Running – the peaks I reached
Now I’m not saying that I’m giving up running, but I am absolutely sure that I will never run as quickly as I used to. Therefore, I want to note here the personal bests I achieved in the (roughly) 10 years I’ve been a runner.
The reason I can cite these as a peak with reasonable confidence is that the past two years of niggles around my hip area have now settled down to a consistently annoying pain that is fine to jog around on for 40-50 minutes but no longer, and certainly not at speed.
So here are my personal bests. They are well good and I am properly chuffed with them. As someone who was rubbish at sport at school and effectively did no exercise at all throughout my twenties, I feel proud of these times.
5km – 17:54 – Sandhurst, Gloucester, July 2007
10km – 37:54 – Market Drayton, Shropshire, May 2007
10 miles – 1:07:39 – Walsall, December 2005
Half Marathon – 1:23:21 – Telford, March 2009 (I won money for this one!)
20 miles – 2:17:26 – Bury St. Edmunds, February 2008
Marathon – 3:01:22 – London, April 2008
You can understand how gutting that last time is, knowing I won’t go under 3 hours yet got so close. Ah well, never mind.
Of course running shorter distances, at a slower pace, is actually quite nice. I’ll still try to turn out for my club‘s competitive events from time to time, and, inevitably, I’ll still make some reference to running and the data it generates when I talk about digital/social media stuff in public. As I did last week in a talk in Toledo near Madrid:
My Birmingham Half Marathon 2009
First off, what a well-organised race this was. All the various races (elite men, women, wheelchair, mass) started on time, the baggage drop-off was managed well enough and I didn’t have to queue for a portaloo. Support along the route was great, especially around Bournville where obviously it helps to have Bournville written on your running vest
I came 251st in 1:27:21. A full four minutes off my best but I was pleased enough as my training drifted a little in recent weeks. A full season of cross-country over the winter should see me posting better times in the new year hopefully.
Well done to everyone that took part and especially to the masses of colleagues from Bournville Harriers. Some really impressive times amongst club members but Mel James’ 1:23:04 and 6th woman back (first in her age category) was the stand out. I think it was actually Mel’s first ever half marathon.
Here’s the map from my Garmin if you want to see how my race panned out:
(pic: Pete Ashton)
Dave Harte – winner!
I won a prize for running. My first ever prize for running. In fact my first ever prize for anything athletic ever. Or for anything at all now I think about it. It turns out I won the top prize for my age category (40-45) at the Ironbridge Half Marathon the other week. I went straight home after the race, not even thinking to stop to see if I’d won anything. So the above cheque and explanatory scrap of paper that arrived in the post today were most welcome.
I was actually third in my age category but the other two were in the top five in the race overall so got separate prizes for that leaving me to scoop £30 as the next fastest vet 40 male. The prize list is here (PDF).
This is so exciting I came close to breaking my twitter fast. I plan to spend my winning on more lucky running pants.
Back from an awesome run….
….as I used to say on Twitter.
Actually I’m back from a storming run at the Ironbridge Half Marathon in Telford. Personal Best of 1:23:21, third in my age category, 17th overall, and a male veteran 40 record for Bournville Harriers. I don’t think I’ve felt as good in a race for a very long time.
I’ve ran this a couple of times before so I know by now that the first half is very quick, being largely downhill, and the second half can be tough, being largely uphill. The times tell their own story with my early 6′ 15″ miles becoming 6′ 40″ miles by the end of the race. I reached 10k in about 38 minutes and my legs only really felt heavy in the last couple of miles.
The scenery as always was lovely and this time around the lack of rain recently meant a virtually mud-free course. This remains one of my favourite half-marathons, not just because I seem to go quick here but because it is always well organised, friendly and a decent challenge.
For the record I was wearing my recently purchased special running pants. From now on to be universally referred to as my lucky pants.
(Pic from Telford Harriers)
Ely New Year’s Eve 10k – Race Report
What is it about this race? I’ve now run it four times and despite achieving sub-40 minute 10k times pretty consistently elsewhere I still haven’t done it here. This year I crossed the finish line in 40 minutes and one second. How frustrating is that? Three training runs in the past six weeks probably goes some way to explaining the time; that or the two glasses of wine, a beer and that extra slice of cheesecake the night before.
Ely Runners put on a great 10k. Its main, and unique, attraction is the bottle of real ale you get for finishing it but it’s also a well-organised run around some rather nice flat countryside. It starts in Little Downham just outside Ely and you basically complete a squarish route back to the village. If the wind is up then it can be a tricky course given how ‘up’ the wind can get across the Fens. But this year was calm and cold. Very cold in fact. I went for the gloves and vest look but there were some runners who were covered head to toe. Of course I was freezing but I had hoped that would make me run quicker. Clearly it didn’t.
Chatting to a runner afterwards he tried to console me by saying that in some ways this race is too flat. Actually it does have a single incline at the 8km mark, hardly a hill but with a lone piper at the top of it creating the effect of it seeming more epic than it actually is.
The race finished with a sprint across a frozen field, not a quick enough sprint by me but the conditions did deliver some good results with the winner, Rob Joy of Notts AC, finishing well ahead of second place in 31:15. Congrats to everyone who braved the cold – and especially to those 49 runners who did get under 40 minutes.
Race result:
David Harte Bournville Harriers MV40 0:40:01 51st
(pic Charlie Barker – he’s captured my peculiar ‘thumbs-up’ look very nicely)
Birmingham Half Marathon race report
So that was the first ever Birmingham Half Marathon. All told it was pretty good. Here’s a brief report on the day:
It was of course a horrible night weather-wise (not as bad as up in the Lake District of course but thank goodness all the runners there are safe). By the time a group of eight of us got into a shared taxi at 7.40am it was just down to light drizzle and had stopped by the time the race started. I have no doubt that any complaints about the race will be based around the traffic at the start (big queues to park) and the loos (big queues to wee). Neither affected me much but I suspect the former was responsible for the 15 minute delay at the start. The pen system at the start worked well with runners starting according to their predicted finishing time.
The race was off by 9.45am and I have to say that it felt great to run on such wide roads. There was no runner congestion and generally good support all around. The underpasses and flyovers of Perry Barr were on the undulating side and running through the centre of town was fun but the really tricky hills were in Edgbaston. Every corner you turned seemed to be another uphill. The support on these roads was great and the water stations were well placed. Big thanks to Helen Foot who acted as my support crew by having a sickly orange energy gel ready for me at about mile 6.
The last two miles of this course are great. Given how tired my legs were after yesterday’s cross-country efforts I probably didn’t make the most of the two mile ever-so-slightly-downhill section but I gathered a little speed as I came past the large crowds lining Broad Street. An attempted sprint finish didn’t quite come off but I finished 96th in 1hr 27 min 11 sec. That’s a second best time for me at this distance.
Overall there were about 40 Bournville Harriers running. Four of them were ahead of me with a couple of personal bests being achieved. Full results are online now. Well done to all.
I think the race was a triumph but I’ve no doubt there’ll gripes, especially from runners themselves (not flat enough, not scenic enough, no chocolate in the goody bag – runners can be a miserable bunch). But anyone who got themselves organised enough to arrive early, took in the atmosphere (lots of music along the way as well) and had the right attitude will have come away with a smile on their face as well as a medal around their necks.
By way of an aside yesterday’s cross-country was great as usual, and of course, muddy:
(pics Paul Foot although it must have been his wife Helen as Paul was one of the people stuck up a mountain in the Lake District)
On racing trains and being 40
I spent Saturday racing against a train. To those not familiar with the weird and wonderful world of running this involves what it says on the tin – racing against a train. It’s simple really. Pack the 2.05pm departure of the Talyllyn Railway full of friends and family and start a race at the same time. Run as parallel as you can to the train for the 7 miles there and 7 miles back and the see who wins. On this occasion I’m pleased to say I won (along with quite a few others) – but only by about 10 seconds, coming in at circa 1:47:30 – official results to follow.
What a race though. You get to run through fields, people’s backyards, up the side of steep hills, through muddy streams – anywhere as long as it’s close to the railway track. I fell over a couple of times, wore the wrong trainers and generally had a tough time of it. My legs were so tired towards the end I walked a few times just to recover – something I only do if I’m really, really suffering. The train did go past me near the end (but then foolishly stopped at a station allowing me to just beat it back) with my family sticking their heads out of the window and yelling advice and encouragement at me – or at least I think they were, I couldn’t hear a thing over the noise of the train. Overall, a great race for which I woefully under-trained and suffered as a result. Oh and despite it being cloudy and rainy I still got sunburnt.
It’s not the first race I ran this week. That was the Rowheath 5k on Thursday. I suffered there as well. Almost a full minute behind my PB. What’s going on? I turned 40 in July so I’m now in the veteran category. I should be relishing putting down some great times yet instead I’m running badly in any distance you care to set me. What’s that you say? Why don’t I just start training properly? Instead of moaning maybe I could show my face on Saturday morning training sessions? Maybe run more than twice a week? Oh come on you’re just being silly now.
Running to stand still
I spend too much time on this blog telling you about my gardening exploits. You’d have thought I’d given up running completely so this is a brief post to update you on where I am with that aspect of my life at the moment:
Training – in case you didn’t know I ran the London Marathon in 3hrs 1 minute in April and since then I’ve eased off training (compunded by a light ankle niggle in the weeks just after the race). I’ve been a bit half-hearted about it actually but I plan to step it up with the aim of getting a personal best half-marathon time at the year’s Birmingham half-marathon. Colleagues in my running club are even getting me to think about my spring 2009 marathon (maybe London, maybe somewhere else) and how I should be training for it now – yikes!
I’ve started running home from work a couple of times a week which is good for the soul, and on the pocket given the price of fuel. It’s only about 4 miles or more if I take the scenic route via Cannon Hill park (more again via the canals) but overall I doubt I’m running more than 25 miles a week at the moment, often less.
Racing – My last race was the Malvern half-marathon on June 22nd in which I came in the top 30 and recorded a good time in windy conditions of under 1hr 29mins. I was however a little dissapointed as it felt harder than any race I’d done for a while and I tailed off very badly in the second half. I should have paced myself for a more sensible run. I’ve much to do ahead of Birmingham in October if I’m to hit 1hr 26mins.
In mid-August, for fun more than competition, I race against a train across fields in Wales. Beating the train there and back along the route is quite difficult apparently but it should be fun. I’d like to squeeze in a 10k race at some point over the summer or early Autumn but I should wait until I’m at least a little fitter.
So overall this post is to let you know that I’m running less (I was doing 5-6 days a week during marathon training and up to 50 miles) but still enjoying it. In fact I’m probably enjoying it precisely because I’m running less.