Pennine Lancashire 10k

Having travelled to the end of the M62 two weeks ago for the Hull 10k, this weekend I set off in the other direction and crossed the Pennines to Burnley, home of the Pennine Lancashire 10k.  Like Hull before it, I had only had reason to visit Burnley a couple of times in the past so I knew very little about what the town was like, or more importantly, what the the route for the race was.  I knew so little about Burnley that I had spent the best part of Saturday working out where I would be able to get parked.

When I wasn't double checking car parks and road closures I was checking the weather forecast.  Hull had been wet, but it was a fine drizzle on a still day, perfect for keeping cool during a run.  Burnley was set for heavy rain all morning.  I don't mind running in the rain one bit, but the idea of standing around in the rain for an hour waiting for the race to get started wasn't something I was looking forward to.  Neither was the drive over the tops.  I know that it doesn't take much for the M62 to grind to a halt so I set off from Leeds before 7am to give myself plenty of traffic jam time, should I need it.

Luckily I didn't and I was in Burnley just after 8, an hour and a half before the gun and, as it happens, kicking out time from the town's night clubs.  Groups of staggering drunken lads and girls falling out of their high heels, dodging pools of sick, was not the welcome to Burnley that I had imagined.  But I had made it and could finally start thinking about the race.  It was only then that I discovered that I'd left my watch at home.  I don't run with a clever GPS watch, just a simple stopwatch, thinking about pace and splits is part of how I run.  I felt nude and lost, but at least the forecast rain hadn't turned up yet.

I made my way from the baggage drop to the starting pens and it dawned on me how small the field was.  I was stood with the other people planning to run sub 50 and we were almost within touching distance of the start line.  The mass warm up was dutifully ignored by all around me as we primed ourselves for the start, only the start didn't come.  The announcement team jovially told us that there was a car somewhere on the course and that the police were involved in getting it moved.  This was annoying but it shows how seriously Health and Safety is taken at these events.

Isn't the start line close.

After the longest 20 minutes ever we were finally off.  Like a pack of un-caged greyhounds we hurtled along the downhill start and, as is normal, I went off too fast.  Well, I thought that I was going too fast, without my watch I had no way of knowing.  At the first kilometre flag (the site of the erroneous car which had held up the start) I had no way of knowing what my pace was.  The first kilometre of any race always lies but I had no idea what was going on.  I kept focused on my breathing and tried to block out negative thoughts about how I was actually doing.

The course left the roads of Burnley and entered Thompson Park and the start of a 4k climb.  The hill itself wasn't too bad, the gradient wasn't too steep but it did go on, twisting and turning around trail paths.  I knew I had slowed down but, again, I didn't know how much I had slowed down by.  By the time I was heading back down the long hill through Towneley Golf Course I was more or less spent.  I was slowing down whilst running down hill, convinced that my time was shocking and feeling like I had nothing left to give, even though there was still 3k to go.

That nagging "just stop for a little walk" voice just wouldn't leave me alone.  It was only because the "don't forget your watch next time you idiot" voice was louder that I managed to ignore it and run on.  Although I didn't know the course before the race started, I did know that the finish was flat apart from the slight rise to the finish line, the same road that we all ran down at the start.  After passing the 9k flag I had a word with myself, summoned all that I had left and pushed for home, something that I would normally only do in the last couple hundred meters, but needs must.

Glory achieved or could have done better?

I had started the day hoping to run sub 50.  I knew it wasn't a flat race so 45 minutes was out of the question.  When the finish gantry came into view showing the clock still in the mid 40s all doubt left me, replaced be a burning annoyance that I could have gone faster!  I crossed the line in 47:28, two and a half minutes faster than last year's flat Leeds 10k, a time that I should be happy with, but one that I know I should have been able to run faster than.

The next race in the Run For All 10k series is the Leeds in two weeks time and I have my eyes fixed very firmly on it.  I have last year's time of 49:52 to beat, but I also have the time from the Hull 10k (45:30) to deal with.  I have said in the past that I would love to run sub 45 this year and Leeds is as good a chance as any of reaching that goal, however I'll have no chance of achieving it if I leave my watch at home.

Run Leader Sancho, Run!

Why do you run?  It's a question asked often by runners and non-runners a like.  My stock answer had always been that I began running so that I wouldn't be that fat dad at sports days, unable to take part, not even fit enough to be a touch judge should R ever decide to be interested in playing Rugby.  I didn't want to be an embarrassment and I did want to be able to support him if needed.

These days however I run a lot more for me than for him.  I think it started with my first race, the 2013 Leeds 10k.  It wasn't a good run, you can read about it here, but I made it, I earned my goody bag and in that bag was my first race t-shirt.  I have been obsessed with the t-shirts ever since.

All of them have a story.  The hours, days, and weeks of training that went into earning them.  The fund raising efforts.  The friends made in the holding pens and at the finish line.  But yesterday I received a t-shirt that eclipses them all, one that I am immensely proud of, one that I will never tire of wearing.

 

Last year Ben from Run England asked me if I had ever considered being a Run Leader.  We knew each other from previous jobs but not in a running sense.  He had read this blog, talked to me about running, and for some reason thought that I was a good candidate even though I was a solitary road runner and not part of any groups.  He needed a couple of people trained up and qualified as Leaders in Running Fitness to get a new group off the ground.  That group was South Leeds Lakers and Geoff and I were those people.

We're now in the 20th week of the Lakers and we have gone from strength to strength.  From nothing, we now have 80 people registered with us.  Geoff and I have been joined by Tania and Yaz, and another clutch of run leaders are being recruited from the Lakers to ensure that we have enough cover on run nights and that we can continue to expand the group.

Every time one of the Lakers' enters a race when before they wouldn't have thought it possible my chest swells with pride.  Every PB from a 1 mile burst to the 26.2 miles of a marathon that any of them achieve makes me grin from ear to ear.  Every week, when people turn up, rain or shine, willing and wanting to run because we have said that they can, fills my heart.

Yesterday I received one of the first Run Leeds "run leader" t-shirts.  At the time I hadn't realised quite what this meant to me, but after chasing a group of runners who had taken a wrong turn and then congratulating 37 runners on another great turnout and run, I had a chance to let it sink in.  I am no longer just a solo runner, I am a Run Leader. 

Hull 10k 2015

Beyond the end of the M62 lies Kingston Upon Hull.  I've only had cause to visit the East Riding of Yorkshire a couple of times, once for a wedding and a couple of times to visit The Deep, but I have never felt the need for a day out in Hull.  York, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Halifax, all have their appeal but Hull has just never sparked off my imagination.

Finally, this weekend I had a legitimate reason for visiting the home of the Tigers, the Hull 10k.  This was the first of the five races that make up my Run For All Ultimate Season Ticket and I wanted to make a good show of it, so I arranged to stay over night in Hull rather than making a mad dash for the start line from Leeds in the morning.

The journey to Hull was fine and Gary* and I managed not to get stupidly drunk on Saturday night.  I woke fresh in the morning and consumed my traditional pre-race breakfast of black coffee and an orange juice, saving a banana for consumption 1 hour before the start of the race.  It had rained over night but from the flat window it looked like it had eased off.  We piled into a taxi and took the short drive to the centre of a rain soaked Hull.

By the time we got to the bridge over the River Hull on Alfred Gelder Street the rain was back.  We dropped our bags off and took shelter in the doorway of the Princes Quay shopping centre with the rest of the participants.  Running in the rain is no stranger to me.  I've been running in all conditions over winter, but it looked like this was going to be my first wet race day.  We took the decision to brave the elements, we were going to get very wet soon enough anyway, and we wandered towards the start pens.

I'm really doing this, right?

On our way we picked up Gav, Amy, and Hazel from South Leeds Lakers, resplendent in their lime green tshirts.  I was questioning my decision to run in a vest at this point, but there was no turning back now.  I left the gang behind and made my way into the sub 50 pen and tried to focus on gently warming up and stretching.  My legs hadn't felt the same since a drill session with Farsley Flyers on Thursday night and I didn't help myself by running Bramley parkrun either but I was ready for a run.

The obligatory speeches with local celebs felt like it would never end but finally we were under way, give or take a false start as everybody around me started running before the line only to have to slam on the breaks as the road pinched in to get us all over the timing mats.  Finally we were running and I felt good.  No nerves, no feeling that I was going too fast, passing those around me without having to weave or jump out of the way of slower runners who had found themselves in the wrong pen.

The first couple of kilometres were over fast and I could already see where some of the pinch points were going to be.  The route doubled back on itself in places with runners on both sides of the narrow roads.  As I went through 4k I saw Jan, a friend from Twitter, heading in the opposite direction.  We gave each other a high five and carried on through the drizzle.

The only scenery that I was interested in was the kilometre marker flags so I didn't really pay attention to the houses and seafront that were were running along, you could just make out the Humber bridge in the haze but it was nothing to write home about.  The Deep is impressive though and I couldn't help but smile as we passed it and the 5k marker.  I was very close to my parkrun PB time and it dawned on me that; a) I had been running too fast after all; and b) if I could just keep this pace up I'd be on for a great time.

The section through the docks should have been lovely, but my head was starting to swim with doubt over my ability, so I didn't pay any attention to the boats bobbing along side us.  The course took us back into the heart of Hull, through the pedestrianised shopping streets, which were full of crowds cheering us on, along with some people oblivious to the fact that the race was happening, blindly walking against the tide of runners, smoking and drinking, in the middle of the road.  How they weren't knocked over is beyond me.

Photo via the Hull Daily Mail.

Passing our previous rain shelter, the Princes Quay shopping centre, I knew there wasn't long left.  I had time in the bag to beat my previous 10k PB of 49:52, set in Leeds last year, and I was also close to my target for the year of running a 10k in under 45 minutes.  I hadn't set a specific target for the Hull 10k and was using it to see how close I was to that Leeds time so I was elated when I crossed the line in 45:30.  The Leeds time had fallen and I was very close to my dream time.

I really enjoyed the Hull 10k.  The conditions were perfect. The rain was gentle and cooling, there wasn't much wind to speak of and for once it wasn't a baking hot day.  The rain had made the cobbled sections through the docks slippery and the many twists and turns meant constantly altering your stride but obviously not by enough to really affect my time.

Glory Achieved

It is 4 weeks until the Leeds 10k.  4 weeks to find 30 seconds.  Only 3 seconds per kilometre.  before then there is the Pennine 10k, a trail race in Middleton and continuing training for the York marathon and the TrailTrekk so I wont manage any specific speed work.  I'll just have to see what Leeds brings, but for now I'm going to sit back and bask in the glory of the Hull 10k.

*not only was Gary my host for the night, but the Hull 10k was also going to be his first race.  For once I was out nerved. 

The road to York

A few weeks ago I took my first steps on the road to York.  No, I'm not planning to run or walk the 25 miles from my home in South Leeds to York city centre.  The road to York is my training plan for the 2015 Yorkshire Marathon which takes place in York on the 11th October.

Before I had crossed even the start line of the Leeds Half Marathon I already knew the the training for my first full marathon was only a couple of weeks away.  I gave myself a week off, and the luxury of Over the Odda, a brilliant 10k trial race, before my plan started on the 18th May.  I say the 18th of May, the first run of the plan was on Tuesday the 19th with South Leeds Lakers and I was instantly off the plan.  The run that night took us 8k through Middleton Woods and I was only meant to be running 6k, but I guess a longer run is better than a shorter one.

The plan I'm working with is an amalgam of plans I have found on line which I have altered to fit with real life and how I like to run.  I have also taken the liberty to add my own thoughts to the training plan.  The first change was to extend the plan from 16 weeks to 21 weeks.  I could have gone with a 20 week plan but I wanted to add in extra weeks to accommodate the other races that that I have entered between now and October.  This way a 10k race will not get in the way of 16 mile long slow run and I can make sure that I've not run too much in the week before a race.

My race number for Run For All 10k series. Hull, Pennine, Leeds, York.

I'm already on week 3a, the first of the additional weeks.  On Sunday I'll be taking part the Hull 10k and then I'll be getting back to the long miles.  With the extra race days, running groups, and a varied plan of long and short runs, I'm hoping that I can get to York with a spring in my step.  I know quite a few people who have fallen out of love with running due to the miles involved in marathon training and I'm determined not to be one of them. 

The road to York will be long, but it is one that I am relishing running along.

Llamas Not Included

This week my non-running challenge for the year became very real.  In August I'm taking part in TrailTrekker, a 100k walk through the Yorkshire Dales, non-stop, in under 30 hours.  The reasons why I'm taking part in this really long walk are lost in the shrouds of time, but once an idea has formed in my mind they somehow manage to take on a life of their own.  A good example of this would be the fact that I am also running my first marathon this year.  I'm not sure how signing up to that happened either.

The trekk is undertaken, for health and safety reasons, in teams of four and, on Sunday, my team 'Llamas Not Included' went out for a long walk to scout out some of the route before the main event.  Back in March we had walked the first four stages of the route in dreadful conditions. To say that morale was low at that point is an understatement.  We had returned to Leeds cold, wet and sore.  The memories of the discomfort were fresher in our minds than the memories of the route or the scenery, so we hoped for better weather this time around.

Unfortunately the weather forecast at the start of the week only served to bring the negative memories back.  Heavy rain, low temperatures, strong wind, all of the things that we had battled against previously.  The discussions in the week running up to Sunday's walk were all of the "shall we do something else" variety.  We met up on Thursday evening, following a presentation about the event, to work out what we were going to do.  I don't know if it was the beer or the fact that we had been encouraged by the powerpoint presentation, but we decided to brave the elements and walk the next three stages, from Horton in Ribblesdale to Buckden.

It was almost 9 o'clock in the morning before we set off from Horton on the Pennine Way, the path that had previously brought us here from Gargrave.  It was raining, but not as heavily as the forecast had made out.  It was obvious that it had been raining heavily though as the stone path was running like a stream, all be it a very shallow one.  We crossed the 3 Peaks path and immediately wished that we had taken it rather than sticking to the Pennine Way, which was flooded.  We took our time and looked for a route around the pop-up river that shouldn't have been emptying into the lake that had formed in front of us.  In the end we had to wade through the shallowest parts of the saturated tundra.  My feet were soaked and we had only been walking for 3k.  This was not the start to the day that I had hoped for.

That stream is the Pennine Way

As well as making ponds out of puddles, the wet conditions also added spectacle to the early stages of the walk.  The waterfall at Calf Holes was in full flow, as were the falls at Ling Gill where we also found wild orchids.  I had never seen a British orchid before.  My first sighting of these small, brilliantly purple flowers, coincided with the change in the weather.  The rain eased off and above us the clouds began to break.  The wind at our backs stiffened as we climbed the day's only slope, up Cam Fell, and before long we said farewell to the Pennine Way and hello to the Dales Way.

As much as PW had left us sodden, on both walks, DW was pulling no punches from the first steps.  The slope back down Cam Fell was spongy and wet at best.  Our purposeful strides to the summit had been replaced by tentative steps as we tried to find the driest way to Cam Farm and the first of the day's checkpoints.  It had taken us three hours but any lost time would have been made up if we'd had a canoe.  The soggy ground continued until we got to Swarthgill Farm where it became a proper track.  Thoughts entered our heads about running this section in August (to use different muscle groups) but as it will be dark next time we're on the path it didn't feel like a good idea.

Stunning view from Yockenthwaite Farm

We stopped for a rest by the ford at Beckermond, before pushing on to Deepdale and the second stage stop of the day.  The grey sky gave way to blue and before long we were all over-dressed.  For the first time in two days walking we were well fed and not cold.  The forecast strong wind was on our backs and everything was in our favour.  A little over an hour later we arrived back in Buckden, smiles on our faces, already contemplating our next training walk.

Well earned pint in the sunshine back in Buckden

Regardless of what our next training session is, team 'Llamas Not Included' will be setting out to complete the 100k walk on Saturday 22nd August, aiming for all four of us to make it round by the morning of Sunday 23rd.  We are under no illusion that as nice as the last part of training was, the full event will be a hard physical and mental challenge.  As well as pushing ourselves, we are also raising money for Oxfam, who are organising the event.  If you would like to make a donation to give us a morale boost and support the work Oxfam do please follow the link to our Just Giving page.