Running Piers

(originally written for the local "Hook Focus" magazine) Motivation Entering London for me was a personal challenge; I do work with Barnado’s anyway on other events to support their work helping vulnerable children and protecting them from exploitation. After my first marathon in Bournemouth last year I was keen to do another.  Running London for Barnado’s seemed obvious.  Although the training and the race were always going to be hard, raising the target brought an added challenge. Putting the "fun" into "fundraising" The fundraising ended up being really good fun; right from the start I thought it would be better to work together and so we got some stuff going as soon as possible.  The virtual runs Pete and I organised at Christmas were brilliant – got a lot of people out running “gold rings” and “days of Christmas”.  It felt like the whole club enjoyed that, and we made £700.  In the meantime we’d been selling tickets and...

LTP runs are training runs at "Threshold pace" which is on the line between where your muscles can work aerobically and anaerobically ; as a rule it is roughly the pace you can run fast for an hour or so.  Probably close to 10k pace or thereabouts anyway.   See here for a more informed discussion . What they are for? My marathon plan contains a few of these, and they are daunting at first.  They build from 3 miles in the early weeks, through timed ones (e.g. 16 mins / 4 mins recovery / 14 minutes - where distance depends on speed). The goal is to help build the body's ability to run "on the limit" and deal with lactic acid build up in muscles, effectively training the body to get better at that particular biological process. They also (IMHO) give you a decent benchmark of how fit, fast and well trained you are - and to an extent - how well mentally you can deal with the pain of running hard.  Certainly they are a long, long way from a chatty or long/slow...

I got to thinking today "How important is support when you are running a race?" To give a bit of context, I ran a race in January (as I started to write this...).  It was the Farnborough half marathon in Hampshire and it was good, f**king good actually.  I got a lift there so didn't have to drive or park, a bunch of my friends from Hook Runners were there running. It was cold and wintry, really wintry. We were running in snow for a good deal of the distance and the air temperature was around 2 degrees.  It was the first half marathon of the year (it is branded as the "winter half marathon" and is organised by marathon hero Mike Gratton's excellent 2:09 Events company) so it comes hot on the heals of Christmas. Now, I have run quite a few half marathons, 12 last year alone (see here ), and probably 6-8 before that so maybe 20 in total.  Its sort of my primary race distance. Some of those races have been solo efforts from start to finish - I've...

2017 - Bournemouth I ran the Bournemouth marathon in 2017.  It was my first and it was great - I loved the training, I loved the people I ran and trained with (especially), and on the day I loved the course and the experience. I didn't love the hill you get to at mile 17/18, I didn't love getting cramp at mile 20 and then repeated twinges in the last 3 miles, and with the benefit of hindsight I didn't love the fact that I had breakfast too early and then not enough full/carbs/salts etc. prior to the start. But although I didn't get the time I wanted (sub 4 hours), I finished in 4:17 so I was a marathon runner -and people said well done and were proud of me and it felt good. So what lessons have I learned from my first marathon and how can this hindsight help me with my next one? 2018 - London Now in 2018 I've got a charity place for London - one of the "marathon majors" and to be honest pretty much the pinnacle of the running calendar as far as I...

I'm deliberately keeping this short, but I think challenges are quite important.  As I've been running for a few years I've always measured my growing success/capability by annual mileage.  A few years ago I'd aimed to run 681.2 miles in a year - simply that equates to a half marathon (13.1 miles) every week (although most definitely, back then, all in one go).  3-4 times running maybe 4 miles a time and job done! In the event I did manage to beat it. Wind forward to 2016 and the numbers are higher - that year I'd started with a target for 800.  That seemed like a lot, but possible.  What changes in 2016 was the creation of a running club in Hook where I live.  It took off in the autumn and I got involved at the tail end of October... In essence two things changed.  Firstly I was running with other people (all of whom were either a good laugh, or good runners, or both) and that really puts a different complexion on running as an activity.  I l...

(First published in Hook Focus, January 2018) A year in Hook Runners, a tale of 12(+) cities Hook Runners are out training Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and on club runs Sundays together.  There are also numerous organised events around the country that its members take part in, either individually or as a group. There have been no shortages of personal bests and races run – even in the local club monthly handicap race people put in their all and get PB’s – including most recently club chairwoman Lou. In 2017 one runner, Piers [me], had set himself the challenge to do a half marathon every month; then he added to this a first marathon as well.  This is his [my] tale of 12 cities (plus one). A Strava movie with some stats in is also available at:  https://youtu.be/KEANSU07f9Y January – Farnborough (Time: 1:48.13 PB) The new Farnborough half marathon was attended by a few of the club’s new members.  The obvious feature of 2017’s ra...

So this is my first blog post - I just hope it isn't my last (which is what happened last time I started a blog). I like running.  I like running a lot. I like running alot. I also like allotments.  A lot. Stay tuned for completely irregular musings. Piers