The Running Man by SeanG

So, this week. Pretty manic week on the work front and didn't start off particularly well. Basically, to cut a long story short, I should have had some equipment delivered on Friday (13th) that was need to go to Site on Monday (16th) for the start of a 4 week installation. However, our Supplier neglected to tell us that would be a 2 week delay. Having the kit turning up 2 weeks into a 4 week job was not acceptable. Anyway, spent best part of Monday searching the internet and ringing various supplier trying to get the missing items. Eventually succeeded but couldn't get a colour match! I guess that is not the end of the world, but aesthetics is pretty important. Looking "right" is pretty important. Managed to squeeze and stress busting 6 miles in after world. Tuesday was a rest day as I spent the day driving around suppliers picking up equipment and then delivering them to Site to keep our installation team happy. To be fair, they were a lot happier on Tuesday afternoon than Monday morning after I told them that half the kit was missing! Wednesday was a day in the office sourcing more equipment for said task. My Customer had now changed his mind on certain aspects of the task and wanted things done "differently". Thursday was spent mostly our of the office on the outskirts of Watford doing a pretty simple installation task. As ever the "simple" tasks always seem to have a sting in their tails! The PC was giving us "blue screen of death" and the colour laser printer was moaning about is cyan toner! Yep, another simple task! Despite the blue screen of death telling us there was "memory parity errors" and after a bit of trial and error it turned out to be the fibre network card causing the blue screen. Remove, re-install and viola! All working again. Pretty much the same with the colour printer. Remove all the toners, give a shake from side to side, re-install. Fixed! Managed to make it back to Starbucks by 1159, so a pretty successful morning! Very easy 5 miles run after work. Friday was the usual Nursery pick-up run with the BabyJogger. Pouring with rain all the way there and all the way back. The buggy was soaked through. Little One was pretty dry, so not too bad. Very soggy trainers. Very difficult to avoid puddles when running with the buggy. More often than not you have got to run straight through the puddles or you end up getting one of the rear wheels through which in turns sprays water into your feet and legs as you've moved to one side to avoid the main puddle! Anyway, a soggy 8.25 miles.
Saturday was a easy but very windy 4.25 miles with the Little One in the BabyJogger again. No 'er Indoors today. Pretty typical run TBH. Each mile was faster than the previous. Feeling in pretty good condition but have got a slight problem with my left foot that started during last Sunday's LSR. I managed to take a chunk of skin off the sole of my foot. It was about 1cm by 1cm in size and is where the 4th little toe connects to the foot (if that makes sense?). I could feel it during last Sunday's run. After I got home, I got 'er Indoors to have a look at it. She ended up cutting the loose bit of skin off. Don't know how or what caused it. However, it has been rather sore to walk on and run on all week and hasn't really healed up. Not great. On the plus side, it only hurts every stride when I push off from my left foot! Its in just too much of an awkward place to try and cover with a blister plaster of anything. Just a case of grin and bare it.

42.75 miles for the week.

Sunday was Gloucester Marathon, my 3rd successive (I believe that Nick may have won this event in the dim and distant past but he doesn't like to talk about it!). Anyway, up and out of the house by 0630 for the 110 mile drive. Arrived in plenty of time for the usual chat amongst the very very familiar faces.
Start time was 1030 and with a change to the start and finish locations it meant about a 10 minute walk to the start. The plan was to run about 3.50 until I had an email earlier in the week from David Smith. David was going to run as a Nun (for yet another Guinness World Record) and needed to run anything under sub 4 hours and given his training he'd take anything under 4 hours. I said that I'd run with him. Target time revised to sub 4 hours.
David caught up with me just before the start and then we were off. The course was still pretty much the same as previous years. We still did a 4 mile figure of 8 but a different figure of 8 before heading out and running 3 x 7 mile lap circuits in the countryside before heading back in (the same way that we came out) and running a "dog leg" to the finish which was just a 100 yards from the race HQ (unlike the previous years where the finish was over a mile away).
1st few miles past quiet quickly and smoothly at around 8.30 pace. Maybe a little too quick? My heart rate was ticking along very nicely - mid 130's. More miles came and went. Heart rate was still mid 130's and every time I did see a mile split it was about 8.30! Took a split at half way - 1.53.22. Way ahead of schedule. David was pretty comfortable so we just pressed on at the current pace. Caught up with a couple of guys at around the 20 mile point who then speeded up to keep pace with us. From here the tempo started to increase which was coming from David. I don't know if it was because one of the guys just wouldn't shut (he was certainly doing my head in!) and he was trying to get away but each mile was getting quicker and quicker. Soon, it was just the 3 of us - myself, David and Motormouth! At 23 miles David decided that we could go under 3.45 if we put our foot down. David up the pace but I just couldn't keep pace. I could feel the muscles in my back seize. It doesn't happen too often but occasionally (Abingdon last year) and my gait just goes out of the window. Anyway, I went as fast I could but David and Motormouth just shot off gaining a good 100 yards on me. My back muscles eased off after about a mile so I started to chase them down. We must have taken 50 places in the last 3 miles. Every corner turned there was another 10 people to go past. Managed to knock out a 7 min/mile for the final mile but still finished about 50 yards behind the flying Nun and Motormouth! 2nd half ran in 1.47.58. Negative split by over 5 minutes. My average heart rate was 138 bpm going into the last 5 miles!

Finished in 3.41.20 for 125th position. Average heart rate of 143 bpm and a Polar PI rating of 66. Course measured at 26.60 miles.

David was a couple of places higher and finished about 15 or 20 seconds ahead of me. Going for "just sub 4" and finishing in 3.41 is pretty good going. A definite case of less (training) is more but he does have the pedigree of being a sub 3 hour marathon runner in has past!

Felt fine  afterwards. The skinless sole of my foot was rather sore and inflamed during the drive home and evening but is much much better today. Another busy week ahead. Working away Tuesday and have the 4th cross country race of season on Wednesday. Busy busy.