The Whittington Legacy

If you run races, whether they are track, road, parkruns or whatever, once you’ve raced a few over the same distance you tend to get some rivals. These are people who finish around the same place as you, either in front or behind. You recognise them before, during and after the race and because they’re there, and around the same ability as you, you want to beat them. That’s what rivalry is all about, and it’s generally friendly, but more importantly it’s one of the things that helps you to improve.

Since I started running, some 23 years ago, I’ve had many of these rivalries, some of which are still going strong. The nice thing for me is that, even though I’ve been determined to beat these guys, whether I beat them or not, many of them have become great friends. To my knowledge none of them have become enemies, at least I don’t harbour any ill feelings.

The first rivalry I can remember was with one of my own Belgrave colleagues, it’s often said that your greatest rivals are your own team mates. This was Don Anderson and I wanted to beat him because he was the man who occupied 10^th place in the Belgrave scoring Surrey League team. When I did beat him it meant so much to me because it meant I’d achieve a scoring position with Belgrave and also I must’ve run well to beat someone I had great respect for.

As I progressed I remember many such rivalries with the likes of Victor Maughn, Mike Boyle, Graham Adams, Martin Lewington, Dave Robinson, Paul Simons, Gary Bishop, Andy Weir and many many more local and national athletes. In Scotland I also had some great racing rivals, the likes of Andy Little, Ian Johnston, Jeff Farquhar, Ian Stewart, Craig McBurney and many of my EAC team mates. Now back in Cheshire there are some local guys I come across regularly and I’m sure they want to beat me as much as I want to beat them.

All these rivalries have been with athletes finishing around the same time as me, but I have one other rival that gives me some purpose every time I turn up at Pennington Flash. This is a man named Jeff Whittington. Jeff is in his 60’s and has four outright wins over the course, so he’s no slouch, but we’re not that close, physically, in races. However when you take into account age grading, we are often as close as a few inches. Jeff holds the current record at 85.65%, with a time of 19:24. My own best time of 16:56 is only good enough for 84.62%. So you see I have some way to go before I can claim the scalp of Jeff Whittington. Obviously we don’t run those times every time we run so there is always a possibility that I might beat Jeff’s age grading for any particular parkrun that we are both doing, that’s what keeps me pushing hard if I’m at the front with a big lead, at that point I’m not bothered about the guy behind me, I’m more concerned about how fast Jeff is running and therefore push for every second. It’s a good motivator and helps me to keep from slipping below the 18 minute mark. Naturally this rivalry with Jeff is of the nicest possible nature and it will be even nicer when I finally get the beating of him…..

I produced my 16:56 around this time last year, the closest I’ve got to it since then has been 17:13 and with times this year of 17:48 and 17:36 I’d pretty much given up on being able to catch Jeff, at least until I turn 50 and my age grading changes, mind you by then so will his. However, consistent hard training has shown a sudden rise in form and with that rise in form it’s given me some added confidence. A win at Princes parkrun in 16:45 had me believing Jeff’s age grading could be beaten. Admittedly that time is only 11 seconds better than my Pennington Flash time, on a much easier course, but confidence is a wonderful thing. And this made me start plotting for an assault on the Jeff record.

I was training with Ray on Wednesday and told him I was planning an assault on Saturday and that I was going to aim for 16:40. Ray was due to race a triathlon in Nantwich on Sunday so he wouldn’t run but he was keen to marshal. So come Saturday morning we drove up to Pennington Flash, I even considered wearing my racing flats but decided not to bother. The forecast was hot, suits me, but windy, um not very good, oh well all you can do is try and I was in the mood whatever the weather.

Normally I treat these parkruns as an indicator of my form, I don’t deliberately ease off and I’m pretty chilled before the race. This time I was a little bit more serious, ok I didn’t ease off on my training and I was wearing training shoes but I was more focussed, I’d thought through what I was going to do and I was psyching myself up a little. We actually arrived a little early, and boy was it hot. There weren’t many people around when we got to the start, but parkruns are notorious for people turning up at the last minute. Being so sunny and hot I kept under the trees and did a bit of shade bathing, checking out people as they started to appear, wondering if there was going to be a sub 17 minute runner I could latch onto, but nobody looked like they were in that shape. Then Jeff’s son, Harvey turned up, and he had in tow his brother Russell. Russell had been once before and won, so he knew the course, he’s also a Scottish international and shares, with Jeff, a world record for running the fastest father and son marathon. So Jeff wasn’t here to give me a race but Russell was, I couldn’t remember what time he’d won it in previously but I believed it wasn’t that much slower than mine so I was expecting a stiff fight. We had a chat, more friendly rivalry about to commence and then it was time to get ready for the off. I was so focussed at the start I wasn’t even listening to what Bill was saying in his pre-event chat, but I’m sure it was interesting, as always.

Then we were off and I’d decided the best way to achieve my goal was to go hard from the start, which I did. Last time I ran at Pennington Flash I won in 17:36 but I felt like I was out of breath from the top of the first hill, not this time, I felt good and pushed on. A quick look at the top of the 2^nd hill to confirm Russell was my nearest rival. He didn’t look too far back so I was thinking that if I’d got the pacing wrong I was going to get beaten. Oh well if he’s going to beat me he’s going to have to work for it. I pushed on and at the top of the hill on the 2^nd lap Russell looked like he was the same distance back as on the previous lap. He was obviously running well so I’d better smash it some more. With one more lap to go, which would take just under 5 minutes and then the finish I was confident I could push harder, so I did, pushing all the way to the finish.

No I didn’t break Jeff’s age grading record, I was a bit off in my time goal, but I did win in my second fastest time around the course, 17:01. I wasn’t unhappy, I still have something to aim at. Then my customary jog back around the course, cheering on the other 99 competitors and thanking the marshals, and off to the hut for a cup of tea and a chat with fellow competitors.

Ray ran his triathlon on Sunday, with a 1:23 finish. That probably doesn’t mean much to you but he finished the final 3 mile run in sub 24 minutes, not bad considering what had gone on before and the weather.

Rich ran in Edinburgh, the marathon, along with a number of my Edinburgh Athletic Club friends. He found it hard in the heat of the day, he was aiming at sub 3 hours, I thought we were close based on his training and half marathon time, which put us between 2:58 and 3:05, on my calculations. He ended up with 3:03, we were close and still a good time.

I should also point out that two week’s ago Lee finally got his official time for 400m, carrying 40lb on his back, down to 59.44. There’s a video of it on Youtube.

Great news for the Crewe fans in my family, in Crewe and loyal supporters around the world. Crewe were playing at Wembley on Sunday, in the Division 2 play-offs, and won. They’ll start next season in Division 1. Good advert for visiting Crewe, even if you’re not a train spotter, Terry Lawton.

Unlike other members of my family, I wasn’t down at Wembley, instead I was in Delamere Forest for an off-road and endurance training day. Now you might wonder what somebody of my experience and knowledge was doing on such a course, but you never stop learning so I was prepared to see what else I could pick up, and I did pick up some good tips, but I also got some great training and met a large number of Cheshire athletes, perhaps I won’t feel so lonely at races in future. Having made my comeback from injury, last year, in the National Cross Country Championships, it was good to chat to and pick up some tips from the winner of that event, Steve Vernon. I also got to try out orienteering, which was much more fun than I’d anticipated. We finished off with a ‘7’ mile run incorporating the forest and the sandstone trail, after which I was completely toasted, it was hot and the hill session with Steve Vernon had taken a bit out of me. Then it was back home to watch the Monaco GP, which after all the excitement of the weekend was a bit of a let down.

This week the torch relay comes through Cheshire, it’s been to Chester today, on Thursday it’s visiting the places I have a number of clients, Crewe, Congleton and Knutsford, but I think I might get away without any disruption to my travel plans.

Knowing that I’m running well and having gained some confidence in my running I’ve taken the plunge and entered my next big competition. I realise that if I’m going to achieve my goal I need to get my legs turning over more quickly, which means going back to doing dreaded track work. But no, my nearest track is at Winsford and, last time I went there it was full of ruts, so I’ve devised a plan using the treadmills at Cottons. I was there this morning doing the first of these sessions. I’m not going to go into details, just yet, don’t want my rivals to get any insight into my very specific training but I was running very hard for long periods of time. I was actually quite nervous, still suffering doms from Sunday, but once I’d done the first rep I felt much better. So I’m on target with my training, just need to fit it all in around my clients and, avoid injury. I’ve a few races lined up before the ‘big’ one, hopefully they’ll bring me on just a little bit more.

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk  

Late Nights, Could They Be your Downfall?

Lack of sleep is not good for anybody, irrespective of how active you are. It is possible to get away with the odd bad night and even a few together, I’ve flown overnight back from the states and gone straight out for a fast 8 miler, I’ve also run a good time in a 5000m when I’ve been half asleep on the start line, after a few sleepless and stressful nights. But you can’t live like that forever, eventually you’ll get run down and ill or injured.

I’m not a late night person anyway, I’m not yet old enough to partake of the afternoon nap and I do value my early bedtime. In fact I’ve always felt it difficult to concentrate on work after 9pm, so always stopped any work I was doing at that time, preferring to get up early in the morning, with a fresh head to solve any problems. Naturally this caused a few problems for me when I used to do a 12 hour shift from 7pm but that’s all water under the bridge and now I work civilised hours, even if I do start quite early some days.

There was a time when I did enjoy my late nights, but I was young and didn’t run in those days. There were some good ones when I was a student in Crewe, on Saturday’s I worked in a record shop during the day, then drove home to do the evening shift at Holmes Chapel Leisure Centre, before driving back to Crewe for one or more parties, they were fun days and I think I was reasonably popular, or at least not unpopular, so I had a good time. I used to stay over at various friends houses, or wherever I found myself when it was time to crash, then I’d drive home in the morning.

Even during my early years working in London, I was young, energetic and lucky enough to have a room in Bayswater, for a while, so I was out late quite often. In fact I walked home from various parties all over London on a number of occasions, sometimes after trying to sleep on a beer soaked floor. It helped that my job wasn’t very demanding at that point in my career, and I didn’t run.

But once I started taking my running seriously I had to cut back on the partying. Ok I didn’t give it up completely, I still recall standing on the start line of a road race one year, the morning after a Xmas party. I felt really bad and thought I was going to bring up one of the many pints I’d had the night before, but as soon as the race started I was off, not only winning the race but setting a course record too. I don’t recommend this as a course of action, David Bedford might have got away with it and, on this occasion, so did I, but it’s not really the best way to be successful, and as my old mate Al, used to say, ‘It doesn’t matter how well you run after drinking alcohol, just think how much better you’d have run without it’.

Of course it wasn’t just by choice that I gave up late nights, I was too tired from all the training. I remember one occasion I was visiting my girlfriend’s friends, in Bristol. We were out at the pub, they wanted to go onto a club, I wanted to go to bed. I was quite happy to go to bed, leaving them to go to the club, but for some reason it became a big issue and we all went to bed, not all in the same one. This incident probably was a defining moment in that relationship ending fairly soon after. Another time I was visiting a friend in Manchester, there was a small bunch of us, I was doing ok at first, managing to keep up with the seasoned drinkers but at some point, I don’t know when, I fell asleep in my seat. We were in a

Canal Street

bar at the time and luckily there were too nice young ladies sitting in the same area and they kept an eye on me, until my friends found me. I still have the odd late night but I much prefer to get up early and get loads done, I’m a morning person after all.

But last Thursday was an unintentional late night. I was working in Hale, Carole was out enjoying the company of some friends in Knutsford. Knutsford is a small diversion on the road back home from Hale so I offered to pick her up. Carole isn’t easy to prise out of a bar when she’s with friends so needless to say I didn’t get home until 10 past midnight. I was a little peeved as I had clients the next day and I like to be fully alert and brimming with energy, luckily it wasn’t one of my earlier starts. I woke up the next day and I was really tired, I knew I’d be ok for my first client but in the afternoon I was pacing Rich through 10k and we were aiming at 38 minutes. Yep I know that’s a few minutes slower than I can run a 10k, but if I was tired it would have an impact on that run and I didn’t want to let Rich down.

So I met up with Rich, Rich is running the Edinburgh Marathon this Sunday. I’d decided to take him around the course of the Cheshire 10k, in Queens Park, Crewe. I won that race in November last year, in 34:17. Rich has a best time for 10k of 38 minutes, it’s a little unclear as to how accurate that is, I think it was a low key event that may not have been accurately measured, also knowing how undulating and twisty the Cheshire 10k course is I was aware it might slow us down from that. So I was actually looking for a time between 38 and 40 minutes. If I was slower than 40 minutes, I’d know I hadn’t done a very good job. It’s a four lap affair, I thought I remembered the course, no tape or start and finish lines today. We set off at a good pace, Rich was comfortable and, thankfully, so was I, as we went around that first lap I was beginning to realise why I’d run such a slow time in November, it really is twisty and undulating. We passed through the first lap in 9:48, on for sub 40 but better not slow it down or we’ll be over that. I kept on the pressure and the second lap took 9:43, that was better. It was quite comforting having laps, I’ve always run well on multi lap courses and by now we were getting to know the course well. This led to a bit of a surge and we took the next lap in 9:30, then I made Rich push all the way round that last lap, for a 9:20, giving us a finish time of 38:21. Boy was I pleased, it had been a hard run for me but I’d got Rich to where I wanted him and it was a great last real speed session before his marathon. The other good thing is I know this will give Rich the confidence to chase a 36 or 37 minute clocking on a flatter faster course. But first to get that marathon out of the way, good luck Rich.

On Friday evening it was the Christleton 5k, some friends I know in West Cheshire had mentioned it to me, telling me it was a fast course. I’d liked to have done it but I thought the 10k was enough for an old man with dodgy legs. Ray did it, running a pb, 21:17. I was thinking of trying the parkrun at Pennington Flash, on Saturday morning, but the combination of the 10k and the enforced late night on Thursday made me decide it was best not to, so I took Carole out for a tough session instead, oh yes revenge is sweet sometimes.

Then I felt guilty so I took Carole out in the evening. I had it in my diary to watch the Champions League final but Carole didn’t seem that bothered, so I videoed it instead. We ate at the Golden Pheasant in Plumley, a really nice pub/restaurant. The service is pretty good, food is excellent and it’s never a small portion. In fact on this occasion there was quite a lot and we left stuffed. We got home having avoided any news about the football and started watching the game. It was a really good game but that morning session must’ve taken a lot out of Carole as she was fast asleep within 25 minutes. She went off to bed, I wanted to continue with the game but thought it more gentlemanly to save it until the morning, so we could watch it together.

The next morning, still not knowing the score, we watched the second half over breakfast, again it was exciting stuff but my heart sank when Bayern Munich scored. I’m not a Chelsea fan, but they are an English team so I wanted them to win. I’d anticipated the potential for extra time and had set the dvd to record an hour past the original finish time, but I didn’t really want to watch extra time as I wanted to go for my run, so even though Chelsea were losing there was a silver lining on the cloud. Then Drogba did what Drogba does best and equalised, a few minutes later we were into extra time. Oh well run would have to wait. Extra time was as exciting as the first 90 minutes, except everybody looked drained in the last 10 minutes. The score was the same, 1-1 at full extra time and it was down to penalties. Now I was starting to wonder if an hour extra recording was enough. Last time Chelsea made the Champions League Final we were watching the game in a restaurant in Turkey, just as Anelka set off to miss his penalty the power went off, so we missed the excitement and didn’t have a clue what had happened until a few minutes later, when it came back on again. I could see the potential for a similar incident. Thankfully it only went to 5 penalties and Drogba sealed the victory about 20 seconds before the recording finished. How exciting was that.

Sticking to football, Crewe Alexandra have made it to the play-off final, this Sunday. Fingers crossed they’ll get promotion.

I’ve been venturing into Tatton Park on my runs recently. Normally I run from home but I’ve had a client in Knutsford, Simon, who wanted to improve his running, he ran 52 minutes for the Manchester 10k last year. So I’ve done a few sessions with him and it got me into the idea of using the park when I’m in Knutsford, makes a change from running around Northwich. So I tried one of my easy runs there last week, not only that but I decided to try something I’ve never done before, I used my Ipod. I’ve been quite critical of the use of these, because I believe that people aren’t fully aware of what is going on around them, so I decided I’d see what it’s all about and see if I’m right or wrong. Well, I can’t say I enjoyed it, the music, whilst good, was pretty distracting, I wasn’t able to do any thinking, I do a lot of that when I’m on an easy run. I didn’t feel as though I was completely aware of my surroundings, something I value very much when I’m running fast. So I won’t be doing that again. Call me old fashioned but I know what I like.

The Manchester 10k was on this weekend as well and Simon did improve, he ran a 49 minute time. My old mate Jim Buick, of Edinburgh, was also down, running under 40 minutes – sorry haven’t had a chance to check exact times, but if you’re really interested it’s easy to do.

Written by Roger Alsop
http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/

What a Weekend of Sport

This was supposed to be a special weekend for me. I’m coming into some decent form and due to both; circumstances and specification, I’ve been fine tuning my training for the last month. The reason for this fine tuning was the British Masters Road Relays, which took place on Saturday. For a while, with my niggling knee and my back injury, I didn’t think I’d be able to run let alone be fit enough to make the strong Herne Hill team. I think the team had even written me off. But once my back was sorted and my knee niggle began to recede I knew I had a chance, but I’d have to be very focused in my training, not always easy when you have clients who want you to run with them at their pace.

A few week’s to go and I heard the news that we were aiming for the M45-54 6 stage race, rather than the M35-44 8 stage race that we had always run before, and been twice champions and twice runners up in the past 5 years. There were 7 good men chasing the 6 places and I knew, with no apparent form, I must be 7^th man. I needed to do some racing to get noticed and force my way into the team. And that’s exactly what I did, I ran the parkrun at Pennington, coming first in 17:36 and followed this up with the Mow Cop Killer Mile, where I managed a 7:55. Now these are times that wouldn’t make most people stand up with any sense of awe, but knowing the profile of these courses I knew what good results they were and that’s step one in the comeback, they gave me the confidence that training was right and I was on my way to something good in the future. Of course it’s not down to me and I had to convince Geoff I was in good form, but Geoff know’s me well and I wouldn’t want to be in the team unless I could justify it.

Then with a week to go we were down to 6 men, no problem, all 6 were good, we had a chance. Sadly, a few days before the championship we lost another guy, and that was it, with no other man to call on we couldn’t even make a team. A disaster for the team and a personal disappointment for me, I represent a club from London and I’m not able to get down there much at all, so I don’t get many opportunities to run for them, hence why these National Championships are so important to me.

I even did some specific training during for the week and front loaded it, for the event, and told a client I couldn’t do Friday night. Then Ray suggested we tried Princes parkrun, in Liverpool. I agreed so at least had something to focus on for the weekend. I looked up the stats and the M45 course record was held by Bernie Murphy at 16:46. I thought on a good day that would be in my grasp, but what day was Saturday to be? I told Ray I was aiming for 16:45 but that I wasn’t sure of my pacing so was hoping I could just latch onto someone, though that might compromise the time.

It was easy enough to find the venue and we got to the start with about 20 minutes to spare. It was a sunny day, a bit breezy but nothing compared to the wind you sometimes get at Pennington Flash. I spoke to a couple of the, many, marshals to find out about the course, I’d looked at the map but it always looks different on a flat map. Then it was time to go. Other than Ray, and a couple of his friends he’d introduced me to, I knew nobody, but as we got ready for the off there was a sense of recognition that passed between myself and another guy, difficult to explain but I sensed something passing between our eyes. We didn’t know each other but it was the sort of recognition that we both knew that we would be opponents today. We were off and true to my eyes the other guy went into the lead, he could have been a 15 minute man for all I knew but I seized my opportunity and sat on him. I’d worked out I needed to aim for about 3:20ks if I was to get the M45 record and, unlike Pennington, there were 1k markers to assist me. Me and the other guy, Martin Swensson, reached 1k in 3:18, great I was on target and I felt pretty good. I’d taken a quick peek at my watch but Martin seemed to be looking at his a bit longer and fiddling with it. This could have meant anything but I selected ‘this pace is too fast for me’ as the likely explanation, and put my foot down. It wasn’t a big acceleration but I created a gap and I found myself in the lead. The next k was reached in another 3:18, I wasn’t looking back but I sensed the gap was still there, not growing but enough to make Martin work hard to catch me. The next k was slower and I was starting to tire a little, I could sense the course record was going to be beyond me and would have to work hard for a sub 17 clocking. At 4k I was still in the lead and it was 13:28, I knew if I could do a 3:30k it would mean the all important sub 17 clocking so I picked up my pace and pushed. I reached the finish straight and gave it everything, it was a long straight and after a glance at my watch I sensed I was definitely not going to beat the M45 record but I kept pushing all the way and crossed the line in 16:45. Wow I didn’t expect that, I’d have been happy with 16:59 but I had indeed broken the record, not only that but I’d gone top of the age graded league, something I have yet to do at Pennington, sitting a frustrating 4th on that list. With Ray and his friends also having good runs it was a good day trip for us and made up a little for not being in action at Sutton Park, where Highgate took the M35 championship with Leicester, once again, taking the M45 one.

After that my participation in sport was just down to training, I took Carole out for a run on Sunday. But I did do a little watching. I’m a big fan of Formula 1 and find this year it’s been pretty entertaining. On Saturday I watched the qualification and was glad to see Lewis Hamilton grab pole, but the warning signs were there when he pulled up during his return to the pits. I feel his penalty, disqualification from qualification and starting from the back of the field, was a step too harsh, at worst he should have been demoted to 10^th but I’m not a steward so, like Lewis, have to accept that the decision was not motivated by anything other than fairness for all, in the same way that it was fair to allow Michael Schumacher get away with pulling out in front of Lewis during one of the runs. On Sunday I already thought my viewing of the race was compromised as Lewis had very little chance of winning the race, but I watched it nevertheless, and it was entertaining with another good share of the points.

This weekend Northwich was playing host to the Thundersprint, a series of races against the clock by motorcyclists of all ages on all types of machines. It does attract some very good professional motorcyclists. I watched it last year when Cal Crutchlow was taking part. This year we had other plans but I did have a wander around the display area on the Saturday and ended up next to Steve Parrish for a while, he didn’t say anything to me though, perhaps he’s as shy as me.

Football was the other big sport this weekend, with champions and relegations to be sorted out in the Premier League but more importantly the first leg of the Division 2 playoffs were taking place. Now I’m not a big football fan, when I was young I used to go to matches at Manchester United and Manchester City but I don’t support either team, which made them really interesting games for me on Sunday. As a teenager, going to school in Crewe, I started to go along to watch Crewe Alexandra, I was there the day Bruce Grobbelaar scored for them, in his last match before moving up to Liverpool. I even went down to Exeter to watch them once! But I’m not a big Crewe fan either, though I would like to see them do well, they’re in the playoffs and won the first leg, against Southend United 1-0. The second leg is tomorrow. Carole is a bit of a footy fan, she’s big into Motherwell, she even managed to drag me along to a couple of games while I was up in Scotland. She continues to try to drag me to games down here, I’ve been to the Alex twice in the last couple of years. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, it’s just there are other things I’d enjoy more. But on Sunday, Carole managed to persuade me to go to a pub to watch the football, Manchester United vs Sunderland and QPR vs Manchester City. It was going to be interesting to try to find a pub that had both games on simultaneously and also find somewhere to sit, but we managed it. Carole, for some reason that I’m yet to understand, seems to like Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra, I prefer to stay neutral, wanting to enjoy the games for the games sake. It was an interesting time, watching the fans as much as the football, but what a fantastic climax to the season, certainly from a neutral’s point of view.  

The only other sporting event I had any interest in this weekend was the Chester Half Marathon. Katy was running it, her first race since the Manchester marathon, she ran well with another solid 1:39 time. Ray’s wife, Sharon, was also running and ran a very good 2:06

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

No Spain, No Gain

You’ll know that during the year I take the occasional trip abroad. These trips are generally in the interest of doing some specific peaking with my training, and generally involve some training in hot climates. I used this tactic to good effect two years ago when I specifically went to Turkey, mid summer, to train hard in hot temperatures. I did some of my toughest sessions in temperatures above 30C. It worked, I got the bronze in the European Masters 10000m, though I was surprised how much hotter it was in Hungary than it was in Turkey. The place I generally go to is Spain, to Ciudad Quesada. It’s there I went to this weekend, as I have some important races coming up.

But first let me take you back to what has been going on these last two weeks, since my last blog. Well last week was a bit hectic as I picked up a number of new clients and had some returning occasional clients, all in a 4 day week. So a bit of juggling around to fit everybody in and also try to get in my own training, which meant I had no time to write a blog. So I couldn’t tell you about Katy’s marathon.

Katy was running in the Manchester marathon and had asked me to help her to get under 3:45. Katy put in a lot of hard work and on the way she’s been running well at 10k and the half marathon. Come the day it was a shocker, persistent rain and very cold temperatures, but despite that Katy ran really well, achieving her goal with 3:39.45. Understandably she was well chuffed with that, after she’d thawed out, and so was I. Ray, unfortunately, had to curtail his plans because of the flu like symptoms he was suffering from, earlier in the week, but we did manage to pay a visit to the exhibition, on the Saturday. There I caught up with some old friends and spoke with Ron Hill. Despite the fact that I do some work for the companies he set up I’ve not spoken to him before. He comes across as unassuming and can be seen at many events across the North West, I bought one of his books too, just haven’t had any time to read it yet.

With Manchester out of the way I have my next interest in the Edinburgh marathon. I’m sure I’ll know lots of my Edinburgh friends taking part, but most importantly for me another of my clients, Rich, is heading there to run it. I did some work with Rich around last September/October, getting him used to how hard he’d have to train. Since then he’s been using my schedules, but coming close to the marathon Rich wanted a session. I worked out something I thought would be appropriate and it worked, giving him just the boost he needed, a few days later he did his Killer Session, successfully. The session I did with Rich pushed me close to my own limit, I’ve not been doing that length of session for a while and Rich is not that much slower than me over 10k. So the next day I was intending to do an easy 8k on the treadmill, at Cottons. But I found myself with a little more time so decided to run 10k instead. I set off easy, as planned, but I’m still not happy on the treadmill and, unlike all the other people running alongside me, I didn’t have earphones. The only way I could think of to relieve the boredom was to get the run over quicker. I didn’t want to run any less, I’d set my mind on 10k, so that meant I had to crank up the speed. So I cranked and I cranked and I kept cranking every time I felt too comfortable, and, despite the easy start, I did a good negative split and ended up with a 35:21 10k run.

Then it was off to Spain. We’d decided to see how a long weekend works so flew out of Manchester on Thursday evening. This meant we arrived at Alicante quite late, along with two hen parties and a stag party. It was quite a noisy flight but this time I had my head phones in and relaxed whilst listening to Wishbone Ash. I trained hard in Spain, I can feel vitality coming back to me, it’s nearly two years since I hit my Over 40 peak and since then I’ve had niggle after niggle. For now I seem to be managing the knee niggle, the main culprit, and I’m getting faster and fitter, and this is bringing the confidence back to me. I’m beginning to believe I can achieve again, watch out there’ll be some SMART goals coming soon, maybe even some THICK ones.

Then, all too soon, breakfast in Spain in 24C was a distant memory as we arrived back at Manchester to a windy 12C. And then back to work, a session with Ray, now thankfully on the comeback from his illness, and another week of cramming clients into four days. And that’s why this is such a short blog.

Written by Roger Alsop

http://www.rogeralsop.co.uk/