'A Run Is A Run'

This morning the clocks go back, so we get an extra hour in bed. Although we do try and keep this information from the party goers in case they try to stay a bit longer. Not that it will affect them if they don’t plan on sleeping.

Once we are up, we head over to the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham. This is the location for the Birmingham 10k, our second race in the second city in eight days. ‘Birmingham 10k’ is a grand title that implies a ‘big city’ 10k. An image reinforced by the finish of the race being inside the Alexander Stadium and the fact that the race was advertised on Runners World.

After we’d entered at a cost of £12 + a £2 booking fee, closer inspection revealed a lack of information on a London based football website that would have been the location for further details had there been any.

Finally a few days before the race an email arrived informing us that the course was now multi-terrain not road as advertised and consisted of four laps of Perry Park. It also would not start or finish inside the stadium due to building work taking place there. Quite a few entrants were not happy about this and some demanded their money back.

I was unsure about it all myself but 'a run is a run' I suppose. I can’t believe I just said that. I’ll be out ‘jogging’ next. Oddly though it sounds like the sort of race I do well in. So we leave Doggo and MD in the car, to howl their displeasure at our absence, and head off to collect our race numbers from the organiser.

On paper the organisation didn’t look good at all but in the end it all went off very well. The race was well marshalled, well signed and even had a half decent goodie bag that included both a t-shirt and a medal, though no munchies.

There were no km markers, which wasn’t a surprise. Just how do you km mark a four lap race? Somehow they need to adapt this into, at most, a two lapper. In fact the four laps actually turned out to be four and a half. Luckily for me, as I’m crap at counting, they had marshals counting for you and letting you know when you’d done enough. Luckily for them, it was quite a small field that they had to keep track of.

It was a pleasant-ish course or would have been if we hadn’t had to do it four times. Though quite hard work at times as there were long sections on the long wet grass which at least got trampled down by lap four. Counting how many people I had lapped kept me occupied and relieved the monotony a touch.

At the end of each lap there was a drinks station. Well a pile of bottles on the floor and a surly teenage girl with her arms folded wondering why she was stood in the middle of a damp park early on a Sunday morning when she could have been doing something less constructive like a normal teenager.

By the second lap someone had clearly had a word, she had some bottles in her hands and looked as if she might be considering handing them out.

By the third lap she had help. All the other marshals were great though.

In the end I came 13th, although my time wasn’t great. It turned out to be a half decent race that could have better had more (and correct) information been provided in advance. We would not have entered but for the inaccurate information on the usually reliable Runners World website. There’s potential there and they hope to sort that stadium finish for next year.

In the evening we work on Daughter’s personal ‘sodding’ statement, her angelic words not mine. Her first draft is pretty good, my re-draft even better. L reckons I’d be sure to pull a fresher with that sort of spiel. Hmmm. She thinks...

Unfortunately my sort of girl is the type who gets up to run four laps around a park fifty miles away on a Sunday morning. I know how to pull her. I take a bottle out of the wine rack and reach for the corkscrew.

(Sunday 31st October)

It’s Not My Week

Serious stuff today, as we get a safety briefing before the start of the Welbourn Castle 10k Trail Run. It concerns muddy fields, slippery bridges and rabbit holes. As I said serious stuff, for my ankles.

This race got absolutely murdered on the Runners World forums last year for its unfriendliness to runners but the organisers appear to have listened. It’s a new ‘improved course’ using farmer’s roads, footpaths and bridleways. There even seems to be plenty of tarmac in it for people like me who prefer the terra firma to the terra very muddy. Walkers have been told, politely I assume, to start at the back and to not get in the way of the runners and the whole thing kicks off from the brand new Welbourn Village Hall with all facilities on site. So I can’t whinge really.

It is a bit warm though... and it’s certainly hard going on the legs, particularly on those narrow tracks that really flexed my ankles. Still, this is just a training run. I don’t want to do ‘fast’ as this is part of my Nottingham Half Marathon training where I won’t be running at my usual 10k pace. So I took it fairly steady and I even stopped at the first drinks station. I also have half an eye on my planned run home from work tomorrow, 12 miles hopefully. I need to save some energy for that.

Overall, the race was pleasant enough. I almost enjoyed it. Well apart from that ploughed field near the end, that wasn’t the best. My time of 46 minutes wasn’t too bad either in the circumstances and I also came in just ahead of the first lady, which is always nice. I so seem to be allergic to this race though, as my legs were nicely red afterwards. I seem to have picked up a nasty rash from somewhere, clearly something in the undergrowth disagreed with me.

Then the best bit. All the runners got a free pint afterwards at the local pub, The Joiners Arms, so that was good, and also a Toonie Express Mug. Toonie Express being the organisers and very well organised it was as well. Doubt they’ll be any complaints this year.



Then we go bed shopping. We’re finally replacing the one Son trashed at one of his parties. As he starts Uni in October and parties are banned anyway, this one hopefully will be with us a bit longer than the last one was. We buy a new mattress with it but then faced with a hefty delivery fee comes the problem of getting it home. Until the salesman introduces us to vacuum packed mattresses which means you can get it in the car but then when you open the packaging it explodes into life and becomes a normal mattress. Cool.

After that the day is just like old times, the perfect race day, out for Sunday lunch after a post race bath and warm down. Then having survived the morning’s race I fall off a chair at home and injure my wrist. Not completely my fault, it was a chair that I had repaired after it also, like the bed, fell victim to one of Son’s parties. This tells me two things. One, I’m not very good at repairing chairs and two, it’s not my week.

(Sunday 22nd August)

This Is Going To Hurt

Back to reality today. The reality of having to go to work and the reality of having the Nottingham Half Marathon looming just 27 days away. Two weeks before that I have the Chesterfield 10 miler.

Both L and I book into a 10k for the weekend, for training purposes. The Welbourn Castle 10k is off road and reviews of last year's inaugural event on Runners World are not promising, in fact they are horrendous. It is so not my type of event. However they say they've changed the course this year, even introduced a bit of road to it and beggars, who are low on training, can’t be choosers.

I get the bus into work, as I’m going to run home.

My last training run was 9 miles a few weeks ago, so I daren’t drop the distance from that. I need to get some miles under my feet. However, after nearly two weeks with only one run and that was just a short one with L on holiday, I know this is going to hurt. It does. Though knowing it will does not make it any easier.

Somehow, with a few stops, I manage an impress 10.75 miles, though it wasn’t pretty. As further punishment for being a slacker I vow to cycle to work tomorrow.

Son is away, so L puts on the protective clothing and goes up to blitz his room. Collecting up the hundreds of empty pot noodles cartons, half-eaten pizza slices, empty Strongbow cans and probably the odd packed lunch from school that’s been festering for the last three years. I think the environment is so harsh up there that even the cockroaches are having trouble surviving there.



(Monday 16th August)