Who do you think you are, Nigel Mansell?

Stop press:
Horsham Joggers trio beat Nigel Mansell in 3 lap sprint around Silverstone!

If only it was as easy as it sounds, Wendy Tee & I rolled up at Silverstone on Sunday morning looking for a half marathon PB confirmation to back up the amount of effort we have been putting in recently. Nigel Mansell was the starter and he then joined in with his sons for the 3 laps. Game on, the moustachioed one was going to be toast.

I have done this race twice before and as this race track is officially the flattest place on earth it has great PB potential, unless the weather’s bad…………Predictably it was hell on a stick, really strong gusting winds and cold temperatures melded together to lash us with a sleet & hail storm at the end of mile 1. At times the wind was so strong that it felt more like yachting than running as I tacked and jibed my way down the hangar straight and getting a drive through penalty at the end of the first lap didn’t help my cause either.

My target was to get under 2 hours for the first time and so I planned to do 9’s which should have got me round in 1:57. The mile markers took the form of 15ft high Adidas towers with a clock on top of each. Unfortunately as a consequence of the strong winds most of them had been blown down (or maybe laid down due to elfin safety) and this meant that my first split check wasn’t until 8 miles. I worked out that I had been doing 8:50’s but now the weather really began to kick in. It clouded over again and then a really vicious hailstorm kicked in. As this was going on Liz Yelling was just finishing and in her interview over the PA she said that it was like having handfuls of needles thrown at your face and she had an “ice cream headache”, whatever that is. I just knew that I was being sapped and my left hamstring was tightening up. Think FLM, think survival, think don’t be a prat. There will be other opportunities. Consequently I knocked the 9 minute miling on the head and finally dragged myself across the line in 2:03. However this was still 20 minutes quicker than Barns Green last October and 40 minutes ahead of the man Ferrari fans call Il Leoni for his never say die attitude.

I have to congratulate Wendy and Tee for their performance and perseverance. Due to the shocking conditions they also both picked up injuries to go with their PB’s and they certainly earned their medals. Despite all that though they can still say that they whipped the 1992 Formula 1 World Champion around his favourite track!

N

No title this week, everything hurts too much to be witty.....

Did I not like that? For me that was without doubt the hardest run so far and for the first time I got an indication of the mental and physical challenge that awaits me on April 22nd. Physically I wasn’t feeling particularly bright all weekend but it was just one of those days when nothing felt right and I had no gas in the tank. I knew I was in trouble even before the 1st water stop but I tried to tell myself that some days you just have to grit your teeth and grind it out.

However by the time we turned for home after the Polo club I was running in what an IT geek would term “Safe Mode” with all non-essential systems shut down just so I could continue to put one foot in front of the other. By the time I made it to Strood Lane my CPU usage was running at 99% and not even the best efforts of Bon Scott and Angus Young could keep me going and I walked most of the next mile. Around this point Julia G caught me up and thankfully she gave me a little pep talk about training always being harder than the day and generally made me realise that it was ok to have a bad day sometimes. This gave me the kick up the arse I needed to run/walk the remainder. Ironically after all of this drama queen act I actually came in quicker than last week over the same distance, and if you had offered me 18 miles in under 3 hours on 1st January I would have bitten you hand off but somehow I still felt very deflated. Funny business this running lark, the grey gloop between your ears really is more important than the legs and lungs.

Last week I quoted one of my heroes, Muhammad Ali, and to paraphrase he said “…the will must be stronger than the skill.” I momentarily lost that part of my psyche in Strood Lane but I will be sure never to make that same mistake again. PMA my boy.

PS. Thank you to Paul A and his kids for servicing our needs. The training run supporters deserve our thanks for their efforts, particularly now that the distances are creeping up.

Weekly total: 22.5 miles
Long run: 17.9 miles
FGI: 4

Quotes of the week:
"Perfection is giving your all, so those who think those who try their hardest and fail aren't reaching perfection, they're wrong, because if you try your hardest, you have reached perfection.”

“I don’t train. I just run my 3-15 miles a day.”

N

Duck spotting (a beginners guide) & Navigation the A-Group way “What blue tractor?”

My how I enjoyed that! It was dry for all of 10 minutes before the weather turned bad, deteriorated and then got steadily worse. I noticed that even the Waterfall Course at Mannings Heath GC was closed as I passed it while doing a passable impersonation of a Mallard in Asics. You know the saying “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck it’s probably a Jogger doing marathon training.” However the weather is an uncontrolled variable which we must tolerate, but the terrain……..

Now I’m not criticising the map/instructions per se but I did note that Pete wisely chose the Half Moon pub at the Warninglid crossroads as the location for the 2nd water stop. This gave him the capacity to service runners arriving from all 4 possible directions. Apparently Sarah H was the only person to pass this particular initiative test and I’ve heard that she will be giving map reading lessons to A-Group at the earliest opportunity. I don’t think Horsham Joggers will be entering a team in Orienteering events any time soon. I thought that I was doomed never to see the eponymous blue tractor in the written instructions until it finally appeared on the causeway at Hammerpond towing a trailer of soggy bales. I’m guessing that this was a different tractor, how I laughed. Personally I clocked 17.9 miles (1,100+ feet of ascent) in 3 hours 2 min which I was pretty pleased with.

I also seem to be winning my battle with hunger/fatigue on the long runs and in addition to the rocket fuel I now take a chewy bar along to sustain me from 10 miles onwards. However I still can’t believe the amount I’m eating in the week. On a workday I try to take sandwiches whenever possible and usually I find I fancy a nibble around mid-morning which will see me through to lunchtime. The previous Monday was no exception but I was a little disconcerted by the looks I was given by my office colleagues as I put myself outside of my wholegrain ploughmans; the reason? It was only 8:50AM………..what a guts.

Finally, I know I’m running the risk of jinxing myself but I feel I’m coping better with the fatigue and I feel I can see light at the end of the training tunnel. Also the run-in to the big day is now mapped out for me and for the first time it all seems possible.
11th March - 18 mile club run
18th March – Silverstone Half (hoping for sub-2hours)
24th March – Legoland! Come on, give me one day off.
1st April – Worthing 20
This is then followed by the tapering runs of 14 and 10 miles. I’m getting excited, easy tiger.

Weekly total: 29.5 miles
Long run: 17.9 miles
FGI: 9

Quote of the week:
Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. - Muhammad Ali

I’m not around Tuesday so see you all on the track Thursday.
N