A couple of weeks ago I decided it was high time to step up and run in an actual competition. Not only is it more enjoyable to run with other people, but I think it's probably a good idea to practice learning to pace yourself in a race, as it becomes much harder when there's other competitors all around running at different speeds. So long-term friend and recent cycling buddy Jason Lilley and I signed ourselves up for a local 10k running event. 10k is quite a nice distance, as it's long enough to make it worthwhile, and short enough to keep it interesting (exactly like my penis). The weather was on our side, but unfortunately the landscape was not, and it is not flirting with understatement to say we both found it pretty tough going. Though I didn't actually stop running at any stage, at some points it felt I could crawl on my belly faster than I was actually running. Nonetheless, I achieved a personal best time of 51 minutes and 45 seconds.
To put that time in perspective: Mo Farah's personal best is 26 minutes and 46 seconds, which is roughly half the time of mine, and Alistair Brownlee completed his 10k in the recent Olympic triathlon in just over 29 minutes, and that was after a mile and a half swim and and 40k bike ride (a marathon on a bike in other words). However, for someone at my age and running level it still wasn't a bad time, and I was pleased to note that I finished before many club runners. I'd been toying with the idea of joining a running club to aid my marathon training, but after seeing many of the club members I decided against it. They all seemed a bit too geeky, and just...not cool.
Flash forward one week, and Lilley and I have signed up for another event of a fairly different nature. This would be a 90 mile cycle ride around around Essex, and I was definitely fearing this one much more than the previous week's 10k. 90 miles is long way, even on a road bike, and we would be looking at at least six hours continual riding. The morning of the ride we checked the weather, and, upon seeing that rain was forecast for the afternoon, decided to plump for the medium route, which was 'only' 60 miles. I don't think either of us were particularly disappointed to cut our ride down by a third, and the thought of riding out in heavy rain for a couple hours firmed up the decision. Again, the climbs proved much tougher than we expected, but we made it round in four hours, which is a fairly respectable 15mph average, and only one puncture.
I had sort of hoped that the cycle ride would give me an insight into what it is like to exercise for four hours non stop, as that is the sort of time I hope to complete the marathon in. But I think there are too many differences between the disciplines of cycling and running to make the experiment valid. After the ride was finished I didn't feel particularly tired or achy, and could have carried on had the desire arose. I somehow don't imagine I'll feel like that after completeing the 26.2 miles of the London marathon. I think one of the major differences between cycling and running (apart from the fact that you're sitting down) is that when you get tired on a bike you can stop pedalling for a bit and the bike will carry on moving. It doesn't work like that with running; if you stop your legs moving you tend to fall over.
Onwardly speaking, this week I'll be taking part in a cross country 10k with my little sister (Alan), and next week a group of us are doing the Billericay 10K, in which I intend to break a sub-50 minutes time using the pace-making skills of Douglas Pleydell.
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Thanks for reading!
James
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