Friday 18th June
Ran out along Canal in Huningue to far bridge, turned and headed back chasing down this guy...once I passed him he speeded up so I'd to run harder than I wanted to just to get away from him 7.09 miles Watched World Cup game then went Markauf met Wombat at bar couple of beers before to Ice&Fire for England game...good turn out around 35 out the back... But what a disappointment must be the worst performance ever by our so called superstar footballers...Bloody rubbish.
Saturday 19th June
Afternoon decided to drive over to Liestal, Switzerland to watch the end of Stage 8 of this years Tour of Switzerland, great to see Lance Armstrong, Fabian Cancellara et al. Here's Lance and after the final stage Time Trial on Sunday the eventual overall winner Frank Schleck.
Sunday 20th June
Watched football, terrific game New Zealand managing to hold Italy to a 1:1 draw Rovers Ryan Nelsen being voted Man of the Match. Fran rang to see if I wanted to go for a drink but really needed to get out for run. Planned to do the 13+ mile route with maximum amount of climbing but my knee's weren't enjoying the downhill sections, so route cut to 9.9 miles with 700 feet of accents.
Week 42.2 miles
17th June 2010
Nice enough morning felt it wouldn't do any harm to get out for a easy little run to turn my legs over ended up doing 4.66 mile Showered had breakfast of banana, apple muesli and greek yoghurt with honey. Watched Argentina beat South Korea 4:1 before deciding to have a little nap, but email from the company building our apartment "saying they are going to charge me 1172 euro for moving a couple of sockets ruined any planned rest
On a not to unpleasant early evening rode the seven miles to a neighbouring German municipality to run in the Lorrach City Centre Race…I’d say Town.
The place was mobbed you know what its like when you’ve every kid category imaginable from 0-18 years, the Mum, Dad brother sister the Aunt the Uncle. Barriers everywhere, locals on their way home from work stopping off to drink and enjoy the teenage girl dance troupe dancing badly to even worse music… I saw what I thought looked like the place to collected my number.. locked the bike to discover with music blurring it was an empty World Cup Fanzone Nigeria-Greece having just finished... I don't think anyone had been there. Thanks to a helpful Lady PC managed to locate the building that distributed the numbers... then fight back through the crowds to find the Music School and its little gym’s facility to change with the local German beefcake Karate Club… couldn’t move for mullets.
Realised while warming up if I’d just skirted the town centre I could have got everywhere without any crowds
At 7:44pm 32 over 50/60 age category Men for the 6215m Race mixed with 46 women covering all the female age groups for their 4915m Race lined up for the gun, I guessed immediately the fine locking specimen of a female Athlete would be the one to set the pace and within 200m she must have been 50 ahead, she disappeared leaving another girl gradually pulling away… and me, where was everyone.. at the start I’d seen a couple of potential threats… I just had to keep it going, by the start of the 3rd lap I was passing the female back markers…and it started raining making the tiled pedestrian area corners look very slippy, more runners to manoeuvre round and the odd spectator who’d decided would be Beyonce’s weren’t all that now the weathers deteriorated. The 5th and final lap… or was it 4 laps for the women 6 for the men… all of a sudden I wasn’t quite sure…please don’t say I’ve another lap… when I saw the clock I realized their couldn’t be. 22:09 down the funnel I’d won… Chap took my photo and details then asked to interview for what I presume was the local rag..Totally drowned the rain coming down in buckets, didn’t bother to collect my free T-Shirt headed back for my bag jumped on the bike and cold and wet arrived home to see France humbled. At least I won, and happy it equates to a 17:49 5k.
Didn’t get any details from the guy who interviewed me so don’t know what paper it’ll be in.. and I’ve noticed on the website this morning that individual prize money for the senior races totals 1700 euro … wonder if I’ll still get something, never did in the previous two races I came 2nd
Up date... Went Lorrach Town Hall to collect my prize, really wasn't worth the journey, choice of football, water bottle, small bag.. didn't bother taking anything...But did see the newspaper and here is the photo the reporter took after the race
Though racing tomorrow evening needed to get out for a little run, thought I'd try something new and set off at 11pm over the Rhein foot bridge and picked up the Canal path that runs from the Canoe Centre in Huningue. Quickly takes you out into the countryside making for a very enjoyable route, around the 3rd bridge decided to do a loop through Village-Neuf before joining canel path again at the 2nd bridge and running back home nice and easy. 5.4 miles in a easy 38: 19. Considering going out again later. Started watching my second World Cup match of the day... and unbelievably Switzerland beat Spain...most people's favourites 1:0, then over on Eurosport today's stage of the Tour of Swiss... after yesterday's dramatic end to the race...today's stage started with protests from some riders to have Cavendish thrown out of the race then they had to be endured awful conditions...which eventually arrived here so didn't bother doing anymore running today.
Really looking forward to tomorrow nights race... should be interesting 5 laps on the pedestrian area of Lorrach Town Centre should be like a track race...plan is to get there early and have a really good warmup so once the gun goes I'm properly ready to run hard.
Week 15.2 miles
After the Race on the 30th of last month, work really interrupted my training schedule not helped by being on my knee's for up to seven hours each day that week, thing's weren't helped by turning 53 on Tuesday the 1st June...I ended up running only 19.48 miles in total for that week. Last week I had no excuses, no job and no birthday, just England's opening World Cup game to negotiate on the Saturday and managed a solid 47.19 miles in total for the week, including on the Thursday 10th a 10.85 mile incl 8x2min efforts, first bit of speed work in along time.
Today ran to the track and did a pyramid session (not quite the session I planned)
200 - 0:35
300 - 1:00
400 - 1:19
600 - 1:58
800 - 2:48
600 - 2:03
400 - 1:21
300 - 1:02
200 -
200 - no times for last 200's, Originally I planned to go up 1200m but with Thursdays race in mind didn't want to do to much.. Wanted to keep within 5:23 pace, slipped behind on the 800 and 2nd 600m, but happy with the effort.
9.8 miles
1:05:58
30th May 2010
Arrived in Reichenbach after a 2 hour drive to be greeted by unseasonably low temperatures accompanied by heavy ran.. Presented myself to the organizer as I discovered yesterday via email they hadn't received my entry (my fault really for leaving it so late) though Datasport had taken the fee from my account Friday, it took some convincing before eventually i was given a number and free t-shirt. Not much of a warm up due to conditions, but I did manage at least 6 visits to the toilet... I've always had a problem with nerves pre race.
I knew it was going to be tough..2362 feet of accents and it didn't disappoint. Flat tarmac country lane till just past the 1k point before starting a steady climb, 3.5k leaving the road to run on a mixture of mountain tracks, woodland paths, rocky river embankments.. all heading in a upwards direction with lots of forestry steps thrown in at the steepest sections. between 12 and 14k the joy of the only flat section other than the start here I was passed by what I thought must be a guy in my age category I tried to stay with him but couldn't.. plus I'd a good idea looking around that their was going to be I sting in the tail... I wasn't wrong from 14k to the finish at 16.095k(10 mile) a mad accent of a switch back road... it must have been 1 in 2 on the inside of the bends which seemed to come up every 30-40 metre's. Managed to pass 3 guys that had passed me earlier on this climb... but the guy I really needed to catch disappeared round the bends.
Finished in 1:22:54 I was right in thinking that guy was the danger as he finished 50 seconds ahead putting me 2nd M50 again, 30th out of 398 overall.
Realised once I'd got myself a drink that everyone had had there kit bags brought up on a lorry... I for some reason (because of a similar race done a couple years ago) thought that we'd just jump on the cable car and return to the start... No cable cars in this area.. had to run back down to the 13k point... It actually made for a good warm down... at the bus stop a very nice Swiss couple took pity on me and rather than let me stand around waiting for the bus for the next 30 minutes gave me a lift to the start once they'd put a protective blanket on the back seat to stop my muddy backside and legs getting everywhere.
Week 31.31 miles
