Bring on 2012

Bring on Jan 1st 2012 Hello peopley type chummies, & of course any of you spammy types that happen across this so-called blog. I'm back and scribbling again and fully plan on sticking with it this time round, at least until I get the arsehole with it anyway. I have a few races and events planned for 2012 which mostly I have to say still feel impossible at this mo in time. Firstly we have the Janathon - which is totally to blame for these random attempts at blogging by the way - in which contestants have to run every day, log said run and then finally blog about the effer. At the same time I am taking part in Marathon Talk's Jantastic. The main reason for me doing this'un is that one of my race pics appeared in the promo vid for it. I’m sure they will both go the same way, i.e. down the pan. More actual race related events on the cards are Wantage Triathlon, possibly Reading Half Marathon, Oxford Half Marathon and to finish the year off Abingdon Marathon. These last 2 were planned and paid for but rubbish knees put the kibosh on both of these. Wifey has decided she wants to do the Oxford Town & Gown 10k again and wants to try and go under an hour, I have offered myself as her own personal pacemaker as I think this is a much more important goal than my own of the sub 45 min 10k, which I can have a bash at any time I jolly well like. I will try to keep my blogging up to date as there will be much more to report on than in the past, e.g. my swimming, which by the way I can’t do. This as you may already know is a bit of a bugger when it comes to doing a triathlon. Anyroad, here’s to 2012 and keeping you updated. Happy Chrimbo and new year and all that enforced niceness crap. Type again soon. Ta ta.

Where'd my go-go mojo go-go?

Bless me what an crappy couple of days of not much running at all! Below follows days 8 & 9 of juneathon 2011. Mainly because I couldn't be arsed to blog last night, but hey, in the words of Mr. Incredible, "I've still got time".

Day 8.
I was hoping that my legs would have recovered enough from the previous weeks efforts for me to bash out another 10 miler, but alas, 'twas a bollocks and not going to happen. Shame really as my work colleague came in to relieve me nice and early too so I still would have got home earlier than usual, but it was not to be. This I had decided just about as soon as I started running. Ah well, thinks me, perhaps I'll go for the 6 mile route instead. I had until the roundabout at the top of the road to decide. Nuts to it, my central governor says, just go straight home you big wuss, so I did. The nice little 3.6 miler straight back home, no piddling about. When I get to harwell, I find that RK stopped as soon as it started! Most likely my fault though, I think I pressed "start" before the gps had locked. I had a time registered but no route, so my Juneathon for yesterday was, according to RK, 0.0 miles covered in 32 minutes. Bah!
That depressed me a bit and I began thinking I may just not bother with the rest of this
running thing, but I sat down and watched and ep. of Game of Thrones and had a cup of Twinnings green tea and chilled out hoping tomorrow will bring shinier running.

Day 9
Tomorrow came this morning, which was far too soon as far as I was concerned.
My alarm was set for 5am in the hope I would get my lazy bummocks out of bed, into my still very loved shiny shoes and off out for a 10 mile Juneathon.
Lazy bummocks won over and I reset my alarm for 6am. Bastids! That one failed too as George woke up and started howling for no apparent reason so I got up before the alarm went off again. Then went back to bed at 5.45 like a burk, and got back up 15 mins later. Unfortunately toilet duties took far too long, and I found myself still needing to get dressed at 6.25. Shitter, going to be late again!! I REALLY didn't want to run this morning, just couldn't be bothered in the slightest, but as I had no other means of getting to work, off I bally well went. Had to get there in record time though if I was to avoid being late. Needless to say I didn't, and was still late. I did manage it in just over 27 mins though, which considering the previous couple of shitty days, so that was nice.
A couple of things happened which not only woke me up properly but has perked up my running again. 1 - I had to sprint across a roundabout to avoid being splattered by a very large lorry, that got the old hammer a-thumping a bit and I smiled at that.
2 - A teeny bit further down the road I saw either a stoat or weasel, I'm not sure which but it's the one with the black tip on it's tail. This cheered me up the most as I love seeing wildlife actually running around and moving about in general rather than it being flattened in the middle of the road.

All in all, my mojo has returned before it really buggered off, but it was a damn close call I can tell you, but I am looking forward to running at the weekend now, which is very spankingly jolly. I may see if I can squeeze out 6 miles tomorrow morning before I go to the gym or I may not. Pretty sure I won't get another chance to get my run in after that.
We'll see what the morn bringeth.

Toodlepip each and all.

Ninjabread.

Wowee zowee, 1/4 through already!

Sounds like it's almost finished when you write it in fractions don't it? Until tomorrow that is when I won't have a clue what that would be as a fraction. Poss time to switch to percentages after today.

As promised yesterday, just another little tiddler of a run this morning, almost felt like not bothering with it, but that is just rubbish.
Legs were still stiff from the previous few days of running so I'm hoping these little short plods will fix my legs for the start of week number 2 tomorrow when I kick off with another 10 miler after work.
Not much to report on the run itself, just the standard shorty to work, the only problem was about 6 or 7 times,'I seriously thought I was going to crap myself, which is just not nice. Don't know why it happens but I'm pretty sure it something to do with my diet, poss not enough water and too many caffeine based energy and non-energy drinks again.
Anyway, just managed to get to work without doing a Radcliffe in just over 30 mins, so my total for Juneathon is 53.64 miles!
I have to make sure I'm not imagining that number there, no way when I started running last year did I think I would have the motivation and the stamina to be able to do that sort of distance in 1 week. Thankyou Juneathon, and the participants therein for pushing me this far. Awesome. Looking forward to writing about the 100 mile mark this same time next week!

Stu

Legs.........getting.........tired!.........

Bah.
Thought it would take a little longer for tiredness to kick me in the leggies, but then I wasn't expecting to have covered this amount of milage already. By this time in Janathon I had only covered 17.4 miles, shyit.. I almost done that yesterday alone! I will put a lot of that down to the weather we had in Jan though.

Today's run was always just going to be a short recovery run no matter what. Turned out nice though in an OCD type way. Although I'd forgotten my running pants (they're like base layer style compression pants), my running shorts (which are in fact Killerspin TT shorts) AND probably most important of all, my contact lenses, I couldn't let any of that put me off Juneathoning today, noooo way. So, kitted out in my crappy old very well worn adidas 3/4 shorts with my normal pants on (underneath obviously - I aint Superman y'know!), and my extremely non-running designed Animal glasses perched on my beak, off I set from work - vveeerryyyy ssslllooowwwlllllyyyyy indeed. Couldn't go fast, legs wouldn't let me. The glasses lasted all of 15 seconds on my face before they got stuffed in my pocket. Couldn't cope with them bouncing up and down on my face so I decided to chance it and run blind.                                                          
I couldn't tell you if there was anything interesting to see on the run, mainly because I couldn't see, I think you can rest assured I didn't miss anything.
                      
Anyway, like I say, it was a short rec run home from work, only 3.59 miles. The OCD thing I mentioned, well, that pissy little 3.59 miles took my Juneathon total so far to EXACTLY 50 miles. I like that. If I can hit the 100 mile mark by the 15th, I will probably wet myself with happy.

Run distance 3.59 miles
Run time 32:34

P.S. Please forgive any spelling mistakes, spell check seems to have fucked off somewhere, which annoys me. And I can't be arsed to read through and check my own spelling. Ta.

Hydration? Pah to hydration I say.

Yes yes I do! Well, I have done for the last 5 days of running anyway.
Don't quite know how I've managed it but I have taken on no fluid at all during any of my Juneathons so far, I have just simply not felt like it at all, even on day 2 when it was red hot, and that was also the feeling today. I don't know why but I think this is a good thing.

To the run.
I had sort of planned today's run but I had no accurate idea of the distance it would cover, I guessed at around 15 miles, and I wasn't far out. If you want to see the map and stats - click me now. I am aware this is the first time I've linked a run on my blog so far this month, this is because this is the first time I've blogged on the computer.
The run itself started out as my previous 10 mile efforts, and I have to say, at the 10 mile mark I was considering cutting it short and going straight home from there. I don't want to be that wussy quitter boy that I was at school anymore so the increasingly soggy man suit was zipped up to the neck and I just got on with it.
Running along the bypass was incredibly boring, and not a little noisy due to the traffic, but I hadn't run along here before so I didn't mind too much, plus, I was accompanied by Matthew Syed's Bounce accompanying me today.
The main reason for choosing this particular route was the hill over the last few miles. Looking at the stats it turns out that it's a 200(ish) climb over the last 3 miles. Click the link if you haven't already, the altitude and pacing charts are towards the bottom of the page.
There was a massive highlight for me, as I was climbing the hill I saw a Kestrel (I think) flying alongside me with some grub in its claws. It stopped on a post just a little ahead of me and started scoffing. Just as I caught up to it, it flew off to the next post, and so on until it had eaten all it's food. It then flew up, hovered just above me for a few seconds, squawked, and flew off to look for some more grub. MAGIC!! I seriously love birds of prey.


Well, that's enough from me. Hopefully the legs will have recovered enough for me to do a nice short run home from work tomorrow night.

Run distance 16.63 miles
Run time 2:26:00
Weather Wet and windy but quite warm to start with.


See you tomorrow night m'ducks.

Up at dawns crack!

No I wasn't being unfaithful, and I suppose it wasn't really THAT early, but 5:15 on a weekend is early enough to warrant being called stupid o'clock.
As it was, it was the only chance I would get to log number 4/30 seeing as I would be stuck at work till possibly 10pm!

So, offski I trotted out the flat at just 10 mins after slithering from the pit in which wifey was still a-kip along with a still quite poorly #brucethecat.
I didn't bother plugging in to any book or choonz this morning as I prefer to hear the birdies and other wildlife that is abound at that time in the morning when the traffic is minimal.
I chuckled watching the Housemartins fly around and screeching at each other, mainly the screeching though, as they tend to do it either sitting in their little nests or in the drainpipes. "But why the mirth?" I hear you enquire. Well it is mainly because they are proper noisy little bastards when they get going (as I'm sure some of you know) and people don't like that noise at 5 in the morning, especially people who live in top floor flats! I'm a grumpy sod, who lives in a ground floor flat, and I don't like many, if at all any, of our neighbours, so HARR HARR HARR TO YOU and huzzy to the housemartins.

That was the highlight of my run really, apart from the run itself of course. Bagged myself a
Nice little 6 miler in a touch over 50 mins. I was surprisingly tired after this run and I found it quite difficult to comprehend that I could happily take 5 mins off that time if I went for it. But there we go, Juneathon 4 jogged, logged and now blogged. This takes my total so far to 30 miles. Tomorrow I have a route planned which is looking to be around the 15 mile mark, this will be my longest run ever and I can't wait to give it a go, it's all to help my marathon prep. Think I may have to do a wee bit of housework and that type of thing first though so it's looking like it might be an afternoon jobby, so nice and toasty.

See y'all on Monday eve.

The idleness of a Juneathoner.

Not all Juneathoners I might add, just me!

I was hoping to put a few more miles in this morning to make up for me chickening out of doing 2 or 3 extra last night, but my lazy head woke up on my neck this morning rather than my running head. This lazy head of mine is a bit of a git when it comes to alarms going off and me getting my sweaty carcas out of bed. And so it proved this morning. Snooze button followed by snooze button followed by alarm reset followed by the turning off of the alarm and falling back asleep all resulted in me not getting up till 6:10. SHITTER!
I'm supposed to start at 7 by the way in case you didn't know, and I live just over 3.5 miles away from work. I don't drive, bus had already gone and my bike was at work. The only mode of transport I had was my shiny shiny Mizuno Wave Prophecy's. As spankingly wondrous as they are they ain't going to get me to work on time, once I'd sorted myself out and abluted appropriately of course.
Again, this was proved to be the case. I left home at 6:40 knowing I was going to be late and had told the night officer this.
I didn't feel to bad at the start, just a wee bit tight from the previous 2 days of running, one is not used to running 20 miles in 2 days, but I soon realised the tightness was not going to shift for anything and let it just keep me struggling.
Anyway, got to work at 7:10, so not to bad, but I did feel a bit mean as Sarwar had turned up at 6 the previous evening. He didn't seem to bothered about it though, which is just as well really.
Day 3 distance - 3.7 miles
Day 3 time - 30:25

Not sure what I'm doing about tomorrows effort yet - it's all a big surprise, even to me.

See you all again on the morrow m'ducks.

Juneathonday2quickquicknotime!!!

Gotta get it done sharpish! Nearly the end of the day.

Well my deary-oh's, I decided to go the same route as yesterday - but in reverse - and no, I didn't do it backwards. Maybe I should?
It was a beautiful evening with but a smidge wind blowing in some random direction, thankfully not at my face. I had to run topless too as I only had my longsleeve running top with me, and I was not going to wear that on such a shiny evening hell no!
So off I went, cheapy tesco earphones in my head listening to the new James Bond novel. Earphones were removed around 2.5 miles because they kept falling out of my holes.
Not much else to report on the run apart from noticing the increasing numbers of Red Kites in the area, I'm not complaining about them, I love watching the fly.
My iPhone did lose GPS around the 6 mile mark which is quite annoying as it means I have to edit the map when I get home. And I almost got run over too, yay me.
Anyway, 9.94 miles done today in 1:28:36. Next run will be an early morning effer, depending on the legs, I'm tempted to do the same run again!

Night each.

On the 1st day of Juneathon, my true love said to me........

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...........

Yep, it's true, she did. Well, it was 5 in the am when I got out of bed! Don't blame her really, and she did have George to snuggle up to.
I should point out here that George is our 2 1/2 year old son, not a random gimp we keep strapped to the bed at all times.

Hey ho, the 'bi-yearly challenge of seeing which of us can injure ourselves first through excessive amounts of running' is upon us all again, and I was still undecided as to how far I would run on this first day.
As whichever route I took started the same, there were 3 points at which I could chicken out and take a shorter one.
Firstly, into Didcot - shall I turn left at the bookshop, thereby taking the shortest route possible? Nah, sod that. That would mean me getting to work at 6am, so I carried on.
Secondly, round behind the power station - shall I go straight on thereby touching just over 6 miles and getting to work at a sensible 6:30am? Nah, knickers, done 6 miles a couple of weeks ago, I'mah keep going!
Third and lastly - into Sutton Courtenay - shall I turn left at the roundabout instead of right and waste the chance of hitting a poss 10 miler? Nah, come on Stu, HARDCORE RAAAAAHHHH!

So I turned right at that tiny wee roundabout, scuttled my way along Milton Road, through Milton Park Trading Estate and along the Power Station road before turning left at the lights and into work.....5 mins late! Ha ha, don't care.
Total distance 10.01 miles (according to RunKeeper) RESULT!
Total time - an ok 1:28:07, but then I wasn't racing, just bimbling.

It was beautiful weather this morning when I set out, and I only wish it will carry on for the whole of June, doubt it though. Let us see what tomorrow brings in the way of running based activity. I'm at the gym in the morning so it all really depends on the state of my increasingly achey legs as to the distance I will be covering, unfortunately, you won't know till I do!
Don't forget to click the link that appears on fb or twitter, it'll be around 7pm.

Toodle pip m'dears.

The Juneathon cometh!

Juneathon starts in 2 hours (I'm writing this at 10pm) and I'll be on my first run of said Juneathon in 8 or less hours.
I did run this evening, but only home from work. I have also logged it on the running free website, and I am blogging about it, so I guess I've already started!

It wasn't a magical run, but I did enjoy running to the new Prodigy album. Damn thing made me speed up when I was hurting, by I still loved it! I defy anyone not to pick up the pace at least a little bit while listening to the live version of Run with the Wolves!

Here is the link to today's run - - I'm writing this on my phone so normally the link won't appear like it has there. I will put the link to my runs in each day of my blog, as well the run being linked to fb and twitter directly. If you happen to see the tweet telling you I'm running, click the wee linky thing and stalk me, in a subtle way that is of course.

Anyway, that's enough drivel from me, got to get up jolly early on the morrow.
Good night each and all, I look forward to reading your blogs n stuff.

Cheero!

Ninjabread man.

Time to get the finger out boi!

Here we are again, almost anyway, that there running challenge that got me blogging in the first place.
It's almost time for the Juneathon, and do you know what, I'm quite excited about it.
I love having targets to beat, my particular targets for this challenge are to actually complete the thing this time. The Janathon beat me on day 22, 4/5 short of the 100 mile mark.
Also, it is the lead up to my training for the Abingdon Marathon in October, the training is planned to start on June 26th.
By all accounts, this should be a shite site easier than the Janathon what with there being no snow and ice and all that, will it be as much fun though, I can only hope. (I like the snow and ice!).

As with the Janathon, if you followed my blog (link is up on the right there if you want a shufftee) back then, I will post a link to my RunKeeper account for each run I do every day, in my blog, as well as logging each run on the Running Free website.
Any new kit I get, I shall try and review for your interest, as well as any races I take part in, though none are planned at the moment.

Here's to the Juneathon and everyone taking part. If you're new to it, prepare yourself, it sounds easy - jog, log & blog every day - but believe me it really isn't, it is however one beast of a challenge.
Good luck everyone, hope to see you at the picnic in July.

Roll on June the oneth.

Lazy training and the Oxford Town & Gown.

I'm baaaack!

Sorry, I've been lazy everywhere.
I'm sitting here in front of the computer in mild pain due to having had 2 teeth out earlier today, listening to the football (Forest v Swansea Champ play-off semi 2nd leg), which I probably shouldn't be doing as it may start off the bleeding in my gum.

Anyway, as mentioned in my previous post I was undertaking training to break the 45 min barrier at the up and coming Oxford Town & Gown 10k run. I was using the Adidas micoach training app/website thing, which I now know was quite a silly thing to do with only 4 weeks to go before the race. At around the halfway mark I had a shocker of a session and really struggled to get the mojo back. I tried to do a session or 2 on the treadmill at the gym I have recently joined, I now know I hate treadmills. Not because they're boring, I just didn't like the feel of it, it seemed to suck the life out of my legs. Bah!
With just over a week to go I decided to bin the micoach and just went for a nice couple of runs during the week and a couple of core and leg sessions in the gym. These went quite well, nothing broke and I felt fit, this was enough for me.

Race day.

Sunday morning arrived with a slightly dicky tummy after going to a TT presentation evening (a couple or 3 beers) and picking up some losers medals the night before.
The boys were fed, watered, dressed and sent off to the in-laws for the morning. I was all kitted up in my new racing vest with the shoes in the bag and my race number tucked safely away in there along with wifey's.
We got picked up by Chell's friend Claire - who was also racing - and off we toddled into Oxford.
We managed to find a nice secret spot to park thanks to Claire having trained as a teacher and one of the colleges in town. This was a pretty spanking place to park as it was only a 10 minute walk to the finish/baggage area.
The weather turned out to be pretty jolly too, nice a sunny but with a bit of a breeze coming through the parks, but we found a tidy little patch grass and plonked ourselves down and proceeded to pin things on and attach timing chips before we handed our bags in and made our way to the start line.
Because we all had different time goals, we all said good luck and gave the appropriate partner a smooch.

The start area was absolutely rammed, lots of pushing and shoving with a serious lack of room to do even the smallest of stretching exercises. I started talking to the chap next to me who asked if I minded if he used me as a pacer for him, being a nice chap I said of course, even though my target was 5 mins faster than his!

BANG!
Off we went. The usual shoving and stop-start-stop-start happened but we were running, if a little slower than I'd have liked, by the time I had crossed the start line. Chappie that asked if I would pace him had scuttled off a bit sharpish, but him being quite tall and wearing a bright red top, I was able to use him as a marker and follow him.
The wind that was blowing through the park was non-existent in the streets so wherever there was sun it was actually quite hot, this didn't bother me, I like running in the hot weather. We'd stretched out a bit now and settled into a nice pace, the first km was done in 4:51, I tried catch up with my pacer bloke to tell him he was bang on time at the moment but due to the nature of the course and the amount of people around, I couldn't get up to him. I kept him in view though in case I got a chance to catch him up and let him know. From now on I won't be able to give the split times as my watch does not have that capability, bit pants I know, may have to shop for another new watch, yaaay. Anyway, km 2 came and went and I think my watch said 9:40 or so, tall redvest bloke had vanished, he was nowhere to be seen either in front or behind of me, I think he must have blown up already or stopped in the pub near the 2km mark. I was left to just stomp along at what I thought was my target pace on my own, although I was surrounded by people no one stayed around me long enough for me to hang onto them, they had either started to far forward and were dropping back or started to far back and were tearing off towards the front. Or maybe I was just a stinky git!
On the way round I looked for family and friends that said they would be there to cheer me on, the first one I saw was my brother at around 3.5k and I had to shout to him and wave back behind me. There was a small loop through the 4km mark and back out onto the section we'd just come through which gave us a chance to see the faster runners one way and the slower runners t'other way. Going past the halfway mark I saw my chum from work who'd made her way out just to cheer me on, bless her Spanish cotton sockies. Just after this, I saw wifey coming through, I gave her a shout and we high-fived as we passed.

This last 3km is almost exclusively on a compacted gravel path, so it's not to unpleasant to run on.
It was at this point I decided to turn it up a bit, only a bit mind, as I didn't want to blow and end up falling over the finish line. I started to overtake more runners at this point and even spotted a couple of chaps dressed as Spartans off in the distance, I thought I'd use these 2 chaps as a target.
I kept that new slightly faster pace going for 2km until the 9km point and checked my watch, it said 41 mins - didn't catch the seconds - so I knew I had less than 4 mins to hit my sub 45 target. Foot down then Walker, only 1000 meters to go, COME ON! I stepped on the go juice again and went for it. Before I knew it there was the 600m to go mark and turned it up a notch, now the legs and lungs started to hurt, saw my dad at 400 "Come on Stu, sub 45, you're nearly there", legs still going, lungs still hurting, breathing still steady though. 200 meters to go, 1 long bend then up onto the grass for the final 150 meters and really hammering it now, eyeballs out, teeth clenched spit flying and over the finish line.
I waited a few seconds after crossing the line before stopping my watch. Then I checked said watch.
It is a strange feeling being disappointed and happy at the same time. My A target was sub 45, but failing that a new pb would have been lovely.
45 mins 47 seconds. BOLLOCKS! just outside, shitter. But hang on, YAAAY, a new pb by 4 minutes! WOO WOO.

Goodie bag time. Last year's was a bit pants, I was expecting a bit more from this one, it being the 30th anniversary and the entry fee being £20 (£15 last year).
Disappointed again, it was worse than last years. Just a cheap plastic shiny medal, exactly the same as last year, and the same crappy t-shirt but with 30th written on the back. Not happy with this at all.
Still, I enjoyed the race, got a cracking time, and also, I won a £50 voucher through fb to fritter away at my nearest Up & Running store, so I'm looking forward to that.

Wifey, bless her loveliness made it all the way round in her first EVER race having only started running in March in the highly respectable time of 1:15:47, so I was even happier for her than for myself.

We made our way back home and chilled for a bit before I nipped up the shop to get myself a white choc Magnum and a tin of Monster for me, and a packet of Monster Munch for wifey. Extra supah double bonus, found a tenner in the grass on the way back. Yaaay.

My official chip time turned out to be 45:44 by the way. WOOT, even faster.
When the official pics come out, I shall chuck a couple on here for your titillation.

Thanks for reading this, if you still are of course, speak again soon,

Ninjabread Man.

A new start.

Wotcha people.

Welcome to my new blog thingy. If this is your first time looking at the junk I spout, click the wee link over there >>> on the right to get a butchers at my previous posts. There are a couple of product reviews in there which you may find helpful or not.

I will be blogging (hopefully) a little bit more often than I did in my last one, and with the Juneathon coming soon (yaay) I won't have a great deal of choice - daily bloggage is one of the requirements of the Juneathon.
Most of the blog will be about running, as this is what I tend to do most now, mainly in the hope of not turning back into a 16 stone lump of jelly. I shall also be chucking in my the odd match and competition review of my first sporting love - Table Tennis. There won't be much TT to start with as the season has finished and the only things coming up are the awards presentation night (which I get to pick up losers trophies) for the 2010-2011 season, and the D.D.T.T.A. Closed Championship, which I probably won't win but I will get to play some much better players, which is always a good thing. The comp is not till the 22nd of May so got a little while to go for that.
There will also be the odd post about my life in general, though not too many, unless it suddenly gets very interesting!

Back to running.

The more immediate future sees me (and wifey) running in the 30th edition (not sure if that is the correct word!) of the Oxford Town & Gown 10k on Sunday May 15th. 
I have run this particular race a few times in the past, but I have always stopped running again straight after. Last year was different. I started running again properly in March with the aim of doing the T & G in under an hour, which I had done on all previous attempts, but this was going to be my first go smoke free and healthy(ish).
Training didn't go especially well, got myself some sort of strain in my leg due to running in the wrong shoes. A good chum of mine helped me out here by getting me to a proper running shop and getting me kitted out with proper shoes. 
Anyway, long'un short, done the race, it was rubbish. When I say "it", I of course mean "I". I waited too long before the start to get to the start and started too close to the back of the field. Spent the whole run weaving and dodging people through the ever decreasing course in a time of 55 mins and something. Yes I know it was under the hour target but it could have been soo much quicker had I been a bit more selfish and not waited for my sister (her first T & G) to have a piddle before the start.
Anyway, since then I have done a few more 10k'ers, both races and just planned routes. I have got my P.B. down to 48:57. This is an unofficial time though as it was my watch time, the race was not chipped which is a shame, it was a very nice course though - a 10k through the grounds of Blenheim Palace. If you want scenic and pretty (and quite undulating) then this is the race for you. Organization still needs a bit of work though, but still an enjoyable race.

For this year's T & G I have (at very short notice) started a training programme to get me under the 45min barrier. It's quite intensive so I'm hoping my legs can handle the pounding, lots of speed and threshold work. It is not going especially brilliantly at the moment but then I wasn't expecting it to be nice. I lost GPS less than half way through my long run and then failed miserably when it came to a sprint session earlier in the week. Still, 2 weeks to nail it!! And now I know it's only 2 weeks to go, as my number arrived in the post this morning along with the strange little tie-on chip they use. I am number 893 if you happen to be in Oxford on the 15th watching the race. Orange singlet, black shorts and shades depending on the weather is what I shall be wearing.