I’d spent a good proportion of the day planning my Nike Grid strategy. The locations were plotted neatly on to google maps, my route directions were drawn and colour coded and I’d even gone on a lunchtime phone box reccy.

I hadn’t factored in the pub though.

Or at least while I may have factored in a quick trip to the pub, I hadn’t factored in 5 pints in the pub and a trip to the curry house afterwards.

By the time we’d finished with the gluttony and pulled the route map from the bottom of the bag we were stood in front of the restaurant swaying like weebles. This was not a good start and it was already past 10pm so we had missed out on the late badge which is strangely restricted to the hours between 7 and 10pm.

Our first phone box was at the top of Tottenham Court Rd and would have been rather tricky to find if it wasn’t for the queue of sweaty blokes in shorts and vests. Once we got our eye in and actually started running life began to feel a little more manageable.

We completed the first 6 boxes in style and then rapidly began to fall apart. Although the running parts had taken barely 15mins we’d been on the go for close to an hour and the pints and curry were making their presence known. Life was no longer very comfortable and we were stuck on the wrong side of a 5ft wall. We hefted ourselves over it in a very ungainly fashion and successfully navigated the underpass without getting squished but then couldn’t find the phone box on Puddledock. Turns out it was out of order and so had been stripped of its Nike cladding and relocated a mile further north.

We were getting tense but pushed on regardless, completed the planned runs and finally arrived at our destination – City Thameslink.

It was closed. We’d managed to drag out our run til midnight and ensure there were no more trains available to ferry us home and I needed a wee.

Nope, it was not a good start.

Join our team Sub Par Runners here.

Today marks the start of the new and improved Nike Grid 2.0. It would appear from the version control that Nike has already managed to slip one of these urban orienteering style adventures past me. This time round though, I am in. Hook, line and sinker.

In brief:

Nike have commandeered 4 phone boxes in each of 48 London postcodes. The idea is that you run between them, remembering to log in via a free phone call. Each postcode is self contained so you score points by running between the 4 phone boxes in each zone. You can repeat as many times as you like providing you make the phone call at the start and end of each leg.

Extra points are scored for completing every possible route combination which I reckon means 12 runs per postcode. There are loads of extra points and badges for other stuff such as running in at least 3 different postcodes or running before 8am or after 7pm and so on.

No gadgets required, you just need to register at NikeGrid.com and get running.

You will probably want to prepare yourself with a few maps as well. The Nike provided maps are a bit pants and quite tricky to print off in a readable fashion.

I’ve started creating a google map with the Nike Grid phone locations. I haven’t mapped all 198 phone boxes yet but you may find it useful if you want to run the central London locations.

I’m ready and eager for the 6pm kick off, and have my route plotted already. We are off to the pub first so we’ll automatically get the extra points for late night running/staggering and the points for taking in at least 3 postcodes.

Anyone still looking for a team – come and join Sub Par Runners a team with high aspirations but very little talent.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

For the 4th year running I’ve rushed home from work eager to see what the postman had delivered. Usually I’m left disappointed by the discovery of an humongous commiseration raincoat, but today I found an uplifting looking red magazine. An acceptance magazine no less. I still haven’t opened it yet but it hardly seems necessary. There are now 6 months between me an the 2011 Virgin London Marathon. God help me. When I crossed the finish line of the Great North run almost a fortnight ago, I swore I would not be doing a full marathon. Ever. But that was 11 days ago and things change, pain diminishes, glory lingers. More importantly I’ve developed a new obsession. For the past month we’ve been watching back to back episodes of The Biggest Loser. Last night we caught up with the penultimate episode of Season 8 when the four fatties left standing had to run a marathon.

These guys had been huge but were now given 60 days to train for a marathon. Admittedly they’d lost an astounding proportion of their body mass by this time but they were still big and this for the most part was a solitary marathon – four contestants – limited support – a hellish experience. Danny and Liz (the two on the right) provided me with the biggest spur to action. They ran this together as a sign of solidarity and struggled as you’d expect they should but finished the event in under 6.5 hrs – a time I have previously considered to be vaguely unattainable. I don’t know why I find it so galling that they were both better runners than me. No one has ever disputed that I am a poor or at least an extremely slow runner and on the weight front I am heavy enough to be an episode 1 contestant rather than a Biggest Loser finalist, but still, it feels like the Gladys episode all over again. It just won’t do. I’m going to have to do something about it. Here starteth my new marathon plan:

2 stone (minimum) to be lost by April Running pace to be increased in a major way 6.5 hour marathon target to be broken

I’ll pad the details out over the next few months.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

Don’t you just love kids?

She was barely more than four years old and I’d only gone about a kilometre before she yelled out from the sidelines, “Keep running fat girl!”

Nice one.

Kids actually make this race. They line up with their grubby hands outstretched for a high five and I love it when they screw their faces up with a grimaced “euuuw” as they come into contact with your sweaty palm.

At the 8th mile one particularly bedraggled lad was offering out orange quarters from a bucket. I could have kissed him as I took it from him. I’d been hallucinating on the joys of oranges for the last few miles. I could see hundreds of discarded skins on route but didn’t hold out much hope of there being any left for the slow pokes at the end. The Great North Run spectators are so generous with their support and their treats and it was particularly impressive this year with the constant drizzle and occasional downpour.

After breakfast Dan joined us to wander down to the start line. We probably took it a bit too leisurely as we couldn’t even squeeze past the crowds to make it into the coloured pens before the race started. There seemed to be more people than ever trying to cram themselves onto the dual carriageway. We had plenty of time to eye up the opposition though including one old dear who we’d pegged as a lost spectator but who actually turned out to be a competitor – Gladys was her name. Here she is crossing the finish line about 4 minutes ahead of me, and she isn’t even sprinting.

I don’t know what happened, I was ahead of her at 5k, 10k and 15k and I even sprinted at the end. I’ll be back next year and I publicly challenge Gladys to a 10-13 mile showdown.

It took 40 minutes for the crowd to clear enough for us to cross the start line. I was fit to drop before we started but as my four year friend said, I just had to keep on running. I did just that. I hit an in-year record for my 5k time, not very good pacing but impressive nontheless. At 5 miles an old geezer pulled alongside me and informed me that I was keeping a good pace – 15 minute miles he reckoned. I would have been happy with this comment if the old fella hadn’t been walking comfortably alongside me. I upped my pace and escaped.

My pace seemed to die around the 9th mile from then on I lost a couple of minutes for each remaining mile. I felt ok really, my legs weren’t suffering as much as usual but I was on autopilot, head down, eyes closed. I couldn’t seem to alter the pace after slowing down for an uphill trog.

At 10 miles I was broken emotionally, I was on a rollercoaster of weeping triggers. The first was a picture of young man on the back of t-shirt, a dad, dead of prostate cancer already. So many people run with powerful messages it’s too hard not to choke up. The second was the red arrows swooping over the Jarrow Rd and third, that actually did see me sobbing was the sight of the sea on the slope down to South Shields. There is still more than a mile to go but it’s the best indication, short of the finish line, that marks the end of the pain.

From here on in I was gasping from the increased effort and the choked back tears. Both Lynn and my parents had come down to support me and I knew I was going to see them any minute. It’s a lovely experience to collapse over the finish line after such a gruelling effort and find all your loved ones around you.

Yes, this event holds a special place in my heart.

Race t-shirt can be seen on the t-shirt page.

Originally published on my warriorwomen blog.

I didn’t entirely swallow it, mores the pity. It lodged in my throat and wriggled or fluttered as semi-masticated flies have a tendency to do.

This was 4k into the “5k Your Way” event for council and PCT employees. It had gone fairly well up til that point, I had pootled along in a resolutely non-walking fashion for the whole distance until the fly dragged me coughing and retching to my knees. I hate 5k events, they always drive me to nausea.

Work organised events are a bit dangerous I think. Six of us signed up for the event but by D-Day 50% had succumbed to some kind of lurgey or injury and had called in sick. It came very close to being a 66.67% sick rate but I needed to test the calibration of the miCoach.

I’d programmed the miCoach to maintain green zone for the 5k distance. I set off a little too keenly trying to keep up with my colleagues and despite dropping back to my usual crawl within the first minute, my heart obviously never recovered. The little pacer just repeated “slow down to green zone” for the duration. That’s quite a satisfying phrase when you’re racing.

The km markers were a little off towards the end of the race but as the parkrun team were involved in the organisation I can only assume the overall route was an accurately marked 5k distance.

The Nike+ sportband recorded an optimistic 5.35km but the miCoach recorded 4.99km and came out the winner in the first head to head test over a known distance. I’m still harbouring doubts but I think I will put them away and just enjoy the running until I find another opportunity to challenge the gadgets.

So the big day arrived, not quite the day that every girl dreams of, but as days go it was big enough to require the same sort of dietary preparations. 6 weeks of off and on Stella abstinence brought me to a point where I was prepared to at least attempt a public shoe-horning of my wobbly bits into the rubber encasement.

Sunday was a hot day and the combined sweat of 2402 lady swimmers had condensed on the marquee roof and was starting to drip onto the dressers below. Other peoples sweat, wet skin and rubber only combine to create more stress and more sweat. I successfully directed my right foot into the wetsuit but then started hopping around and cursing my full English breakfast as I tried to squeeze my left leg through my left arm hole.

There was no time for this sort of faffing, we were late and were already supposed to be sitting in the lake “warming” up. Despite expecting the seams to burst at any moment leaving me pink and vulnerable like a lizard shedding its skin, I did actually manage to yank up the zipper. After patching all my grasping finger nail holes with a puncture repair kit I waddled out in full glory looking like a fat, black, naked lady with a severe nicotine withdrawal problem.

Not exactly my best look but here we go – that’s me next to the tall skinny guy, who I will not be swimming with next year. I’m going to find myself some fat friends.

As per last year I secreted myself towards the back of the pack in a vain attempt to avoid mid-lake battles. This year though I wasn’t swimming in the last wave and had to cope with the chasing hoards of sub 30 minute swimmers.

I had a few new strategies for this year’s attempt at the Great North Swim. Firstly I was going to remember my nose clip and then stick my head in the water, I wasn’t going to bother much with my legs as they’d proved useless in unscientific pool timing tests, I was going to wear shoes (?) and finally I wasn’t going to get asthma.

The nose clip really helped as you’d expect and I’m still sure that legs are overrated in swimming; I tried to observe every swimmer that passed me and a good deal of the sub 30 minute swimmers did not appear to be kicking with their legs. Of course they may have been kicking like crazy up til that point but its good enough evidence for me.

Probably the most significant decision in my overall performance was to give the asthma a wide berth. No idea how I did that, I took on heavy quantities of caffeine in the run up to the event, stuck my head in cold water a few times but there also seemed to be less motor fuel hanging around on the surface of lake this year and that may have had something to do with it.

So all in all, I had another pootle round a stunning lake, positively enjoyed myself for a few hundred metres and came home with a new pb, knocking 10 minutes off last years time and dragging myself out of the bottom 1% and well into the top 96% of all competitors. Result!
The only disappointment was that I managed to look decidedly camp in my sprint finish photo, not that I need to share that with anybody.

Actual stats:

Time – 1:01:57
Overall – 4392/4579
Age/gender – 366/385

As Dan can’t be arsed to keep a record of his times, I will jot them down here for prosperity:

Time – 0:44:14
Overall – 3148/4579

Oh and I got a new t-shirt.

As promised earlier, here’s the route map for the London to Brighton 2009 Bike Ride, courtesy of RunSaturday.

I’ve also added the speed splits from Sporttracks just to illustrate how painfully slow the process was. I’ve currently got my log set up to show running and jogging paces but its quite interesting to see that I was walking for at least 7 miles of the ride and barely jogging for another 4 miles.

Go early is my recommendation!

And here’s the GPS elevation, its bound to be slightly inaccurate but it gives you a feel for the route.
You can click on both images to enlarge.

Call that a bike ride….?
At one point I thought we were actually going to be walking all the way to Brighton.

Experienced L2B’ers had warned me to start the event early but I’m too lazy to get up for a 6am start. I may have had a leisurely 8:30am kick off but I very quickly regretted it. We just never seemed to get going. We crawled through Tooting and Mitcham and out towards the M25 and 3 hours and 20 mins later the garmin beeped to tell me we had just about escaped London.

3 hours and 20 minutes with a bike and we’d only travelled 19 miles and what’s more we were walking already.

The very first sign of an incline and the whole pedal pumping mass ground to a complete standstill. There was no room to weave in and out so everyone one from lycra clad mountain goats to mums on old shoppers had to dismount and walk.

Given the rather lame nature of the incline it was disheartening to say the least. I’m the worlds slowest runner but yesterday I barely managed to cycle above my half marathon pace.

I think there were something like 4 or 5 hillocks marked on the route map and all were fairly inconsequential except for the final horror – Ditchling Beacon.

The crowds must have thinned at some point because I did manage to get back on the bike and for a few brief miles I actually felt the wind in my face and enjoyed the freedom of a crazy hell for leather descent.

The route, which I’ll illustrate when I’ve got it uploaded, had the potential to be a really enjoyable jaunt into Brighton. Apart from the few little bumps that I’ve already belittled it felt like a 54 mile descent to the sea. There was a heck of a lot of high speed freewheeling to be done but I suppose sharing country lanes with 27,000 other cyclists was never going to feel much better than getting stuck behind a convoy of caravans on a bank holiday exodus from Bridlington.

Ditcling Beacon arrived eventually and the one time I hoped for a blockade of walkers, so I could just excuse myself from the trouble of attempting the ascent, they all appeared to have adopted the “walkers to the left” etiquette. There was a clearish path up and I had to attempt it. I didn’t get too far up though before I lost my rhythm bobbing in and out of bailing bikers and I joined them. It was a tough long walk up so I can only imagine it was a challenging ride.

From this vantage point I could see the sea and Dave said he could smell the pier. I thought he said, “Can you smell the beer?” and I actually thought I could. It gave me a little burst of joy and I blasted my way down onto the slip road into the town and didn’t rest until I found myself with beer and chips in hand.

Damn fine chips they were too.

The t-shirt can be viewed on the events page.

This run was always going to be a bit hit and miss, booking two half marathons only 7 days apart and then going light on the training regime is only going to end in a world of pain.

In my mind I thought it would be interesting to see just how much pain would actually be involved – I was beginning to see it as an experiment in muscle damage.

Three days after the Great North Run I was still hobbling up the stairs and trying to recapture my youth sliding down the the bannisters. By Friday though I was able to move around without squealing and began to think this race might be a possibility afterall.

I arrived in Hyde Park to welcome a glorious autumnal morning and the classiest event set up I’ve ever witnessed. There was a farmers market in the event village complete with a wet fish stall and fresh bread counter. Someone tried to hand me a free sample of curry sauce and I was seriously tempted to quit the race and enjoy the grub.

Still unsure of my strategy for this event I propped myself against a tree and started reading through some outstanding blog posts. Speedracer happened to be deciding her strategy for running a marathon on an injured foot but as ever, her approach was gonna prove just a little too hardcore for me. Crippling yourself for two weeks is a step too far in my book, laying myself off work for a couple of days however, sounds much more like my cuppa tea. I did agree that hitting the finish line in 5 hours was going to be a waste of time though, I wouldn’t mind running over the line in 3:30 but if I had to walk, I wasn’t going to be interested.

I started running to Amy MacDonald and finally hit on the perfect motto for the event “I will run until my feet no longer run no more”.

Sorted!

It was a beautiful route, any event that forces street closures through central London has got to score brownie points. There is simply no better place to run. I was a bit worried to note that the route left the streets and headed into Hyde Park at mile 6 though. 7.1 miles looping around Hyde park was going to be a challenge.

At mile 3 my thighs started screaming in a mile 10 sort of fashion. This was going to be some battle of wills. I ran past 3 tube stations and tapped my pocket each time just to confirm that my emergency “get me out of here” oyster card was handy, but ran on regardless.

My energy was sapped at Hyde park, knowing I had more than 10k to go on familiar ground. Spectators and general park goers were getting fed up of the spectacle and started ignoring the fact that a race was in progress. I had to duck and dive through crowds and hop over extender leads as dog owners gave their stoopid poodles full reign.

There were 12500 runners in this event, almost a quarter that of the Great North, as a result, slow runners were a bit thin on the ground. In fact I seemed to be surrounded by those goddamn walkers. Run/walkers and just plain ole walkers. They were overtaking me on the hills again and was I being driven nuts.

At the 10th mile I actually stopped to walk just to see if perhaps it would be quicker that way, but no, I was even slower. At 11 miles something happened with my legs and the running got so slow I couldn’t even claim to be moving forward anymore, the garmin showed the damage – I’d lost a 6 minute advantage in the last 2 miles and my pace was well over 15 min miles. I walked off the edge and promptly threw up in the hedges.

Garmin stopped and I quit. My first DNF.

All I had left to do was join the dots.

I’m not too bothered by the failure, I wanted to see the affect on my body and I also wanted to know if I could persuade OGB and Tanya to substitute this event for GNR next year. It will be considerably cheaper.

In my opinion this is by far the better route, it was pretty well organised and had deluxe portaloos but the crowds were not a patch on the tyneside guys who truly know how to support crap runners. If you were further up the pack I don’t think you would have been tripped up by so many dog walkers.

I spotted JogBlog a few miles ahead of me but she’s been a bit slack with the race update. That’s the trouble with completing races – you get to nurse a legitimate hangover for hours whereas DNF’ers got to go home for a sober bath! Not the way forward.