A Gala Monday

Today we do our third run in three days as we head off to Burton Joyce for the Three Villages Gala 10k. We did this run five years ago on L’s 500 mile challenge. It is a run around the three villages of Burton Joyce, Bulcote and Stoke Bardolph.

It was cheap ‘n’ cheerful then and not much seems to have changed. In fact, if anything, it’s got cheaper as according to my blog back then it had km markers. Although it appears they weren’t very accurate and not necessarily in the right order. Well it doesn’t have km markers any more perhaps because they simply gave away the fact that the 5k route was only 4.5k.

As far as I can tell the 10k is accurate although there are still no marshals ensuring you do the two lap loop around the Ferry Boat Inn at Stoke Bardolph or even signs telling you that’s what you have to do. These loops were mentioned at the pre-race briefing but only about five people heard that, so cheating is probably rife but possibly not deliberate. Folk will most likely say it doesn’t matter as there are no marshals at the finish ether and therefore no results.

I have to do this one without MD, considering which my time of 44:31 probably isn’t very good although the route is very icy underfoot. Most races would have been called off in such conditions as we well know.

Still, a run is a run and I’ve managed to pack quite a lot of training in to the festive period.

(Monday 2^nd January)

Zombies

It’s the Shelton Striders 10k today which a race I’ve not done for quite a while and I’ve not done it at all since it moved to its new home at Boulton Lane Park Community Centre. My Mum and Dad come to see us at the start and then depart to watch along the route. We head to their place afterwards for coffee.

The race starts on the old canal path before heading off towards Sinfin, doing a bit of a loop which included the new road to what I think they call Infinity Park before returning to Shelton Lock where it finishes again on the canal path.

L runs with the 65 minute pacer and almost goes under 65. I am just over 46 minutes, which is a bit disappointing. A 45 would have been nice.

Back home I cut the lawn but it’s more a case of hacking it short as it’s still very wet.

I have promised L death, gore and zombies this weekend so later we go to Broadway to see the Girl With All The Gifts. The film opens with children being strapped into their chairs and being wheeled under armed military guard to their school classroom. Clearly in the future all truancy problems have been solved.

Well, not quite. What we have here is a futuristic tale that is a slight variant on the currently fashionable zombie film genre. The zombies which inhabit this world have been created by a fungal infection but act pretty much like your stereotypical zombie. e.g. see a human, chase it down and eat it.

However these children appear to be different. They were infected while still in the womb and evolved into a next generation who think more like humans but still have the overpowering desire to eat human flesh. 

The remaining 'real' humans have managed to stay safe from them by using blocking gel to mask the tantalising smell of their own flesh and, of course, by locking the children up while they try and find a way forward.

For Dr Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) the way forward is to find a vaccine and that is how Melanie (Sennia Nanua), seemingly the most intelligent of the bunch, eventually ends up strapped to the Dr’s examination table about to be chopped up in the name of science.

The group’s teacher, Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) prefers a different approach. She sees enormous potential in working with these children and when the military base where they are housed is overrun by the undead, she is the one who rescues Melanie.

A group of them are now on the run under the command of Sergeant Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine) who would rather just obliterate them all. Melanie repays her teacher’s kindness by helping the group stay safe by distracting the hordes of zombies who lurk in the streets.

Along the way they find out that the fungal infection will eventually move onto a second even more disastrous stage.

The film has an interesting concept but it’s problem is it really struggles to get this across and it’s very difficult to see where they are trying to go with the story. Although clearly it is trying to ask who is being the more humane... the humans or the new breed of zombies?

It also has the usual horror film problem of people doing nonsensical things and getting themselves killed. In this case, a soldier laying down his arms, his armour and his radio. Oops.

It’s not a bad film but I think it could clearly have been better. It’s also best avoided by cat and dog lovers.

We have a drink in the Lord Roberts before, then a Supreme and pizza 1n Broadway afterwards. Then we head to the Peacock where yet again the OP isn’t very fresh and I think it’s about time to give up on that place. The Golden Fleece isn’t even open which is a shame, so we end up at the Poacher. The Salem Porter doesn’t seem that fresh either but Sherwood Reserve is in good shape.

Both of L’s sister’s kids moved are now at University in Nottingham. Somehow, accidentally, they ended up not only in the same city but at the same Uni and in the same accommodation block. We don’t see either of them staggering around Nottingham drunk tonight but then it was a Sunday.

(Sunday 2^nd October)

Potential For Arguments

I decide to take a day off training and rest the legs on the bus as I'm totally knackered. I still plan to bike tomorrow, run a 5k parkrun on Saturday and run the 10k race on Sunday. It's also a tad rough out there weather wise, so perhaps it was a wise move not to bike.

Tonight I have a committee meeting for the dog club. The agenda is huge and the potential for arguments even huger but somehow we get through it. 

(Thursday 29^th September)

Thunder Running

This morning we head off to join our team mates at Catton Park for the Thunder Run where they seem to have been in residence for months but it’s only actually been 24 hours. I think they suspect we’re not coming but we don’t let folk down, only ourselves occasionally and the people who organise the Leeds Half. Which we both bailed on but they probably didn’t notice.

We pitch our tent, meet our team of eight known collectively as the Unbr8kables and then head off to the race briefing where again there is no mention of an allocated holding area where you can store your dogs while you do the hand over. It would have been nice for L and I to run consecutively but given this organisational omission we are allocated places three and five in the running order.

The weather is already quite warm and the midday sun beams down as the race kicks off with a spectacular mass start at 12 noon. Our lead out man puts a marker down with a 53 minute lap and battle has commenced.

I have no idea how many teams are in the event but there are over 250 in the teams of eight category alone. As well as the eights there are teams of five and then there are the real nutters. Those doing it in pairs and those doing it solo.

By the time I do my first lap at 2:15, which is a little later than I’d predicted with runner number two doing a more leisurely 80 minute lap, it seems incredibly hot. The first problem though is not the heat but recognising my team mate who I only met a few hours before and has since changed her running top. Eventually when it becomes clear no one else is going to take the baton off the girl who is standing there looking lost and confused as well as knackered I do. I just hope that was my team mate who slammed the snap band (the baton) onto my arm.

During my lap the heat does takes its toll as a hilly 10km off-road course. It’s enjoyable though and it nice the way the route meanders through the campsites enabling good support to be available across most of it. I am also hampered by making the wrong shoe choice, perhaps the trail shoes that I’ve never ran further than the length of a dog agility course in were not the best selection on such hard baked ground. Standard cushioned running shoes might have been wiser.

I come in with a foot full of blisters but even that could probably have been prevented had it not been for the schoolboy error of not lacing them up tightly enough. The time though is 50:35 and the dodgy calf is fine. Get in.

Now just what did the girl I was handing over to look like? Not this one, or this one, or... hmmm, she’ll do. Now I’ve either performed two successful changeovers or we’re about to be disqualified. As I meet up again with L, she doesn’t seem alarmed at who I’ve just tagged into the race so hopefully it’s the former.

I’m buzzing after my run and feel like I’d like to go around again asap but it’s a minimum of eight hours to my next lap.

It’s so hot now that even L is drinking fluids and she has purchased a ‘Secret Training’ bottle which comes with free refills of watermelon or lemon and lime or mango and others. Then after a 60 minute lap from whoever I tagged in its L’s turn. Will her ankle hold up? I’m not sure if she’s ran this weekend by her physio but I guess what she doesn't know won't hurt her. I wave L off and then head off to get a ham and cheese roll from the car to perk myself up.

L does well with a 74 minute lap and then we can both chill for a bit. We visit the Shardlow Brewery’s bar which is aboard a Routemaster Bus. We daren’t drink too much and instead head back to the car to heat up some pasta for our evening meal.

I was hoping for a second lap at around 10pm based on us averaging 60 minute laps but that was a bit optimistic and I start my second lap at 11:35pm, by which time it’s a lot cooler. This time the girl who is running before me gives me a fashion show before she sets off, showing me her brightly coloured ‘wasp’ attire so I shouldn’t miss her this time and I don’t. What we really need is an inflatable haddock like some of the other teams have which clearly identifies them to all and sundry.

We purchased some really good head torches a few years ago and these really come into their own this weekend, lighting up the course brilliantly. It had been suggested that carrying a hand torch as well would be useful but I certainly didn’t need one. All the same I stalk a girl who was running at about my pace so that I can use her light as well as mine.

The only problem was that when I stopped for drink at the water station at halfway she didn’t. I downed my drink quickly and sprinted off after her but then we headed into a narrow wooded section where a slower run got between us. I saw her in the distance getting further and further away. Bugger. I eventually squeezed past the other runner, upped my pace and then went down like a Premiership footballer looking for a penalty. Where did that tree root come from? Well actually they are everywhere and I just wasn’t paying attention.

My battery pack becomes detached and it takes me a while to reassemble everything. Then I have to pass the same runner again, the girl meanwhile is long gone or so I thought. I now run my own race and probably run quickly, then about 2k before the finish I pass the girl and leave her for dust coming home in 54:30. Not bad at all. Again I’m itching to go around again having really enjoyed my night time lap.

Now it would be great to get a bit of kip as its half past midnight, and almost my bedtime, but L is off out in an hour. So it is not until L gets back around 3am that we finally turn in. I get around four and a half hours sleep before I’m up again and ready to run again at 9:30am.

It’s cooler this morning and light of course, which all makes for a really enjoyable last lap. The on course support and camaraderie has been great throughout, even at night, from both those watching and those actually on the course running. This time I get round in 53:39 and tag girl four who is tasked with getting round in enough time for L to start the team’s last lap before 12 noon and bring it home. Naturally she is terrified about this prospect but she sets off with twenty minutes to go before noon giving her plenty of time to soak up the atmosphere.

Those of us without dogs (e.g. not me) join her for the last stretch and all cross the line together. The team has done 21 laps between us, that’s 210km. Which is a pretty good effort.

So were the Unbr8kables broken? Not a bit of it. We would not be broken. In fact my calves survived 30k and L’s ankle maybe 30k worse off but she’s still walking, just.

We had tentatively thought about doing it as a pair next year but I’m not sure that will happen, a five would be nice though.

We get home, have a shower, do the usual debrief in bed, and then head off to the Golden Fleece. There’s not a lot dark doing there so we move to the Lincolnshire Poacher which is better. The Sunday curry rounds things off. 

(Saturday 23^rd July/Sunday 24^th July)

Super Safe

Today I’m at a dog show which is being held at Newark Rugby Club, the same place that which banned dogs completely last week, when it held the 10k, is awash with them this week.

This is MD’s last show at Grade 3 and to celebrate I've even got my shorts on, it’s so hot. We start with a clear round from each of the boys.

L attempts to cycle over to us. Now it’s not the most straightforward of routes, unless you use the dual carriageway for at least part of it, which I would have done. Super safe L won’t do that of course and the text message says she is ‘utterly lost’. So she’s turning round and heading home, having already achieved her aim of a three hour workout.

MD bags a second place and we get a nice agility styled trophy. His other runs aren’t bad but none of them are clear. Not bad for our last show at this level though.

(Sunday 20^th July)

Why Does Everyone Think I’m An Expert?

Due to injury, L considers changing her entry for the Coll Half Marathon. There's a 10k option or there’s a half marathon walk. I’m more than happy to scrawl ‘I bloody walked’ all over her race t-shirt for her in marker pen.

In the end she decides to reduce her Coll run to the 10K. Mainly because the walking group will be full of fit and fast 80 year olds.

I cycle to work, after noticing that my front wheel is back to front. It must have been back to front for years because when I put it in correctly the bits for the bike computer don’t line up. So I put it back the wrong way again.

 

My fellow cyclist, L, confesses to cutting someone up this morning. That’s her new psycho fingerless gloves for you but I’m glad to hear she’s being more assertive, just wait until we get those pedals off and the drop handlebars on. In fact she does seem to be interested in the idea of nice lightweight ladies racing bike, if only for cosmetic reasons. She’ll have to sit on Santa's knee for that.  

As I cycle home and head to the pool, I get another puncture. Somebody really doesn’t want me to swim. The problem is I don’t want me to swim either, so they’re wasting their time really.

It’s close enough to home to walk back to the house, where in an effort to not arouse any suspicion to the dogs that I might be home, I chuck the bike over the back gate and drive off in the car. I think I’ve been rumbled though; there were definite overtones of whining as I pulled away.

L warns me that the pool is very hot, even by her standards. It might just have to be a quick one then. If it’s that hot, I might need the kiss of life later.

I survive the warmth and then afterwards I get in another discussion on swims, bikes, runs and triathlons in general with somebody in the changing room. Why does everyone think I’m an expert?

(Wednesday 7^th August)