Paul’s
Orienteering Blog
Sunday 13 April 2008
London Marathon
So after many months of
training, the day of the marathon finally arrived. I was feeling fairly good in the morning –
despite the 5:30am alarm – and had a good trip up to the race start, catching a
lift with the 26.2 RRC club coach from Surbiton to Blackheath. Despite a few delays we reached the start in
good time, arriving at one of the biggest race arenas I have ever seen in
Greenwich Park. The weather was looking
great, not too cold and beautiful clear skies – not that that would last!
Luckily my predicted time of
3:15 gave me a fairly decent starting position, in pen 2 out of 9, which meant
that I was fairly close to the front. It
turned out that I crossed the start line less than a minute from the starting
horn, and was running at a reasonable pace from the start – this was much
better than I had expected given all of the warnings about the very slow first
few miles. The route was pretty crowded
all the way round, but I rarely felt that I was being slowed down by the crowds
at all. If anything I started too
quickly – perhaps anxious to avoid the slow start that I had been expecting! –
and I ran the third mile far too quickly in 6:17 (although I knew that this was
the fastest mile of the race, being mainly downhill).
I felt really good
throughout the first half of the race, and was running consistently just under
7-minute miles. I saw my crowd of
supporters – Tess, Mum, Dad & Ian – for the first time (out of 3) after
mile 9 and was running very strongly at this stage. The crowds were fantastic, even throughout
the first half of the race which I thought would be a lot emptier, and there
was rarely a free stretch of road without any spectators. There were particularly big crowds in the
first half around Cutty Sark, and then a huge wave of noise as I ran across
Tower Bridge after 12 miles, one of the great landmarks of the race.
It was after this
point that I first started to feel a little tired, but kept going ok until
around mile 15 at which point the rain finally came. I didn’t cope well with this, and the day
quickly turned from being bright and clear to a torrential hard cold rainstorm,
and I began to feel very cold and wet and started really slowing down. My mile splits slowed from 6:55 (14) and 7:05
(15) to 7:35 (16) and 7:25 (17), after which point I never dipped below 7:30
again – it felt like a very quick onset of fatigue. Unfortunately this period also co-incided
with the least spectated part of the route, around the south side of the Isle
of Dogs, and I found it very hard going around here.
The crowds around Canary
Wharf area (miles18-19) were excellent again and this spurred me on a bit (it
was good to see my folks again at around 18½ miles). I did enjoy the stretch after around 21 miles
where you ran for around a mile or two in the opposite direction to the runners
who were on the 13-14 mile mark – it was pleasing to see that at least I was on
the least crowded side of the road and that there were plenty of people a long
way behind me. It was also good to see
lots of the fancy dress runners going the other way, as there weren’t too many
around me. Having said that I had a long
battle for a few miles against Scooby Doo, before finally running away from him
– but I have to say it was fairly demoralising to be overtaken by a man with
one synthetic leg after around 23 miles.
The last few miles
along the embankment felt really tough, and I just had to will myself to keep
running at this point – my legs certainly felt like they had turned to jelly
and I was really running on empty. But
the crowds were incredible along this point, it just felt like a huge wall of
sound for the last 4 or 5 miles, and they really helped to get me through and
keep running. I was pleased to finally
see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in the distance, although it took a
painfully long time to actually reach them.
By close to the
end I realised it was going to be quite tight for me to make the original 3:15
target I had set myself (I completed my previous marathon in Edinburgh in 2006
in 3:15:25), and after mile 25 (a painfully slow 8:55) I realised I had to
speed up a bit if I was going to make it.
Thankfully from somewhere I managed to find an extra gear, and completed
mile 26 over 30 seconds quicker in 8:23.
By the final 385 yards I realised it was really close, and somehow I
managed to put on a proper sprint finish, really charged for the line, finally
crossing in an official race time of 3:14:55, just 5 seconds inside the
target! I practically collapsed on the
finish line, but just about had enough energy to keep moving and make it
through to pick up my medal.
I really enjoyed the race overall, despite
the painful last few miles, and am very pleased with my achievement of ducking
under 3:15 given how I was feeling after 20 miles – even I feel like I could
have raced it 5-10 minutes faster overall if I had paced it better. I guess I thought I could keep up that pace
for longer than I actually could and paid for it dearly in the second half,
like so many marathon runners have done before me! I had heard all the warnings about going off
too fast, but didn’t think that I was actually doing that at the time. In a way I’m pleased that I went out at a
decent pace, as last time I was annoyed with myself for starting too slowly and
thinking that I could have got round quicker.
One day I’ll get it right! (although having said that, I think this may
well actually be my last marathon – we’ll see).
I am pleased to
report that my sponsorship
for the race went very well indeed, and I managed to raise a total of just over
£3,000 for the Wessex Heartbeat Foundation. In a way this was my greatest achievement,
and makes all the training and hard effort on race day all worthwhile. Another huge thank you to everyone who took
the time and effort to sponsor me.
Now I need to rest for a while!
Marathon – 42.2 km
Result: 3:14:55 (winner 2:05:15) – 2,460th out of 34,309 Full
results here
Monday
24 March 2008
JK Relay – Eridge Old Park, Kent
I initially tried to drop out of the first
team for the men's premier relay after yesterday's run, but it seemed that a
few others had decided to do the same and so I was persuaded to see how I felt
in the morning. Luckily I felt much much better and almost recovered, so
was quite happy to have a go at the short 4.8km 2nd leg.
By the time I started, the weather was not much
different to yesterday, with the snow falling heavily. Ed Catmur had a
pretty decent run on the first leg, only a few minutes down on the leaders
although down in 18th place. Despite the number of teams who finished
around us on the first leg, I wasn't really aware of any other runners out in
the forest with me, other than a Finnish runner who I was running closely to me
the first half of the course (I eventually just managed to get away from
him). I did have a big surprise when I saw my brother Mark running past
me down a track half-way round the course, despite him starting a minute before
me - turns out he'd made a 2-minute mistake on the 2nd control and I'd managed
to overtake him without realising.
I ended up having definitely my best run of
the weekend, and finally one of those long sought after perfect runs - I don't
think I put a foot wrong navigationally today. My running was certainly
sluggish, and the legs were very heavy after yesterday, but I kept going at a
decent pace, and was very pleased to finish in a time of 31 minutes, just 3
minutes behind Rob Baker who won the course - finally a good result! I'd
also managed to pull 5 places up for the team to bring us back in 13th.
The team dropped a few places later on, but finished quite respectably in 16th
place overall, 10th British team - not much lower than last year.
The JK overall was a tough weekend, for both
competitors and organisers given the appalling weather conditions, and I can
certainly appreciate the extent of the volunteer effort, having done my own
small bit by standing by a drinks point for a few hours in the hail and snow on
Saturday. Other people made far more effort in much worse conditions, and
I'm sure that everyone who attended the weekend is very grateful to them
all.
I will now try to recover from the weekend's
racing, with only 3 weeks to go before the London Marathon - won't do much hard
training now, or any more orienteering, and will just try to get myself into a
good shape for the long race on 13th April!
Mens
Open (JK Trophy), short course – 4.8 km / 195 m
Result: 31:17 (winner 28:18) – 7th out
of 38
Team result: 147:18 (winners 116:08) –
16th out of 31 Full results here Splitsbrowser RouteGadget
Sunday
23 March 2008
JK Classic race – Ashdown Forest, East Sussex
And so onto the epic course of the weekend,
of just under 17km distance and just over 700m climb. The weather was
much worse than yesterday, and the snow was falling very heavily when I set off
on a bitterly cold day. I wrapped up very warm for my run, with a thermal
top and O-top, along with gloves and a woolly hat, as well as an energy gel for
half way round the course - and was certainly glad of all of this later
on.
I have run in the various Ashdown Forest
areas a number of times over the years, including the ones used today, and
always seem to find them quite cold, exposed and tough-going at the best of
times - today brought that to a new level. The area was very waterlogged
in places, and my feet were soaked and freezing before the first control.
I set off quite steadily, and was fairly happy with the first third of the
course - perhaps a few slightly poor route choices, and I didn't feel like I
was running at my best, but I was making steady progress through the course and
feeling reasonably good.
Having seen no-one for the first 40 minutes, at number
7 I was caught by the runner who set off 3 minutes behind me, and I then
probably made the mistake of speeding up as I tried to race a bit harder to
stay with him. At the next control we caught up 2 other runners who had
started before me, and suddenly I was in a pack of 4 runners all racing
hard. I was feeling pretty good at this stage, but suddenly it all came
crashing down as I made the cardinal sin of an "admin" map reading
error - I misread the course and started navigating from 9 straight to 11, not
noticing number 10 half way through the leg. Before too long I realised I
had lost all the other 3 runners, and it took me a few more minutes to realise
why that was and the stupidity of my error - by which time I had run around
300m past my control (and climbed 30m). On the way back I saw the other 3
heading away from the control, but I would never see them again and probably
lost 2-3 minutes in total.
This really knocked the stuffing out of me,
and I gradually faded away from this point - not helped by the fact that the
next 2-3km of the course was all steadily uphill. By number 13 I was
really starting to struggle to keep running, and I could barely keep going as I
ran through the spectator control and then headed out onto a long tough leg
across to the far eastern side of the moorland. I slowly kept going, but
by number 17 had almost reached a standstill, and at number 18 I finally conked
out, unable to go any further.
It was not an ideal place to give up the
course - quite a long way from the finish, and although certainly quicker to retire
than complete the course from this point there wasn't much in it. But I just
didn't feel capable of continuing any more, and was very disappointed to give
up - I think this is the first time I have ever retired on a course due to
exhaustion.
I struggled to maintain a very slow walk
back to the finish, and gradually began feeling the cold more and more, as the
hypothermia began to set in. It seemed like an age to walk back, and by
the time I could hear my brother's voice on commentary getting gradually louder
my mind was barely functioning at all, let alone my legs - I have never
experienced anything like this before, a very strange state of delirium, with
head and legs spinning all over the place. I knew I was bad when people on the
run-in were asking me if I was alright.
Thankfully Chris Fry of SLOW, who passed me
on the run in, found me some warm clothes and helped me back to my car (which I
am amazed I managed to find, given the state I was in!). I quickly had a
lot of food and drink which was much needed, as I felt so completely
exhausted. Despite having the car heating on full blast, I was still
shivering uncontrollably over an hour later, the likes of which I have never
known. Eventually I managed to fall asleep and woke up a bit later feeling
very slightly warmer, but I really didn't feel back to normal until later in
the evening after a hot bath and some more food.
It was very disappointing not to finish the
race, especially with the marathon only 3 weeks away - if I can't complete an M21E
classic race after all this marathon training, I'm not sure how I ever
will. I have also started to fear about "hitting the wall" in
the marathon, as maybe I'm not as fit now as I'd thought. Having said
that, I managed M21E classic courses ok at the last 2 JK's (and the Scottish 6
day last summer) - I think I just raced today all wrong and should have stayed
at a much steadier pace around the middle instead of trying to race too hard
too early on. But I certainly learned a thing or two about hypothermia as
well and the dangers of going out into terrain with inadequate clothing - if I
had been wearing much less (and plenty of people were) then I think the
consequences today could have been much worse.
Saturday
22 March 2008
JK Middle race – Leith Hill, Surrey
Leith Hill is definitely one of my favourite areas to
run on, and I have regularly run here in the 8 years since moving to Surrey,
both in competition and in training - and it will be nice to be able to run
here again after the JK now that the embargo has been lifted. The last
time the JK was held down here in 1999 I won the (fairly uncompetitive) M20L
course held at Leith Hill, and I also had a reasonable run here at the World
Cup in 2005, so had good memories of the area.
The day started very early with setting up a
drinks point in the middle of the forest, which I would be manning later in the
day, helping to cart around 130 litres of water and a large table 200m along a
track in the middle of nowhere. Having reached the assembly area the
weather started to turn for the worse, and by the time I headed out for the
start the weather had turned to hail, which continued until long after I
started.
As I was running Elite, today's course was a
much shorter than usual "middle distance" race, at only 6.6km
(compared to the M21L course of 12km). This did mean that we got the best
out of the area, as our course was almost exclusively in the intricate
mining/earthworks area, with a large number of very short legs throughout this
tricky section. I approached the course quite cautiously from the start,
but still lost some time on the first control (slightly overshooting) and again
on number 4, which was the first control in the intricate section - I must have
been no more than 10 metres away from the control as I ran through, and ran
around for about a minute before finding it.
After this however, I navigated the rest of
the course pretty much perfectly, and had a very pleasing run overall. I
was caught up by two other Elite runners at number 6, and immediately speeded
up as I tried to stay with them - although they had both got away from me by
number 10. We had one interesting "over or round" route choice
leg from 13-14, where I decided to contour round the top of the valley rather
than run down and back up, saving around 40m of climb. I was happy with
this route afterwards, although it seems most of the top Elites went straight -
but they are probably comparatively stronger up the hills than I am.
I was pleased to finish in a good time of 44
minutes, a speed of 6.7 minute/km's, and finished a bit higher up than
yesterday - just inside the top 75% overall!
Friday
21 March 2008
JK Sprint race – University of Surrey, Guildford
This was the first day of Britain's biggest
annual orienteering event, the JK, which was being held in the south-east this
year for the first time since 1999. Today's race was probably the closest
the JK will ever get to my house, taking place just 2 miles away at the
University of Surrey campus in Guildford. I would have run down to the
event from home, if I didn't have to pick up a load of equipment for the
following day's race.
I had run at the university campus at the
last sprint race held here in 2005, as well as an informal event here the
following summer, and regularly run through the area on Thursday-night training
runs (although always sticking to the same paths!). So I certainly knew
what to expect - one of the most complex sprint areas in Britain, with a
multitude of very small buildings, pathways, walls and fences, which combine to
provide a very tough navigational challenge when trying to run around at the
high speed that sprint races demand.
I always find the large scales of sprint
race maps take some getting into - I think this is the only 1:4000 map I've
ever run on. Today we had a very tricky long first leg, right into the
middle of the most complex area of the map, and it was very hard to choose the
best route to get there whilst avoiding all the impassable features on the
way. I didn't choose the best route, and had far too many corners to turn
and a bit of doubling back on myself, but at least I played it safe when I got
near to the control and found it ok - but had already been caught up by 1
minute by the next starter. However it was very pleasing to beat him on
the next leg after he took a poor route choice and I took a better route round
(though still not the quickest).
I found it hard to run at the high speeds
required, and quickly found myself in oxygen debt and not able to go as fast as
I would have liked. I think this is probably a by-product of training for
a marathon - very short 3km races are not going to be my speciality at the
moment! Still, I carried on round at a reasonable pace, and made only 1
real navigational mistake - two-thirds of the way round the course I suddenly
found myself on the wrong side of an uncrossable wall, and had to do a huge
loop of a building to recover, losing around 45 seconds in the process, which
was quite frustrating. It was an enjoyable start to the weekend, but the
Elite results are unforgiving and I finished only 15% from the bottom of the
results - and even taking out my mistake would have only gained me another 6 or
7 places.
Sunday
16 March 2008
Bath Half Marathon
My first road race
for a year, since running the Reading Half Marathon last March, this race has
long been pencilled in as my “warm up” for the London Marathon. I thought it would be good race to do, with
ideal timing at just 4 weeks before London, a similarly fast flat course, and a
large entry of 10,000 runners which would be good race preparation.
It was a very cold, wet and
windy weekend, and unfortunately having reached the race site I found out that
the start had been delayed by an hour due to problems with the park-and-ride
system which was in operation.
Thankfully I managed to find a warm dry pub with the group of friends I
was with, to shelter in for an hour. I
was very pleased to find that when we emerged to head to the start, the rain
had finally stopped for the first time in 24 hours, and held off for the
duration of the race.
I had estimated a
race time of 85-90 minutes, which gave me a very good starting position only
about 10 metres or so back from the starting line, so I got off to a very quick
start without any crowd problems – I don’t think London will be anything like
this from what I’ve heard. Somehow I
managed to randomly find 3 other orienteers in the starting pen, a few of whom
were aiming for similar times to me, which gave me some good people to pace
myself with.
Generally the race
went very well, although the pace felt very fast from the start and I wondered
if I could keep it up. The course was
essentially a 2-lap affair, which I found better than I expected – by half way
round the second lap I was overtaking many of the slower runners, which I found
a good encouragement to keep me going quickly!
Thankfully the roads were wide enough throughout to make overtaking
fairly easy. I went through the 10km
timed point in a time of 39 minutes, which was slightly ahead of my target and
would have resulted in a final time of around 82½ minutes if I had kept it up. As it turned out I certainly started slowing
down a bit in the second half, and it was feeling really tough around 9-10
miles.
Thankfully I
managed to pick up the speed again before the end, determined to try and beat
my personal best time of 84:11 set at the Richmond Half Marathon a couple of
years ago. I thought I was just about on
track, really pushing through the final few miles, but when I finally passed
the ’13 mile’ banner and turned into the home straight I saw the finish clock
displaying about 83:45. I then put on a
mad sprint for the final 0.1 of a mile, and stopped my watch on a exactly
PB-equalling time of 84:11! I nervously
waited for the final results to go up on the web, but am pleased to say that my
official ‘chip time’ gives me a new personal best by 2 seconds, finishing in
84:09. It is also much improved from my
time of 89 minutes at last year’s Reading Half Marathon, so the recent training
certainly seems to have had some benefit.
I think this means
that my marathon training is just about on track, and I am hopefully capable of
running the marathon in under 3:15, maybe under 3:10, maybe a bit quicker. We’ll see – only 4 weeks to go now. Next week I seem to have somehow made the cut
for M21E at the JK, so at least the 17km classic race on Sunday should be good
marathon training!
Half marathon – 21.1 km
Result: 84:09 (winner 65:20) – 248th out of 10,054 Full results here
Tuesday
11 March 2008
SLOW Street-O – Putney, west London
Back to England only a few days
earlier after a week away skiing in Austria, and my legs felt pretty heavy
tonight, still tired from a week on the slopes.
Pleased to say though that I came back injury-free, and even managed a
few decent-length training runs around the town while I was out there!
Tonight’s race was
a new street-O area, and was a really well-designed course which proved very
tricky to select the best route – even now I can’t work it out. It certainly wasn’t the route that I went. Indecisive from the start, I foolishly chose
a route out that involved crossing the main A205 Upper Richmond Road 4 times
within the first 10 minutes – and it was a very busy road which every time took
some time to find a break in the traffic.
I took a few dodgy
routes later on as well, constantly changing my mind about the route I should
be going in order to maximise control points, and in the end I did a fairly big
loop around the edge of the area, missing out quite a few high scorers in the
middle, but also missing out the one control on the edge of the map worth going
to, a bumper 50-pointer in the north-east corner which everyone else seemed to
go to.
Still, I felt like
I was running reasonably quickly despite the tiredness in the legs, and covered
12.6km – further than I had managed in any of the previous 8 street-O’s
(although I did arrive back 2 minutes late).
My result overall wasn’t too bad, finishing in 5th place for the 3rd
time in the series this year, but I feel that with a bit of better planning I
could have made it into 2nd place. Next
time…
Street score race – 60-minute time limit
Result: 580 points (winner 810) – 5th out of 37 Full
results here
A few other
orienteering blogs: