had had to drop us off earlier.  I’d planned to walk to the station from the event site and get the train home.  But as the thought of the dual carriageway loomed I was contemplating hitching a ride.   There was no easy way to get a taxi to pick me up without them spending ages in thick traffic and probably charging loads due to that.  So by the time I got almost to the exit of the site, I was hailed by a marshal who said they were not allowing pedestrians to exit the gates.  I stuck out a thumb and the next car picked me up right away!  Thanks to those guys for dropping me off at the station (they turned out to not have done the event themselves, but one was in the middle of interviewing for a job with Tough Mudder and came to experience the event first hand - nice chaps and I’m grateful of the lift!)

Nice t-shirt; super light!

So. There we are, I really really enjoyed myself.  Tough Mudder was lots more fun than I’d expected it to be.  A lot of it was down to everyone helping everyone else regardless of which team you were part of or even by yourself.  A lot of it was down to enjoying being a not-totally-shit trail runner and having shoes that were super light and super grippy in the slidey mud.  I would suggest that it’s not particularly friendly if you don’t have a car, but I managed on the day.  I would heartily recommend an event like this out of season for trail runners - it’s super fun, no pressure about time, a bit of a fartlek and quite satisfying running with a pretty nice quality t-shirt at the end.  Bit expensive though unless you volunteer a bit as well.

[Merrell is the Global presenting partner for Tough Mudder. For more information go to www.merrell.co.uk]

Race report: Hitchin Hard Half. (Or, "Oh god, I needed that!".)

*beam*

I'd been gagging for a race and really didn't realise quite how much until I'd finished today's - the Hitchin Hard Half.  A half marathon with a bit of up and down in it, almost all on (not closed) roads.

My aim was to enjoy myself and get around before the 2.5 hour time limit.  So that meant a minimum average pace of 11:27/mile.  Very do-able on the flat at my easy pace at the moment (as proven on yesterday's parkrun).  Add hills and it would need a bit more effort than simply "easy".  The plan was to hike the ups, relax on the downs and run the flats at a heart rate of around 170bpm.


To cut it short, I had an awesome run. It took about 3 to 3.5 miles to warm up; and the grassy grounds of the Priory at the start featured a twisting route that took you up and down the same sharp hill twice before you left the grounds, off out onto the road. But then I had a great time - hiked the ascents hard (equalling and overtaking some people who were running uphill), enjoyed the descents (having to ask people who were not taking any advantage of the descents at all and were really rather taking up the full width of the path, to let me through as I was going quite a bit faster than them) and ran the flats easy for the first 6 miles. Then I turned up the gas a bit as I was feeling pretty good. At that point I had to stop off for a couple of minutes. I'd been running behind a chap in a union flag vest and he kept pausing and bending over, so I asked if he was OK or had cramp or something. It turned out he wasn't OK at all, and was dizzy and nauseated. So I told him to sit down and I'd get a marshal. We'd passed one about 20m down the hill, so I lamped it back to the marshal who then called for medical assistance. Running back up the hill to the poor chap, I found a couple of ladies giving him water and using a running vest as a pillow for him. I let everyone know there was a marshal notified and on the case, decided he was doing OK and that those ladies were coping nicely, so I could carry on. There was a water station right around the corner with two marshals, so one of them headed on down to lend assistance. Happy that all was under control, I got back on with my own race. There was an immediate long descent after that, which I enjoyed a little too much and pushed my heart rate higher than I was happy with so had to settle it down a bit for a while.

Having paced pretty well and kept my effort level in check, I overtook a ton of people in the last 5 miles. Lots of people ending up walking rather less steep inclines than they might have done earlier and then another long downhill which was a bit wet from the rain and gravelly so a bit tricky but I gained a lot of speed from that. I'd been leap-frogging an older chap for a lot of the hills to this point, he'd jog gently past me on the ups and I'd lamp it past him on the downs and it became a running joke between us - the last two or three hills he said he'd get me on the next one and he did. Until the last hill where I made my downhill and effort after that pretty good and I didn't see him again until after I'd finished. Then one long last uphill grind along a pretty straight road, so it was a bit mentally difficult but as it was likely the last real hill, I ran it all instead of hiking. I was a bit worried we'd end up doing the same up and down the hill in the Priory grounds as we had at the start, but it turned out to be a simple downhill over wet grass to get to the finish line; a relief!

Afterwards, I felt bloody great - a good run, not a totally shabby pace, especially considering the extra 4kg I'm carrying at the moment. I really needed that run and it felt good. (Finished in 02:18 including stoppage time - moving time was 02:15:29.) I did manage to catch up with one of the ladies who'd also stopped to help the other runner and established he was fine - it turned out he'd been running with his sister who just buggered off and left him to feel horrible by himself. Poor chap!

Me, I hit my A, B and C goals; enjoy myself, get around before the cut-off and go under 02:20. Result!

Sod patience, I want to race!

Everyone else is having fun except me!

That's how it feels anyway.  So, I've signed up for a couple of races and got plans for a few more.  The first is a rolling trail half marathon in just under two weeks.  So what if the longest run I've done in 5 1/2 months is 8 miles!?  I really really miss being in a race.

I've also signed up for my most hated race distance; a marathon.  In October, which is ages away and it's on the run up to a 3 day ultra (if I'm allowed have the Friday off work - it's only 84 miles over 3 days, which averages less distance per day than I did on the Thames Path last October).  And a couple of others; another rolling trail half marathon more locally, and a 10 mile trail run and a half marathon in the Lake District in September.

I'll probably come last in the Hitchin Hard Half, but I don't care; I want to race!

Race report: Wales Marathon 2014 - What an awesome marathon!

The Wales Marathon - part of the Long Course Weekend, where there is a 2.4 miles swim on Friday, 112 mile bike ride on Saturday and a 26.2 mile run on Sunday.  Many people sign up for it as part of their training for Ironman Wales later in the year.  Many people say it's far harder to do those distances over 3 days than all in one.  I kinda agree.

However, I was "only" going to be doing the run on the Sunday as a part of my longer distance running training.  The plan was to run "comfortably" after the last few runs that haven't been so great, and hike hills if they were hard.

So that's what I set out to do.

We walked to the run start for the 10am start, expecting a mostly overcast, warmish day.  The sun blazed down on us in our vests and shorts and I thought; "OK, I'm gonna burn to a crisp!".  The gun went off and off we trundled over the line.  We decided to stay together through the twisty, narrow town section and then see what happened after that.  MrTOTKat was on a pacing strategy he was trying out for the Ironman later in the year; run 9 mins, walk 1 min.  I was on "run comfortably".  So we stayed together for a bit until I didn't want to walk when the beeps for MrTOTKat to start walking happened, and I pulled ahead.  As all the runners passed through the section of town near the station, we could smell some absolutely divine curry and there were plenty of comments about it amongst us.

I needed a wee from the first km.  Damn.  Thankfully in the 4th km there were public loos that loads of people were diving into, so I took advantage and was relieved to do so!  MrTOTKat had overtaken me in that time (11 seconds!) and it took me a good 2km to catch up with him again.  The terrain had been mentioned in the race briefing at the start and we were expecting quite some incline to get up to the Ridgeway... and there it came!  Time to power walk and fly past people who were walking normally up it :o)

Fun hill!

It was a good learning experience to power walk/hike up the steep hills as, though my heart rate stayed roughly the same as if I was running, it used different muscles and allowed for stretching out my calves and achilles which I think made a big difference later on in the race.

MrTOTKat and I saw each other a few more times during the race, I was surprised a couple of times as I thought I was pulling away more and more and in the end it turned out I was.

After the first hour of running I really felt great.  I started to run up inclines I'd normally use as an excuse to walk, and it felt easy.  It felt awesome.  I was absolutely loving it!  And my heart rate was a lot better controlled than in Rotterdam, where it dropped off like a stone and I felt awful.  I got to about 16 miles in and thought that things were going nicely and if they still were at 20, I'd think about what to do at the finish in terms of meeting up with MrTOTKat.  He'd mentioned it might be nice to cross the line together and as our strategies and aims for the day were different, I thought it might not happen.  So, I decided that if he hadn't caught me again by 23 miles, I'd walk from there until he did, so we could cross the line together.  I'd've ticked the boxes I wanted to tick in terms of objectives by then, and had absolutely nothing to prove.  The hardest thing would be letting people I'd stormed past in the last few miles, just go past me as I sauntered.

I carried on trucking, running up hills and down them, passing lots of people; power walking up only two more hills and finally coming to a really really mean downhill section at around the 22 mile point where I heard a guy just ahead of me shouting "this is the 1 in 4 bit!".   At this point, that sort of downhill was pretty harsh on the knees and I found it a bit hard and a bit painful.

Nasty little descent!

Soon after that was the 23 mile marker where I said I'd start walking if MrTOTKat hadn't caught me by then.  And he hadn't.  So I sauntered really really gently.  In my head I was a bit worried that he might have blown up somewhere or got hurt (I'd heard two ambulances in the distance behind), so I wanted to give him as much time as possible.  I got loads of comments from people jogging past me "almost there love, keep going!".  Mentally, that's really heard to hear when you're feeling pretty fresh and perky and perfectly capable of overtaking them and running happily to the finish.  After a few minutes of walking, I came across a couple of marshalls at a corner sheltered from the breeze, so I decided to stop with them and wait where I shouldn't get too cold.

Pretty course profile - blimmin' lovely to run

Happily, I didn't have long to wait before the fluorescent orange vest of MrTOTKat hove into view and we trotted off together on his continuing run/walk strategy to the end.

As we crossed the roundabout at the bottom of the last hill into Tenby, we came across another chap who chatted with us a little and as we started running again at the top he happened to mention we were 5 minutes to the 5 hour time boundary, so we picked things up a bit.  The final little run into Tenby, we weren't sure we'd quite make the 5 hours, but then realised that we had time to cross the timing mat at the start so the time on the pace car wasn't quite right for us and we started to sprint through town, giggling like kids.  It was great fun!  We were loving it!  And as we hit the red carpet, MrTOTKat grabbed my hand and we ran hand-in-hand along the red carpet at full tilt and over the line - hard to do, but awesome fun!

We crossed the line in 04:59:49!  Not that it matters, but it was such great fun sprinting through town for the last few hundred meters.  The time was utterly immaterial to me due to the plan for the day and what I decided to do at 23 miles in.  I thoroughly enjoyed the course (despite it being 100% on road).  I thoroughly enjoyed the brilliant local support; as ever the people of Pembrokeshire are brilliant when it comes to supporting hundreds of amateur athletes they don't know from Adam!  I thoroughly enjoyed sticking to my plan, feeling awesome once I'd warmed up, drinking water when I felt thirsty, eating nothing until after the race, sprinting through town at the end, easily running up hills I'd normally use as an excuse to walk and crossing the line with my sweetie.  I also love that the pace was only a couple of seconds per mile slower than at the London Ultra in 2013 when I was fitter, running faster in general, 4kg lighter and better at sucking up pain, but hurt quite a bit towards the end of it compared with this race where I had no pain in my quads at all.

The pink highlighted section is the race itself on this graph.  The massive drop off in heart rate towards the end is the 23 mile point where I walked then stopped and waited, and you can see the lovely sprint finish to a peak of 180BPM at the end very clearly!

I have a confession...

I've not been enjoying triathlon at all this year.  Not that I've actually raced any yet, having bashed my knee the day before Mallorca 70.3.  But I'm just not enjoying the training.  It has felt like a dirty secret for a while, but now I've made a choice, it's out now and I feel so much better for it.

Getting to the pool has been getting mentally harder and harder over the last 12 months; partly to do with the current and previous job being nowhere near a pool at all, not even a 17m one (I trained successfully for the bonkers year of Ironman in 2012 in a 17m pool), so I couldn't swim at lunch time.  Part of it is that I've got way out of the habit of swimming (see point 1).  I've also been feeling more and more down about a training plan that I'm not only shuffling around during the week (which is mostly fine to do and I've been doing that for a few years), but I'm missing or short-changing most of the sessions and then feeling bad about that.  And then realising the lack of work put in means that it'd be either very miserable to grind through a hilly 70.3 or perhaps full distance Ironman, or just plain out of the question to complete it.

So I've decided to stop doing triathlons for now.  There's no point in dragging yourself through weekly cycles of rage and blues for something you're supposed to be doing for fun.  I'll see how I feel up until the morning of the UK 70.3 in 2 weeks time; I'll race at Blenheim (it's "only" a sprint and a flat one at that) this weekend, and just train how I feel after that for a while.  But Ironman Wales is off the cards (and I can only get, at most, 25% of the cost of that back now *sigh*)

Commuting by bike and on foot to work is much more accessible now we have lockers and showers at work, so I can get a lot of useful exercise in during the week and really clock up some run miles if I so choose.  And then there's parkrun, the common and the Surrey hills at the weekends where I can just go out and have some fun and even socialise!  I feel a lot better about things now I've made this (fairly temporary) choice and it really opens things up to getting a whole bunch of things more fluidly in the calendar - off-road running races rarely fill up months in advance :o)

Race Report: Pilgrim Challenge (day 2)

A late, standby entry into day 2 of the Pilgrim Challenge was, for me, supposed to be a gentle little run to get to know a bit more about how crewing for @abradypus in May might look.  How we get on running together was a big topic for me; I simply don't run with others, apart from occasionally at parkrun when everyone's up for a bimble, so running with someone else intentionally for quite a few miles is alien to me and by goodness do I like my time running alone.

The course was reported to be a tad wet, so I fixed my new gaiters to my trail shoes in an attempt to keep the trees and rocks from jumping into my shoes with the mud and making me uncomfortable.  This was a great success and I'm a big fan of them already.

To keep things a bit short, the plan was to follow @abradypus' coach's instructions for the day - run at 100 mile pace until a good way through the race, then turn it up to 50 mile pace and enjoy passing people to the end.  This sounded like a great plan to me, but in the run up to the event I got more and more worried that as she is an actual running person and does actual running training and has been doing that very well and patiently for some time in the build-up to this, this might turn out to be a touch fast for me.  I utterly neglected to remember that it takes a while to recover from one of these events (more so than triathlons as running is simply harsher on the physical bits of your body) and there was only 3 weeks between Country to Capital and Pilgrim Challenge.  As it turns out, that was quite an error.

The course was 85% mud, 5% tarmac, 5% sand, 3% firm trail and 2% marshy grass.  Quite a bit more elevation than I'd seen on the GPX file I downloaded - 410m reported, but over 1km measured on the day.  Very very heavy going, and the mud was a different kind of mud from Country to Capital in that it was clay so quite sticky by comparison, but still quite slippery in places.  It was really hard work and about 30% of the way through, having eaten more than I did at Country to Capital, drunk a reasonable amount and not gone off particularly quickly, I started to feel sleepy.  That's often a bad sign; under-fuelling, under-hydrating, hypothermia... but none of those was the case.  I think I was simply just tired - real life is quite hefty at the moment with new job, house stuff etc. and not so great sleep, plus a significant endurance event in the last few weeks, tiredness is very likely the case.

The hardest thing was running at someone else's schedule in a tired condition.  This won't be a problem at the event I'm crewing at as I won't have done anything massive for weeks apart from normal training.  @abradypus was clearly running strongly and had plenty left in the tank, and at the 4th checkpoint we'd said she'd head off at her own preferred pace and I'd get on with it at mine (which would obviously be slower).  And that we did.  Oddly, at the 4th checkpoint I found a second wind and trotted off stronger and more perky than I had been - whether that was being near the end, or getting some salt in on the pretzel I had (I'd had only one electrolyte tablet throughout to that point and the snacks had no appreciable salt in them), I have no idea and don't really care now as it's not important.

Oops - routing error!

Near the end of the route, there was a sign that in my fatigued state I originally read correctly, then lost faith, turned back up a hill and along the marked national trail instead until I came to a rather large flood.  Initially I started to wade through it, having got about 400m along that bit of path until I looked further ahead to see that there was no way a run would be routed through the flood which got deeper and carried on as far as I could see.  I waded back through the freezing water, back down the trail to the sign and found other runners.  I had been right in the first place.  Hey ho.  I squelched off down the road, trotting enough to overtake a few very tired people for whom this was the last mile or so of a 66 mile, 2 day event.

The final turn was into a field, up a slope, along a hedge over some grass and down a slope to the finish.  I put in some effort and then heard someone coming up quickly behind me.  Race on!  I turned it up, only to hear they were still close behind, I ran hard and they were still there a few metres from the line so I sprinted and couldn't go any faster as they passed me in the final metre to take the place.  Gah!

I can't believe I sprinted at the end of 33 miles (which turned out to be further due to routing errors) and I can't believe I was able to in that condition!  And I can't believe someone else did too.

@abradypus had got in over 10 minutes earlier and was looking rather chipper as I faffed and ate some really nice cake.  I think it was a successful day all 'round - I was really pleased for @abradypus and how strongly she ran - and we all got what we needed to get from the event.  I'm not sure I'd choose to run that route again unless it was dry for a good while beforehand, but it was well-run and credit to the event team.

Race Report: Racing the Valencia F1 Circuit

Thanks to Virgin Active, a bunch of Team Freespeed went down to Valencia to race the Valencia triathlon at the weekend.

A week after Ironman 70.3 Zell Am See, Mr TOTKat and I would have just about enough time to get over lead-legs and needing to sleep a lot, and get out and race an Olympic distance with a good degree of fitness and energy.  We swapped bikes in the bike boxes, TT bikes out, road bikes in - Valencia is a drafting race so TT bikes aren't allowed (or rather, long aero bars aren't allowed as they're pretty dangerous at close-quarters riding).  Plenty of clip-on, stubby aero bars in evidence at the race, but I'll get to that in a bit.

We flew out on Friday morning from Gatwick and into 28C an sunny skies in Valencia - gorgeous!  The forecast was for cloud and still warm across the whole weekend, so no need for a wetsuit (though we both packed one, just in case) and no need for socks apart from the fact I really want to be sure my feet are good for the next few weeks into the Rotherham 80km Ultra marathon.  Fun and games at the airport with 9 people and 5 bike boxes to get to the hotel and only normal-sized cars as taxis.  No mini-buses, no people carriers.  We managed somehow and got to the hotel, which was really lovely and welcomed us with cava and orange juice as well as little gift packs with maps and travel passes in them.

A little unpack, then off for a swim down at the beach and back to the hotel for an early night.

Next day we put bikes together and headed out down to the sea front to have a look at the race expo.  Not so many vendors there but a few stalls with general sports kit and the registration tents for when that opened later on in the afternoon.  Back to the hotel for a huge nap and then out with the other guys again to register and rack up bikes.

Sunday morning was an earlyish start at 6am to get to transition before it closed at 07:45 in time for the first race start at 8am.  I popped into transition to set up my shoes, helmet and take the plastic cover off my bike that'd been protecting it from the potential rain overnight.  I said I'd take the plastic cover off Matt's bike for him so he could have a nice lie in for his race start at 10:30 so I did that and checked his tyres were OK - they were.

Mr TOTKat was due to be off at 08:20, so those of us off later went to check out the swim course while he got ready to start and then watched the swim leg for the first few waves and then saw Matt burning off the front of his wave before Jenny and I headed to get ready for our start.  We were herded into the start pen for a pre-race talk; 5 minutes in Spanish, no English for the International athletes.  Oh well!  We then plopped into the water, which was gorgeous temperature for swimming in!  It was so very very salty too.

Bang went the start cannon and I tried really hard not to just mow over the row of women in front of me who were really slow, but got over the reticence and got on with it.  It really wasn't very fighty as deep water swim starts go, just a little jostling at the start then I had clear water.  Having recced the swim course earlier, we had a great idea of how to sight for almost all of it and I put some good effort in for the first few hundred meters before easing off a bit, slightly distracted by the salt water in my mouth.

With the beautiful water, the temperature and the freedom of just a tri-suit maybe, the swim felt really really easy.  I didn't put a whole lot of effort in, if I'm honest, but it turned out I led the second pack for quite a way until getting under the bridge for the final few meters and a couple of women overtook me, and I let them as I wasn't sure where the exit was so I'd rather follow them.  I scrambled out, up the ramp and jogged the long long carpet through to transition and around to where my bike was racked.  On with the helmet, race number, socks (paranoid about blisters at the moment), bike shoes, sunglasses, unracked bike and jogged with it to the bike exit.

Over the line, mount the bike and clip in.  I heard cheers from the spectators of "Go on Kat!" etc.  I guessed that was Nick and Mr TOTKat as he'd've finished by now.  Start to pedal as I just hit the left turn for the bridge and *THUB*THUB*THUB* er... not a good noise.  Stop, unclip, feel back tyre - fine, feel front tyre - flat as a pancake.

Bugger.

My repair kit was not with me, having lost a chunk of it last week at Ironman 70.3 Zell Am See I'd not replaced it yet and decided not to carry a reduced kit for an Olympic distance race.  I unclipped my other foot, dismounted and hugged the fence back to transition against the flow of other athletes.  I had to find a race official, to withdraw from the race so they wouldn't worry about a missing athlete.  I found one with a radio and made the international sign of the glum face and pointed at my dead wheel.  That worked.  Mr TOTKat had by that time made his way level with where I was and shouted that I should use his repair kit from his bike.  I politely declined at that point - it'd've taken me ages to find his bike, get the kit and wrestle the still fairly new tyre off and by that time I'd've lost over 10 minutes and I'd be the last person over the finish line.  I didn't much fancy that and I'd had a lovely swim, so why get cross and have a horrible run by myself in the blazing sun when I didn't really need to?

I racked up my bike and joined the boys to cheer the rest of the team home over the line.  Turns out I was 3rd in the Vet Females in the swim.  Which was nice.

Matt won the Veterans race, and Jenny was 4th woman overall and 3rd in the open women's race.  Pretty darned good for her seeing as she'd had the twins only 10 months ago and not been able to train for a long time!

All in all, I really enjoyed the race and the weekend.  The swim was really very nice and although it was a shame not to have been able to ride the bike course, there's always another year and we'd be more than happy to go back again.  The short of it, the Valencia Triathlon is a good 'un and at a good time towards the end of the season to keep spirits up in the sun.

[Thanks to Nick for the use of all of his photos in this article!]

Nick on the camera bike