Overview

Training today - fastish run on road.  I did one lap of my Hammer Vale circuit.  Time 38:53, which is about a minute faster than I have run this course before.  It was a fine, sunny day - the first time for a while that i was able to run in shorts.

I've been giving thanks recently for my continued good health.  The other week I telephoned an old friend and was alarmed to discover that, the previous month, he had been rushed into intensive care with DVT (deep vein thrombosis).  DVT can be potentially fatal but thankfully he has recovered and is now back home and doing okay.  About the same time I noticed that I hadn't seen one of my neighbours for a while and was dismayed to learn that she had been rushed into hospital for treatment for leukaemia.  At least I know she is being well looked after.  She also has the advantage of having a twin sister, who could give her a bone marrow transplant, so her prospects for recovery are good.

I've also learnt that two friends of my parents, who have been undergoing treatment for cancer, have reached the stage where the doctors are saying, "Well there's not much more we can do for you".  They are not expected to see out the year.  They are both about eighty years old and I guess, at that age, you don't expect to live for ever but even so.  However old, you don't want to see your loved ones leave the stage.

It's been a reminder to me that no one lives for ever or can expect to enjoy good health indefinitely.  With regard to cancer I tend not to worry too much about what might happen in the future.  This is partly because there is no history of cancer in my family, either on my mother's side or my father's side.  We all conk out eventually but not because of cancer.  Also the treatment for cancer has improved immeasurably during my lifetime.  People used to dread cancer because it was effectively a death sentence; but nowadays there is a fair chance that it can be cured, or at least its effects curtailed so that you can lead a fairly normal life.  Also I cling to the belief that my regular exercise and healthy lifestyle will reduce the chances of me developing cancer or other serious illnesses.

With regard to this last point, I had a quick Google to see if there was any evidence to back up my assumption that exercise can help prevent cancer.  The answer is definitely yes.  Or maybe no.  There have been a number of studies; this one for example  (Click)  suggests that regular exercisers have a 33% better chance of avoiding cancer and/or a 33% better chance of recovering from it, if they do develop the illness.  On the other hand there is no definite link between regular exercise and immunity from cancer.  If regular exercisers have a better health record it may be due to other factors - they are less likely to be smokers, for example, or to drink heavily, or take illegal drugs or have an unhealthy diet or to be very overweight.  I do know of a number of runners, including some elite athletes, who have developed cancer in later years, so running cannot be seen as a universal panacea.

Oh dear, I've been a bit gloomy tonight.  I'll give you a Tommy Cooper joke to end with.  "I went to the doctor and he said, "Well Mr Cooper, I've got some bad news and some worse news.  I said, "What's the bad news?"  He said, "You've only got one day to live".  "Oh my God, then what's the worse news?".  "I should have told you yesterday!""

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Training today - long weekend run.  Ran out to the Punchbowl and did three and a half laps.  I was out for about three hours in total.  A lovely bright fresh morning.

Hindhead has been back in the news this week, not because of the tunnel but because of the fate of the Undershaw building.  Undershaw was the home of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes.  For many years it was a hotel and restaurant (I went there for a meal several times).  Since the hotel closed in 2004 the building has gradually been falling into dereliction.  There's an article about it at this link (Click)

What other news can I tell you?  I went back to my old address yesterday to check if there was any mail for me.  I was pleased to find that I had won a prize in the Hog's Back race three months ago, although they had sent it to the wrong address.  Excitedly I opened the envelope to discover a voucher for £10.  Well it's better than nothing I suppose, but I think the value of the prize was less than the cost of entering the race!  The rest was mainly a load of junk mail.  Oh and there was a pair of orthotics for some woman in Somerset.  I just threw them in the bin obviously!

My Top Ten for this week.  There have been twenty nine London Marathons; here are my top ten.

1. 1981    Not the fastest times or the most competitors, but it was the first, so is at number one in my list.
2. 2002    Khalid Khannouchi sets a new world best of 2:05:38.  In the women's race, Paula Radcliffe makes a sensational debut..
3. 1985    A classic duel between Steve Jones and Charlie Spedding.  Ingrid Kristiansen sets a women's world best which lasts for fifteen years.
4. 2003    A five man sprint finish won by Gezhegne Abera.  In the women's race Paula Radcliffe runs 2:15:25, perhaps the greatest ever running performance by a female athlete.
5. 1993    Eamon Martin sprints across Westminster Bridge to become the last British winner of the men's race.
6. 1983    Victories for Mike Gratton and Grete Waitz (in a world best).  More significantly it showed the depth of British distance running at that time, with 62 British men running under 2:20.
7. 1996      Dionicio Ceron wins the third of his victories.  Liz Mc Colgan achieves her one victory in this race.
8. 1982    The second running and the only time both male and female winners were British.  All credit to Hugh Jones and Joyce Smith.
9. 2005    The first victory for Martin Lel.  The last for Paula Radcliffe.
10. 2010    We can but hope!

Just six weeks to go!  I shall look forward to hearing how people got on at Silverstone and elsewhere today.

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Training today - warm up (15 minutes) then ten minutes fast, followed by twelve times thirty seconds fast, thirty seconds slow. Jog back home. Managed to dodge the showers.

I went back to that website I mentioned the other day and found some more pictures of me in the Milton Keynes half marathon.  This one is, I think, at the drinks station at the six mile point.  You can see me sailing past without taking a drink.  I wouldn't normally take a drink in a race shorter than a half marathon anyway and I certainly wouldn't do it on a freezing cold day when I was hardly sweating at all.  You might want to have a look at the website http://42run.com/, as they've recently added a load of pictures from the Bath and Eastbourne half marathons.

Just over six weeks to go till the London Marathon (sorry to remind you) and my mind is starting to turn to what time I might aim for on the day.  There are some race calculator sites you can use, where you put in your time for a recent event and they tell you what it equates to for other distances.  The one I usually look at is the Macmillan running calculator. (http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/)  This one is extra useful in that, as well as giving comparative times for other distances, it also gives suggestions for workouts you can do, based on your most recent performance.  Anyway, it suggests that my 79:06 half equates to 2:46:54 for the full marathon, which I feel is a tad optimistic.

I usually calculate my full marathon time by doubling my half marathon time and then adding ....  Well on a really good day, the differential might be around ten minutes, so a 79 half marathon would equate to 2:48.  More likely the differential would be more in the region of twelve to fifteen minutes, so we would be looking more at a time in the low two fifties.  Of course, if I had a really bad day, the difference could be much more than that.

At the elite end of the sport, the fastest times recorded for a half marathon are around 59 minutes or just under.  And the fastest marathons are in the range of 2:04 to 2:06, so we're talking about a differential of around six to eight minutes.  For women marathoners the differential can be even smaller.  For example Paula Radcliffe's fastest half was 65:40 in the Great North Run.  Her fastest marathon was 2:15:25, so that's a difference of just four minutes.  If we don't allow the GNR time (downhill course, not valid for record purposes) then her next best half marathon time is around 66:40, so now we're down to a differential of just two minutes.  I can also think of quite a few female marathoners who would struggle to break 70 minutes for the half, but who have run in the low two twenties for the full marathon.  Hardly any difference at all between their half and their full pace.

These days I prefer to use an age graded calculator to assess my performances.  These rate your times according to the best recorded performances in your age group.  I reckon anything over 80% is good.  Anything over 90% is very good.  There is one on the Power of 10 website (http://www.thepowerof10.info/) and according to that, my best performance as a veteran was my 72:34 half marathon at age 49 (91.48%).  My performance last week in Milton Keynes comes in at just under 87%.

Anyway it is one thing making calculations on paper, another thing actually going out and doing it.  Good luck to any of you running in a race this weekend and may you achieve a good age-graded percentage!

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Training today - warm up (15 minutes) then twelve times two minutes fast with a one minute jog in between.  Jog back home.

I have a confession for you tonight.  I have been running for thirty five years, have run hundreds of races and tens of thousands of miles in training and not one of those miles has ever been sponsored for charity.  When I go to the Marathon Expo and one of those people with clipboards asks me, "Which charity are you running for?", I have to shamefacedly say "None".

It's not that I am averse to charity.  I often make contributions to good causes.  I drop coins into collection boxes.  I sometimes sponsor other people to do things.  I occasionally sponsor kids at school to do sponsored silences and the like (only way to get them to shut up!)  I've even contributed to other bloggers efforts by putting some money into their Just Giving pages.

But the thing is I started my running long before the current culture of big charity appeals.  The point of modern day charity stunts is to do something difficult, demanding or exhausting, something you wouldn't normally do.  But for me running is my sport and my hobby.  It's something that I do every day.  To sponsor me to run a marathon would be like sponsoring Wayne Rooney to play a game of football.  It doesn't really make any sense.  I think also I slightly resent the implication that running is not worth doing unless it involves raising money for a charity.

My other problem is that I sometimes think we are going a bit overboard with all these fundraising schemes.  There are just so many people doing so many different things, it's difficult to know who to support.  I blame David Walliams personally.  Since he swam the channel a couple of years ago, celebrities have been attempting ever more grandiose charity events.  In the last couple of weeks alone, I have read in the news of the following fundraising efforts.

• Eddie Izzard, who I greatly like and admire, completed 43 marathons in two months last year.
• Another guy, whose name I have shamefully forgotten, is currently running 50 marathons in 50 days around Europe.
• I told you about Martin Parnell in Canada and his plan to do 250 marathons in a year.  The latest news is that, after 30 marathons, he developed a stress fracture.  He is still continuing with the challenge, but having to walk the distance.
• A group of celebrities, led by David Walliams, completed a cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats.
• Another group of cyclists, led by former England captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, is touring round all the Six Nations countries.
• Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton recently kayaked the entire length of the Amazon.
• Ian Botham is about to set off on another of his sponsored walks.
• Phil Packer, along with news reader Kate Silverton, is doing the Three Peaks challenge.
• TV presenter Christine Bleakley is planning to water ski across the channel.

And I am sure there are hundreds more.  I respect and admire all of these people.  It's just that there are so many of these charity events nowadays, you don't know who to support.  I grow nostalgic for the days when they just broadcast plain charity appeals on the telly.  You feel like the guy in that Catherine Tate sketch, who every morning is confronted by a fund raising scheme from his coworker.  "I'll tell you what it is, pet.  We're all cycling up Mount Kilimanjaro dressed as giant prawns to raise money for gender dysmorphia in the north-east!"  I'll leave you with this.

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Been a busy day today.  I had to take the car in to be fixed, (it's a Toyota.  Mind you I've never had any trouble with it.)  On the way back I took the opportunity for a change of scenery and did my running around Frensham Ponds.  I ran at a gentle pace for an hour or so.  My legs felt fine, just a little tired from yesterday.

Just to conclude my report from the Milton Keynes half marathon.  I looked again at the results and saw that I was the first over fifty, so I assume that means I will be receiving a prize.  The trouble with prize giving on the day is a) you don't really know if you've won one or not until the results are out.  B) you don't want to hang around for hours just on the off chance.

The official photos are out.  Here's one of me at, I think, the twelve mile mark.  I don't remember that other bloke being on my shoulder though.

I also discovered that there is a group, which is taking pictures at races and then publishing them online.  They ask for no payment, only that you acknowledge them.  So thanks to http://42run.com/.  Here's one of me doing my big sprint finish!

The guy, I mentioned, who fell over just after the start - well he ended up in hospital, with a dislocated shoulder and a broken arm.  He's presumably back home as I saw his race commentary on Runner's World.  He didn't answer the question, "Would you do this event again?" though.

I think I could recommend this event to others.  My only tip - don't use the baggage system, it was chaos yesterday.  Many people needed well over an hour just to reclaim their bags afterwards.  Fortunately I had left mine in the car and was able to just go home.

Okay that's it from me.  Night, night!

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So I'm back from the Milton Keynes half marathon.

I've been to Milton Keynes several times before and I have to say that it is not the easiest place to love.  My problems begin when I drive into the town (city?) and I start to thinking, "Well, where is it?"  The town kind of nestles in the Buckinghamshire countryside; I believe there is some sort of bylaw that says that no building can be higher than two stories, and so all you see of the place are these broad avenues and large roundabouts.  When you finally arrive in the town/city centre, it is more like a giant industrial estate with these large warehouse type buildings.

I remember about twenty years ago there was a television advertising campaign for Milton Keynes.  It featured a clown, lots of children, a red balloon and ended with a question that could only be answered with a resounding "No!!!"  Hang on, I'll have a look see if it's available on YouTube.  Yes, here it is.

Being charitable, I shall assume that the town planners had the best of intentions, that they envisioned a future Utopia enlivened by ring roads, concrete flyovers and dank underpasses.  I think most people though would prefer to live in a town which had grown organically over the centuries rather than one that had been designed by a commitee.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk about town planning, I'm here to talk about the race.  My targets for today were hopefully to run a lot quicker than I have done for a while.  I hoped to be back under eighty minutes.  Ideally, if I was thinking in terms of 6:30 pace for the marathon, then I should be looking at around six minute pace for the half, i.e. around 78:35.

The course was a long loop around the perimeters of Milton Keynes, on the road for the first three miles, then mainly on bike paths.  It was a reasonable course, perhaps not the fastest with all the twists and turns, but no major hills to worry about.  I recognised some of it from previous outings around MK, particularly the loop around the big lake, which occurred in the middle of the race.  The weather was bright, very chilly with an icy wind.

The organisers were also holding a 10k event, which went off two minutes before the half, and had about 100 metres start.  This was perhaps not such a great idea, as we started passing the 10k stragglers after half a mile and then for the next couple of miles the two races were jumbled up together.  Another thing I remember from the first mile, just ahead of me a runner - I don't know if someone caught him from behind or if he just tripped over his own feet - fell flat on his face and I had to hurdle over him.  I hope he was all right.

I managed to keep a pace of just under six minutes per mile and reached the five mile point in 29:38.  I pushed on around the lake and then got to the 10 mile point in 59:38.  Hooray, back under the hour and my fastest 10 miles for quite a while!  I managed to stay under six minute mile pace up to 12 miles (71:55) but then laboured somewhat up the final mile and a bit.  The organisers seemed to have saved up all the uphill sections for the final run in.  Anyway, I crossed the line in, according to my watch, 79:06.  I am quite happy with that.  It's not going to give Sammy Wanjiru or Martin Lel any sleepless nights but it was my fastest half (and fastest 10 miles) for quite a while.  No goody bag, unfortunately - all we got was a medal and a bottle of water.  I'm not sure where I came, but there weren't too many people in the finish area when I got there.

There is another half marathon in Milton Keynes in the summer, if you want to come and enjoy the bike paths and the concrete flyovers yourself!

I went back to take some pictures and managed to spot Bupa coming in.  I was so excited, I forgot to press the button on the camera.  I tried to find Bupa afterwards but the crowds were just too big.  If you want to have a quick taster of the event, here are thirty seconds of people coming in to the finish.

Right, I think I shall have an early night tonight.  I'm a bit weary.

Stop press!  The results have just appeared.  I was 31st altogether.  There were over 3000 finishers, which surprised me slightly - I hadn't realised there had been so many.

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Training today - warm up (15 minutes) then twelve times seventy seconds fast, fifty seconds jog.  Then jog back home.  That was my last hard session before the Milton Keynes half marathon on Sunday.  I am quite looking forward to this one and am hopeful of a reasonably good time.  This is not the same event as I competed in last July; this one starts and finishes in the town centre.  I'm assuming however that the course will be fairly similar - reasonably flat and winding around the roads and cycle paths of Milton Keynes.  Of course you can never tell what tricks the British weather might pull, but if it is the same as it has been the last few days, then a reasonably fast performance could be on the cards.

This is the peak season coming up for half marathon running.  As well as the race at Milton Keynes on Sunday, there will be half marathons held at Bath, Bideford, Berkhamstead, Haweswater, Grantham, Steyning, Eastbourne, Llanelli and Leith Hill and probably a few other places I don't know about.  Anyway, good luck to you if you are involved in any of these.

I was looking at Keith's blog yesterday and he was saying that he planned to use the London Marathon as his last ultra long training run before the Comrades in June.  26 miles isn't really enough for him, so he will run several miles as a warm up to the event.  I'm not sure if this is mildly insane or admirably dedicated.  Ah well, each to his own.

My own approach to racing is to treat each race as a race and try to do the best that I can.  Very occasionally I run races where I don't give it 100%.  My reasons being either that it is more of a fun type event where it is not really appropriate to try and blast the course, or that I am just coming back from injury or a lay off and am not ready to give it my all yet.  But I have noticed an increasing tendency in recent years for runners to treat races as training sessions.

Sometimes it's a case of feeling the need to get the mileage in.  For instance, if it's a Sunday and they always run 20 miles on Sunday and they're down to race a half marathon, they'll run seven miles before the start, aiming to get back to the start line just before the off.  Or maybe they'll do three or four before the start and another three or four after the finish.  I don't think I would ever do this.  If I really, really felt I had to get the miles in, I might do a few extra miles in the evening as a recovery run, but no more.

I used to know runners who would race on a Saturday afternoon, having done their weekend long run in the morning.  They'd do 20 miles early in the morning, then do a short road race or relay leg in the afternoon.  I think that training wise it's a good idea to occasionally try and run hard on tired legs.  I'm not sure I'd want to do it in a race though.  If I were doing something like this, I might do a long run in the morning and then a 3 mile time trial in the afternoon.

Some runners use the race as an exercise in pacing.  I remember in the Bramley 20, three weeks ago, I was at the twelve mile mark when a couple of guys came flying past, running at around a 5:30 pace.  I wondered where on earth they had come from.  Looking at the results afterwards, it appears that they ran the first 10 miles in around 63 minutes and the second 10 in around 57 minutes.  I assume this was a deliberate strategy, but, to be honest, I don't really see the point in it.  Of course you can run the second half faster, if you take the first half slowly, but the best way to run any distance race it at even pace - to run the first mile as fast as the last.

Anyway I accept that people have the right to take whatever approach suits them.  But for me training is training and racing is racing and ne'er the twain shall meet!

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Training today - fastish run on road.  Two laps of my Beacon Hill circuit.  First lap 22:20.  Second lap 23:30.  Total time 45:50.  The fastest I have done this course for quite a while.  Unusually we had near perfect conditions for running today - a bright, crisp early spring day.

The terrible weather recently has set me to thinking again as to which country to emigrate to, or at least spend the winter months in, and my thoughts turned to South Africa.  South Africa has an awful lot to recommend it.  It is a fairly large country, about four times the size of the UK, so plenty of wide open spaces.  It boasts some stunning scenery, a beautiful coastline and some fabulous beaches.  It is in the same time zone as the UK, so no jet lag after a long flight, but it is also in the southern hemisphere, hence they enjoy their summer during our winter months.

As in Australia and New Zealand there is a culture of healthy, outdoor living and love of sport.  South Africa has produced some excellent sportsmen, particularly in sports such as rugby, cricket, tennis and golf.  In the interior of the country, there are some areas at high altitude, which are ideal for training for endurance sports.  In recent years British athletes such as Kelly Holmes and Mo Farah have based themselves in South Africa.

In fact, the practise of British athletes going to train in South Africa goes back many years, back into the apartheid era.  At the time, British athletes generally held the same views - that South Africa was a beautiful country with a pleasant climate, that their white South African hosts were extremely welcoming and hospitable, but.... but, but, but.

The reality of apartheid came as a shock to all those who hadn't previously experienced it.  It seemed to contradict all our basic notions, that all human beings are entitled to a basic dignity and respect.   Gordon Pirie, writing in 1955, observed, "It was a shock to me, in that I had never before seen men treated as animals."   I remember, years ago, a famous South African golfer being interviewed about the pool of sporting talent in his country and he replied something like, "Well, you have to remember, we are only a small country of around four million people".  In other words he didn't acknowledge the forty million or so non white population as his fellow citizens.

Well a lot has changed in the last twenty years.  There is still a big disparity between the quality of life enjoyed by the white minority and the black majority, but, at the very least, South Africans now regard themselves as one nation.  Sports like rugby and cricket are still white dominated, although they are making efforts to involve more black participants.  For black South Africans the top sport is football and the World Cup this summer will be another opportunity for all South Africans to get behind their team.

South Africa has a long tradition in long distance running and, even in the apartheid era it was a sport where black and white South Africans could meet on equal terms.  In the marathon Josiah Thugwane was Olympic champion in 1996 and in more recent years Henrick Ramaala has been one of the top marathon runners in the world.  The country is particularly known for its ultra distance running tradition.  There are two particularly popular events on the calendar, which attract thousands of runners, black and white, from South Africa and from overseas.  There is the Two Oceans marathon in early April - actually a 35 mile event in the Capetown region running between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  And of course there is the Comrades marathon in June, a 56 mile event between the town of Pietermaritzburg and the coastal city of Durban.

I was wondering what to end with and I reckon this film trailer will serve as well as anything.

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