Race Report: Lancaster Castle Half

What just happened?

Race number two of the holiday and it was another "enter on the day" jobbie.  This time a half marathon that is 99.75% flat with a 30m uphill in the final 400m; a little sting in the tail for those on for a PB or a particular time.

The Lancaster Castle Half Marathon (and 10K) is based in Lancaster Castle (prison) in the centre of Lancaster.  This means very few loos for 500 registered runners on the day (we found a pair and timed it perfectly as a huge queue formed behind us almost the moment we'd found them).  As people were heading up the hill into the castle grounds, almost everyone was saying "do we have to run up this?" as they skidded up the cobbles into the castle grounds.  Yes, not only a nasty little hill, but paved with great, shiny cobbles; perfect for skidding about when walking never mind running up it!

We found a coffee shop back in town, just a couple of hundred meters away, once we'd registered and there was an hour before the, quite civilised, start time of 11am.  Lucky we did too, though the coffee was truly awful, there was a loo to be taken advantage of.  And we did.  A couple of times each at least - having scoffed curry and a few ales the night before, there was a bit to let go of before running for a couple of hours.

The race seems pretty popular with local running clubs as there were a couple of coach-loads turned up from two clubs; one in red and one in blue, Blackburn Road Runners and Red Rose Road Runners.  We chatted to one of the race officials (the bloke doing the timing) as everyone was walking to the race start area, and he'd said there were 500 runners registered between the half and the 10K but there was unprecedented no-shows with no particular reason why.

The race start was down in a field near the castle.  We all ambled down the path to the field to then completely not hear the run briefing at all, and then we were led to the actual start line.  I was about  3/4 down the bunch of runners as we walked to the start line and then people ahead were suddenly, without any warning, just running.  Nobody knew where the start line was or when we should have considered the race to have started, but we all just pootled off over a narrow bridge and down the road into a new housing estate by the estuary.

I wasn't sure how I'd be only a week after what I'd thought was a pretty peppy 10 miler.  I kinda wanted to aim for a sub 2 hour half marathon but given how I'd not wanted to get out of bed and didn't much feel like running hard and sucking up any hurt, I decided to take the first mile as a warm-up and assessment and see what that pace looked like before deciding what to do with the other 12.1 miles.  When the beep for the first mile came, 09:22 was a bit disappointing and I thought "oh well, no PB for me today."

My half marathon PB at 02:03:05 at another spontaneous holiday race two years ago, when I was about 4kg lighter and had quite a bit of Ironman fitness still going on, seemed a bit ambitious to break if the first mile was 09:22 and I did some sums (always a bad idea when putting out effort - you should see some of the spectacular basic maths errors I make in that condition) which told me that even if I held that pace, I'd be on for just about squeaking in at 2 hours 2 minutes and change, but with the 30m hill in the last 400m of distance it'd be touch & go.  So I mentally gave up and decided to just take a look every mile and see what happened.

The route was pretty darned boring really.  Along a tow path in a housing estate, with the estuary on one side, then down a tree/bush lined gravel trail to a turn-around point and onto a road, over the canal, down a long road through fields into a headwind to a dead turn point and back through the fields, over the canal and along a main road back to the gravel trail and into town again.  Not much to look at, but it meant for concentrating on the runners around you.

Each time my watch beeped, it was showing 08:xx per mile from 39 to 53 as a variation. I overtook *tons* of people.  Apart from one little woman all in black.  She overtook me at around 3 miles in and I couldn't let her go after that.  My legs felt fine and I felt fine, overtaking ones and twos and the odd cluster of runners, but always that woman all in black just ahead of me who I couldn't pull back in.  She kept me honest for about 7 miles until, by surprise, I finally overtook her on the main road back towards the trail, at around the 9 mile point.  I wasn't sure if it'd stick, but it seemed to and she looked to have slowed down and run out of oomph.  When I next looked down at my watch at a one mile beep, it turned out I'd speeded up and had just hit a 08:39 mile.  I did more sums.  A sub 2 hour time was well on the cards and if I felt like it, I could slow right down to 10 minute miles for the rest of it and still just beat 2 hours.  But I didn't want to do that.

I carried on reeling in the odd runner here and there and was a bit smug feeling that I'd get through this race with not one person overtaking me.  Hah.  A bloke in a green top and a black Camelbak sneaked up, not long after I'd overtaken the woman in black and he pulled away a little.  Nooooo! And a mile later I had him back again and he said "final push now!" as I pushed very slowly past him, breathing quite loudly.  I couldn't speak really, but as my watch beeped and I saw it saying 08:37 I blurted out "oh shit!".  I couldn't believe I was not only still holding sub 9 minute miles but that I was appreciably quicker than that.

Carrying on sucking up the feeling like I was putting in reasonable effort, I made that overtake stick and kept motoring until the final stretch of road by the estuary where I suddenly lost heart and slowed.  I had two more people to overtake; an old fella in a running club shirt and a woman in black & white vertical stripes.  I just managed to overtake the man, but I couldn't muster up anything to push enough to overtake the woman.  Rounding the corner to run along the field we started in, I really ran out of steam, slowed to 09:20/mile pace and then walked a couple of steps up the bridge over the railway lines before the final slog up to the prison.

She was back!  The woman in black!  Argh!  She powered past me up the cobbled road to the prison gates and there was nothing I could do.  Then as I went through the gates I heard yelling that someone was right behind me and I could hear him.  It was the bloke in green I'd overtaken a little while back.  No way was he going to be allowed overtake me in the final few meters, so I broke into a sprint and just pulled away from him to cross the line.

Smashed my half marathon PB, despite that evil hill at the end (though I clearly lost heart a bit before that).  Official time 01:57:16 - a PB by 05:56.  And I negative split by 38s.

I had a good chat with the woman in black and the man in green and thanked them for keeping me honest - it sounded like they'd had fun too.  And then it was awards time for the winners.  In keeping with the spirit of local races with prizes donated by local businesses, the overall winner got a microwave.

It was definitely time for breakfast by then, having had only a cup of tea at about 07:30 and a mouthful of crap coffee from the coffee shop before the race.  So we adjourned to a nearby pub for Sunday lunch - 2 pints of ale for me, and pea and mint soup with bread and butter, then roast lamb with a ton of veg and a Yorkshire pudding.

I'm pretty pleased with that race.  Being about 4-5kg heavier than I want to be at the moment (mainly due to wine), having had ales and curry the night before, having only started back running again 5.5 months ago, after 4 months off and learning to walk again in March this year and I was in the top half of finishers, top 25 of 86 women and 6th V40 woman out of 28, and PBing by pretty much 6 minutes (so just under 30s/mile faster every single mile for 13 miles).  Yeah, pretty bloody pleased with that indeed.

Knee over ankle in the loading phase :o)

Race report: Cumberland Ale 10

We're on holiday, so of course we're going to be running a 10 mile race on the 2nd day of it!

That's one of the lovely things about low-key local running races is that you can turn up and enter on the day and it'll be lovely and everyone will be lovely.  And we did, and it was, and they were.

The Cumberland Ale 10 is a 10 mile foot race that starts at the Jennings Brewery in Cockermouth, Cumbria.  It's not flat, but it's a cracking course.  The route is a lollipop with a water station at the top of the stick (in both directions) and there's about 250m of elevation gain over the route with a couple of appreciable hills - one after you go through the water station for the second time where I finally gave in and walked, and just where the official photographer is lying in wait. Yay!

I put in some effort for this race.  Starting off at a reasonable pace for the first mile (which was all uphill with a gentle climb out of the town), I turned it up a bit after that.  This race was all about having some fun with no targets, no pressure, no goals other than to enjoy it.  And enjoy it I did.

The other thing about local races is that the field is very different from larger, mass participation events.  You find that most of the runners are part of local running clubs and the finishing time distribution is very compressed compared with those mass participation events.  Having started out right at the back, and put in quite some effort all the way through (max HR 201! Downhill!), I only managed to overtake 8 people over the course.  Coming in 19th lady out of 25 (and 55th of 64 runners overall) is a bit demoralising given the effort, but... (context is everything).

I spent 6 miles of the race trying to reel in a local runner.  She'd pull away a bit on the uphills and a tiny bit on the "flat" bits and I'd pull her in on the downhills that were steeper than totally trivial.  Overall I just couldn't quite manage it in the end, but she kept me honest and kept me from chickening out and taking it easy (apart from that one uphill...).

I can certainly say I put in a pretty even effort throughout, and high even for me.  It's encouraging in that respect that I'm remembering how to hurt again, in terms of putting in the effort rather than actually being quick at all.  I've never been a quick runner really and with vanishingly small exposure to hills beyond pimple-like undulations, it's only to be expected that on this course I wouldn't do anywhere near as well as the locals.  I am pretty pleased that I ran all the hills bar one and that my effort and pace was pretty even.  OK, so it was only 10 miles, but it was an honest, fun 10 miles.

EPIC SUFFERFEST!

The spread of food afterwards was amazing!  And a bottle of beer as a finishing token - never mind your t-shirts and medals; beer is where it's at!

I can heartily recommend looking up local races when you're on holiday.  Especially when they're hosted by a brewery!

Thames Path: Day 4 - Streatley to Cookham

This was the day of Serious Wind.

Starting from the pub in Moulsford, I'd run today's route as far as Reading with Louise and then as far as just past Remenham as a recce trip but ended up having to short cut onto the A4155 to Marlow to get picked up - a good 5 miles running down a national speed limit road with no pavements.  That was quite a learning experience that day.  Anyway, it meant that I hadn't actually run the section from Remenham to Marlow before and having recced then from Eton Dorney onwards, there was a good chunk of today's route I'd not seen before.

I'd decided I was going to break up the longer days into two sections.  This is a holiday, you see, and not some sort of enforced torture-march, so I'm supposed to be enjoying myself.  Today's planned stop was at the cafe at Sonning lock.

This was not only the windy day, but also the hilly section.  For a path that follows the river, there's a reasonably hilly bit up through Goring and Streatley which interfered a little with the continuing run: walk strategy of 8 mins:2 mins.  I've trained for flat, so the slightest incline is really hard right now.

That may not look steep, but see how high I got quite quickly...

Another pretty, tree-lined section again today, and despite the wind there was a good bit of sunshine too, to lift the spirits.

More hills.

Mmmfuzzy (sweaty lens again)

And then a long, long, long private road section that leads into Whitchurch.

See the leaves being blown right off the trees in the winds.

Some lovely flat meadows again on the approach into Reading, but they belie some quite uneven ground underneath the grass.  It *looks* soft and flat, but it's pretty hard on the ankles and feet.

Yay. Mapledurham lock has a really useless distance sign on it.  Where does "London" start exactly? Is it to the edge, the middle, the City...?

A more useful sign seen a few times through this area was the leftovers again from the Centurion Winter 100 race.  One of these gave me a great heads-up on a sharpish left to cross railway tracks at Tilehurst, thanks guys!

This bit of the path has a quite long section through a housing estate.  It's steepish in places and you feel like a right idiot hiking through a housing estate in full long-distance running kit with running vest/pack loaded up and soft water bottles flopping around like cow udders on your shoulders.  Well, I did anyway.  And this was the second time of doing it, having run through here weeks earlier with Louise.  I was very glad of that recce run, otherwise I think I might have been quite disappointed by this section.

Popping out of the other side of Tilehurst/Purley-on-Thames, brings you into the Caversham-ish area and some really pretty bits of path again.  This section is concreted and that makes for a nicely dry run even if it has been raining quite heavily.

Wow!  London just got 20 miles closer in less than 5 miles of running; magic!  And soon, Sonning Lock hove into view.  It was shortly before 11am and the cafe opened in 10 minutes, so I sheltered in their lovely little riverside garden until the lady opened the cafe and apologised for lack of hot food.

No mind; there was shelter, tea, cake and power for my devices.  Perfect.  Two mugs of tea, half an hour of device charging and a slab of Victoria sponge later and it was time to get back out and brave the gales some more.



Heading out into the pretty fierce wind again, part two of day four took me out towards another new section and one with some of the route away from the river.  Stopping always runs the risk of it being hard to get going again, though the day I ran 34 miles with a break in the middle for lunch, I really didn't have any problems with that at all.  Today, it was definitely harder.  With 3.5 days of running already in my legs, my hamstrings were creaky and my feet really very sore and achey.  It takes a while for things to warm back up again and the pain of my feet to get backgrounded by my brain.

I love these little alleyways, especially when it's windy!  Though this little bit really feels like you're going through someone's back garden...

Again with the long private road through Lower Shiplake and onwards towards Henley.

Some of the bridges and weirs are utterly spectacular.  This one outside Henley has to be my favourite.  It goes on forever!  And last time I ran over it, I came across a little spaniel about 1/4 the way to the end, lying on it's belly with all four legs outstretched and trembling.  The poor little fella was terrified of the big gaps between the planks and had given up in a shivering heap, so I called his owners to come and give him a lift to the end of the bridge.

The river was very high through Henley and the wind still pretty fierce, mostly a head wind which was starting to get really boring.

Henley - a section I'd not done before

A long concreted section gave way to another field *yawn*.  Pretty though as the sun had broken out for a few hours and despite the wind, the weather was making things look all picturesque.

There are stretches of the Thames both yesterday and today that have some utterly enormous river-fronted houses.  Lord alone knows how much they cost or, indeed, how anyone actually gets to work from them to anywhere sensible.

Another awesome-looking mansion

After a while it gets a bit grating, seeing enormous mansion after immense manse, especially when you're a good 30 miles into a 35 and a bit mile day.  I was starting to get a bit weary by now and wondering how far away Marlow was, as that would mark the final couple of miles to Cookham and the end of the day's running.

Thankfully, around yet another of the bends in the river, Marlow's distinctive skyline came into view.

HELLO MARLOW!

I was pretty confident in the day's mileage, so I knew it was only a couple more miles from Marlow to get to where I was staying that night, just off the river in Cookham.  And as I ran into Marlow, the heavens opened for the day's predicted rain, and for the first time I actually put on my fabulous Salomon rain jacket, put the hood up and trotted through town for as long as the rain lasted.  A whole 5 minutes!   Rain had been promised for the entire day's run and I was pretty pleased that it only came pretty much right at the end and very briefly.  The jacket performed beautifully and I was dry as a bone on the inside; smugness ensued despite the tiredness and wishing for Cookham to come.

And come it did.  A trek through yet another riverside meadow, almost to the marina in Cookham, before hitting stop on the TomTom for the day and cutting across a field to The Crown for the night.  35.2 miles done and wondering, yet again, how I was going to manage the next day of 35ish miles again.

What was really good about getting started this morning was that it was getting easier to crank up the legs in the morning.  Day one had been rubbish, which was "hilarious" at the time seeing as it was only day one.  Day two was not too bad but hamstrings were quite tight and took over an hour to warm up.  Day three was about the same as day two, but this morning it took almost no time at all and that was pretty heartening.