Week 18 – Sweet Sixteen

My new Coventry Way book has arrived and on the front my registration number which is ‘16’.  The notes say I must announce that at each checkpoint on the Coventry Way Challenge.   Superficially the book looks much the same but there is more clarity and consistency and generosity with the pages, allowing for more information.  I can only detect two small changes to the route.  Well done to all those involved in this labour of love.

On Saturday my route is a combination of two routes I used when I was marathon training last year plus a bit of Coventry Way.  Knowing that there are no shops out this way, in the morning I drive out and hide two bottles, water and Gatorade, behind an old tree stump at around the 20k mark.  It takes a while to find a suitable hiding place.  Then I run out to Corley and beyond going under the M6 and back via Harvest Hill Lane.  This is one of my favourite routes.  Harvest Hill Lane with its scattered settlements seems like a big friendly linear village and there are often people out horse riding, cycling or dog-walking.  I guess the co-operation required in frequently having to negotiate passing one another in a narrow lane engenders a certain neighbourliness.  

Running down Harvest Hill Lane I must resist the temptation to turn right onto the Coventry Way but, in order to get the distance in, take a big circle via Clay Lane (picking up my bottles), and back to Corley to rejoin the Coventry Way at Windmill Lane (the beginning of Map 18).  I complete map 18 and with it my second circumnavigation.  I do not intend to undertake a third until the Coventry Way Challenge on April 18^th.  However, I do Map 1 again to get me to Back Lane.  I have a fondness for Map 1 where I first turned off the tarmaced path four months ago and began this nonsense. 

From Back Lane its back through Eastern Green, Allesley Park, over the footbridge to Staircase Lane, Northbrook Lane and down through Coundon to home. My pace is a lot faster than I have been doing lately but then most of this run was on roads.  However, even the Coventry Way sections I complete at a reasonable pace.  But the price of maintaining this pace is great weariness and achy legs in the final few kilometres.

42.3k (a marathon) completed at a pace of 6:31mins/k.

Week 17

First some thank-yous:  to Running Coventry for giving me a name check and reciprocating my link on his blog, and to Bev and Carol for their generous donations to the Haiti appeal.

I should also thank the Coventry Way elves who have been busy sorting out problems on the route.  Last week I went through Brinklow and the waymarker stuck to a sapling that had rotated and sent me the wrong way last time, was now stuck firmly and correctly to a stout post.   There seem to be more waymarkers generally than during my first circumnavigation, particularly the sort stuck to lampposts, or maybe, without the map to look at, I am getting better at spotting them.

On Saturday morning I woke and stocked up with porridge with every intention of running, but as the rain came down the forecast looked better for Sunday I went back to bed.

So more porridge on Sunday and a glorious morning as I run-walk in warm-up mode to Ansty, join the Coventry Way, plodge round through Barnacle, Bed’th and Corely and then via Harvest Hill Lane and Allesley to home. It is the first time since I started training for the Coventry Way that I have run with just one layer of clothing.  There a quite a few walkers out enjoying the spring sunshine; couples, families even a group of young lads, with maps following the Coventry Way.  We need more of them out to tramp down some of the paths, but not to churn up the muddy bits.  There are still plenty of these, particularly where the canal seeps over its banks or where some other hidden sources of water seem to emerge from the ground independent of any rainfall. I suspect that even in the unlikely event of us getting solid sunshine between now and April 18^th, some places will not dry out.

At 41k, just short of a Marathon, this was not the longest distance I have ever run but it was the longest amount of time at nearly 5 hours.  But a cold bath and plenty of calories, fluids and rest sees me fully restored by the next morning.

Only four weeks to go now, two more long runs then a taper, then it’s the Coventry Way challenge.

41k completed at a pace of 7:14 mins/k.

Week 16 – just running

We have been watching Eddie Izzard Marathon Man.  I think everyone was surprised when they heard what he had done.  Now watching how it was done we are even more amazed.  Eddie breaks all the rules, and suffers for it.  But I think some of us (particularly men) cannot learn from advice, we just have to learn from experience.  The most positive thing about watching Eddie Izzard is how much fun he has with what he is doing, even though he is in pain a lot of the time. Sometimes as children we just ran along for the joy of it, to have that feeling of moving at speed and of our legs going crazy.  As adult runners we need to find that feeling sometimes, to find our inner Izzard.

Saturday sees me running out from the centre of Coventry to Wolston, up to Ansty and back again; through Coventry’s mature suburbs, out through the nowhereland of big sheds and business parks on the periphery, to the almost contiguous villages of Binley Woods, Brandon and Wolston; up the ancient track above Bretford, which is still far too muddy in places, alongside the Avon, around Brinklow and up to a long stretch of occasionally inundated Oxford Canal towpath and across the fields to Ansty.  I navigate, with difficulty across the M6, A46 junction, where they seem to be making a big mess, and no doubt are spending lots of money making some imperceptible changes to the junction to shave a few seconds off motorists journey times.  There is always money for such works.  Back through the nowhereland of Walsgrave Triangle, mature suburbs, the lively little shops of and terraces of Stoke and past the dismal flats that have been sardined into the former Highfield Road home of Coventry City.  As a final insult this development has been branded ‘The City’.

I did not manage a mid-week run.  I think it makes a difference.  So there is a bit of start-stop run-walk, but eventually the legs settle into a rhythm.  Some months ago I read an article in Runners World by some ultra runner or other.  He said that he found it best not to think about distance completed and distance still to go, but to think that he was just running forever.  I cannot say that I have totally embraced this philosophy.  I am still thinking ‘oh, just done a half marathon’ or ‘5k to go’.  However, my latest plan means I do not always know what the exact distance of my run will be. I am doing a calculation from a combination of Mapmyrun and the Coventry Way book plus I am relying on my Garmin which I think has become un-calibrated from having to have the battery removed each time it got soaked. So I set off without knowing what my total is going to be.  This imprecision is liberating.  Not knowing quite how long I have to go I just run.

36k completed at a pace of 6:45 mins/k

Week 15 - A new target and a new plan

Thanks to Phil and Bianca whose donations have taken my total over the £500 target.  Definitely time to raise the bar. There are plenty of people who know me who have not donated yet, so between us we should have no problem raising £1,000.  It’s a bit of a shame that my total has now gone from 100% to 52% but I am sure we can get it back to 100% before too long.

I now need to be covering some serious distances in training.  So I have a new plan: running out from home doing a bit of Coventry Way and then running home again.  So Saturday saw me running out through the city centre, up Warwick road, through a little bit of War Memorial Park, down Leamington Road and out to Stoneleigh. Stoneleigh to Stareton, Stareton to Bubbenhall (private sheep, bull field and flooded quary, Bubenhall to Ryton, Ryton to Wolston (snow drops); maps 5 to 8 completed. Then it is down Brandon Lane (Ronaldo grafito) to the A45 and up London Road and Abbey Road to Esporta where the car is waiting and Jan has just completed her palates class.  There are no navigation problems on the Coventry Way.  I feel that my first circumnavigation was like going to the lectures, and now going round without maps is like doing the essays.  On April 18^th I sit the final exam.

Dipping into War Memorial Park there are plenty of runners around.  I wondered whether there was an event on, or maybe it is just peak training period for all the spring and summer races.  It has been a week without rain which means the countryside is beginning to dry out and although there is still some mud around it seams nothing compared to last week’s South Devon experience or the previous weeks of Warwickshire mud.

Elsewhere there a many more people walking themselves and their dogs on the footpaths, a sure sign that spring is on its way.  There are also swathes of snowdrops in the woods on the edge of Wolston.  That village also seems to be the centre for women’s football.  Last time I ran through there were two girls matches being played, today there is a grown-up women’s match.

I am pleased to say that, although progress across the uneven countryside is inevitably slow, once I get back on tarmac for the final stretch I can pick up the pace again.  I take this as a reassuring sign that I have the stamina.  Exactly how much I am not sure, but I have some. 

30k completed at a pace of 6.40/k. 

Keep donating

You can see from the widget on the right that I am going to have to increase my fundraising goal as we have nearly reached the target, thanks to donations from Tara-Jane and my in-laws Pam & Harry.  Indeed with Gift Aid we are well over the £600 mark.

Lisa from Article 25 tells me that a team from the charity (Director of Projects, Project Architect and a Structural Engineer) will be going to Haiti on the 8th March for a feasibility trip.  They are working with Outreach International to design and build up to 20 schools that were badly damaged in the Earthquake.  They have also been approached with regard to a large scale home rebuilding project in Haiti which they will be investigating while on the ground.  We will know more when the team returns.

News from Chile this week reminds us how devastating earthquakes can be and my friend Tita’s Mum has had to move out of her house in Valparaiso because it is unsafe.  The earthquake in Chile is another tragedy but there is a huge difference in the number of fatalities in Chile and Haiti.  This is in no small part down to architecture and shows why the work of Article 25 will be so important.

Week 14 – oh for the gentle hills of Warwickshire

Down to stay with my sister in South Devon and take part in the South Devon Coastal Trail Series Half Marathon.  As we assemble on the village green at Beesands, looking out over Start Bay the cheery race organiser makes fun of those of us who are in street-running shoes.  He says the trail-shoe-wearers can amuse themselves watching us sliding about.

We start off along a short stretch of beach and I am glad it is short as shingle not the most responsive surface. Then its up over the coastal path and down to Hallsands where the hotel and wooden beach shop where I worked as a teenager 36 years ago have been replaced by new housing. 

Then we hit the coastal trail in earnest for about 13k starting with a 120m climb.  If I ever complained about Warwickshire hills, I take it all back, if I ever complained about Warwickshire mud, I was being pathetic.  Now I have experienced hills and mud.  The going is very slow and it is difficult to stay upright.  In fact I do not.  I land flat on my back.  Perhaps the race organiser was right, but I am not sure that even the best trail shoes would make much difference in this mud.

The going is so slow that my family support team have almost given up waiting for me at Prawle, about two-thirds of the way, when I finally puff and pant my way into the village. 

The event is extremely well organised and while the remote location does not make for Great North Run-style crowds, it is made up for by the friendliness of fellow runners.  They say that people are brought together by adversity and I have never chatted so much to other runners.  It is made easier by the fact that we are walking a lot of the time.

The route finishes with two 100m hills one of which seems to consist entirely of mud.  The coastal path would have been muddy anyway after a week of rain, but 2-300 runners have gone in front of me to churn it up.  The final descent into Beesands is so muddy and twisty that I have to complete it in three-meter bursts, grabbing posts and tree branches for stability as I go. 

The race is officially a half but my Garmin says I have run 23k and I am not going to argue with it.  I feel like I have run 42: it is certainly at least as hard as the Toronto Marathon.   Being able to get my legs straight into the cold sea is certainly a bonus; better than any ice bath.

A time of just under 3 hours 15 minutes.  8:26 mins/k

Looking forward to getting back to the Coventry Way.