Running - Maria Runs

Hatfield 5 2016

After our Saturday in Bath (a couple of weeks ago now) I was doing the Hatfield 5. It’s a fairy new race (this was it’s third year)- I ran it for the first year, but last year we were away. As it’s local, we get a great turnout of OH ladies both running and marshaling. The first year was still my 5 mile pb- a great time of 44.44 (great because of the palindromic nature as well as it being very fast for me) and I didn’t think I would be anywhere close to it.

I had also signed up to the Virtual Runner UK birthday run – it was any distance in November. I actually submitted a random run so the medal would come, but I wanted it for this run. The money went to Alzheimer’s UK, and as was pretty much 2 years to the day since my Nan passed away of Alzheimer’s I wanted to run the race in memory of her.

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The race HQ is at Herts uni, so you could use their car park and hang about inside the cafe area after collecting your number. I left my bag at the drop (although that took a while and should have hinted to me that maybe I should have just run back to my car). We only headed to the start line 5 minutes before as it was quite cold, and I lined up with a few runners who I know are a similar speed to me. I had no aims of beating my pb as I had worked out I would need to run all my miles beginning with an 8- it sounds way too fast!

I was trying to keep one of my friends (Louise) in sight, but the start was crowded so I lost her for a bit. I managed to catch her up after a mile or so, and a little later we caught up with another runner from our club (Emily-she’d only joined a few weeks before and this was her first race). After a while Louise said she needed to slow, so we left her, and the two of us pretty much stayed together, sometimes me a bit ahead, and sometimes Emily. We saw loads of OH marshals along the first couple of miles which really gave us a boost too.

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Here we are after about 3 or 4 miles I think (both feet off the ground for both of us).

As we came to the final mile we kept being overtaken by these two guys, and then they would go past us. It turned into a bit of friendly rivalry as one of them commented “you girls keep going past us”- I think we finished ahead of one of them! The final mile is the same as the first mile, but in the opposite direction, but it seemed to go on for ages! I had barely looked at my watch during the race (only to see the mileage) but I could see the finish clock, and knew it had taken us a minute or so to cross the line, and it was still under 45 minutes so I put in as much of a sprint as I could to try and beat my time.

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Chip time was 43.58! A new 5 mile pb by nearly a minute!

I managed the royal flush negative split too- my miles were 9.09, 8.59, 8.50, 8.41, 8.20. Not sure how I managed that! Just over 25 minutes for the final 3 miles, yet my fastest parkrun (and I know there’s a 0.1 to be added) has been just over 27 minutes recently.

I stayed at the finish line and cheered lots of our runners over the line, but I started to get very cold so thought I would head in to get my bag. I ended up queuing for about 35 minutes- one poor guy was on his own trying to find each bag. It was very painful and annoyingly I missed seeing the last couple of runners from our club cross the finish line. We had a few mini group pictures as we hadn’t taken one at the start (a schoolboy error)- marshals and runners. It was great to see so many familiar faces.

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From our facebook page

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The medal was a really good one too- nice and chunky. I decided that I was going to donate my finish time to the charity (like when parkrun do the donate your time campaign) so it’s properly for my Nan.

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I then had a bit of a rush as I was going into London for afternoon tea with a couple of friends- it was the first weekend of their festive one and we got mini mince pies, which excited me a lot (even though I am not the biggest fan). I think I didn’t drink enough though as I had such an awful headache at the end, and didn’t have any painkillers with me. I could have bought some on my way back to the train station, but as it was a Sunday the trains were less frequent and I thought I would rather get an earlier train and suffer on- it wasn’t good though as I wanted to sleep on the train but then worried I would miss my stop. Apart from that it was great though.

When I told Andy I got a new pb, he went “for 5 miles?” as if that wasn’t very impressive! I think it’s my 6th or 7th 5 mile race, so I was pretty pleased!

Which distances do you think you race the most frequently? I would guess 10k for me, but I need to do a tally chart to find out. Which tea would you have for afternoon tea? Earl grey all the way for me.

A little catch up

So it turns out that going away for 3 weekends in a row, plus a very busy time at work means that blogging gets a little neglected at this time of year. I’ve been meaning to write posts about various things, so they are just going together in a heap right now.

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From the Twinkl facebook page

First up- (and yes, it’s out of date because I know it is December now) but why are so many people putting up their decorations in November? Near where I live I spot a lot on my runs, and it seemed that the second people took down their Halloween things they were up with the Christmas ones. Now, I do love decorations, and I love having the fairy lights on, and candles lit, and all the lovely things that go with it. But now for too long. In the new year it is good to clear them away and feel free of all the clutter. I think if I put them up too early I would be fed up of them by the time Christmas comes around. Just me?

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My new armchair finally arrived! I had some John Lewis vouchers and so I bought this for our living room, as we only have one sofa and now we have more space. But I think it took about 6 weeks from when I ordered it to when it finally arrived. Now I need a cushion- I was going to get an owl one, but then Andy spotted some cool Totoro ones on amazon, so now I can’t decide.

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Thankfully after the nightmare I had on Black Friday with the leggings (as a reminder, they were going to be delivered to 8 Bus, Hatfield) they actually arrived, so I’ve got two pairs to rotate during December. I’ve worn the blue ones a couple of times, but the red ones get their debut tomorrow in a Festive Five race.

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I LOVE these (this was a post run snack with some nuun)- I love salt and vinegar anything, and although it sounds like it won’t go with coconut, somehow it does. On offer on Ocado at the moment so I bought a few packs.

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Exciting news– Bluebird tea sell tea-scented candles. I bought one a while back to see if I liked it (you can probably guess by the photo that I did). I had the Earl grey cream one as I love that tea. When we were in Brighton a few weeks ago, we found that they also do festive scented ones- the mulled wine one is lovely- it smells of the spices and quite citrussy. The three pack had a snowball candle (coconut and chocolate), gingerbread chai (my favourite rooibos tea) and peppermint cream- Christmas shopping turned into some for me, some for presents…

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Back to some running. So my festive leggings had their first outing on Tuesday with my club run. They are fab although they have no pockets which is a bit annoying (I did know this when I bought them to be fair). I was umming and ahhing about signing up for the December 100 mile challenge. In the end I signed up, mainly because I am close to 1000 miles for the year. Although I am now 10 days in and still have 81 miles to go to make it 1000 (and 77 to make 100 for December) so we shall see how that goes. I am not convinced that I will manage it, but we shall see. I was a bit panicked and had signed up to marshal at parkrun this morning, so I got there early and did 4 miles (well 3.5 around and to my marshal point, and then 0.5 to get back to my car) (another excuse to wear the tights)- just keep chipping away.

I tried to include the tights in the photo but my arms aren’t long enough and I am not a selfie stick kind of person.

I also borrowed some jingle bells from work, and then it turned out that Ellenbrook has a load of instruments and clackers in the box with the signs- very cool! It was good fun jingling the bells at all of the runners, plus my point was at the end of a loop, so I saw all the runners twice (they do the loop and when they got to where I was, they turn back to the start, and the second time they run past in the other direction). After running back to my car I changed in the sports centre as we were meeting Andy’s family for brunch, and I put the bells in the boot. Every time I went over a speed-bump they jingled!

On Thursday evening we went to see Moana, and I have been singing the songs ever since- they are just brilliant. The film was wonderful too- such a beautiful film to look at (the hair- just be amazed by the hair) and a great story.

Have you seen any good films lately? Or started to watch any Christmas films/ shows? When do you put up your decorations?

Swindon parkrun – Lydiard park

On Friday night (after dinner) we drove down to Swindon, and on Saturday morning I headed to the parkrun there, which was just around the corner (well, about a mile away) from where our hotel was, held in the grounds of a big park (a bit like a stately home I think).

I had looked online at a map, and had the postcode of the park, but as I was driving there were two sets of brown signs- one for the house, and one for the park. In the end I followed the satnav, and it took me to a little car park next to the house.

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I had a bit of a panic at this point, as I had seen on their page that they usually get hundreds of runners, but there were only a few cars in the car park, and it was about 8.40am. I didn’t want to drive around as I had paid the £2 for the pay and display, and didn’t know if it would be the same if I found the other car park. I looked at maps on my phone, and at a map in the car park, but obviously the parkrun start was’t marked! I was about to wander aimlessly about when I saw a man running in a parkrun top, so I asked him which way to go, and he pointed past the house (although he then ran a different way as he seemed to be doing a warm up). Phew! I was very relieved to see other runners!

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I ran up and down the path a bit to keep warm, as it was so cold- I was surprised how cold it was. I had worn a long sleeved top over my t-shirt, and only took it off at the last possible moment.

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You can’t see well, but on the table they had baskets labelled 1-100, 101-199, up to 600, for sorting tokens at the end- it was going to be a busy one!

At the new runners briefing they asked for any tourists, and then myself and a lady (from Derby I think?) were taken over to see someone else so they could write down where we were from- we then had a little shout out at the main briefing which was unexpected. The course was nice and simple- two laps- I can manage to remember that.

They were very organised at the start- I had heard they had pacers for 27 and 30 (among others) and I wanted to be between them- I guessed where to stand, but then just after that the pacers held up laminated signs in the crowd so people could move (amazingly, I was in the right place)- and then one of the volunteers walked through the crowd and collected the signs in.

In the run briefing the RD said they had a complaint last week that they started late- she said they needed more volunteers as it was hard to set up in time otherwise, so instead of complaining, maybe offer to help! I liked that attitude! I can’t believe people would complain about a free and volunteer led run!

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They had a very young child honking a horn to signify the start, and as there were loads of people (over 300) it was quite congested and took a while to cross the start line.

Once we got going it was lovely, but oh so cold. I had taken my top off, and was just wearing a t-shirt and my arms almost went numb- there was a very cold wind and a lot of the course was fairly exposed on open countryside so the wind was just blowing across. I did feel a little better in the second lap, but it made my mind up for what I would wear for my race on Sunday.

At one point the 30 minute pacer went past me, but he must have been going ahead of 30 minutes as I don’t think I was going that slowly. I did overtake him a little later, but could not catch the 27 minute guy. The course was great- open countryside, lovely views, across fields and through a small wooded area. The path was fairly firm (no idea what it was- maybe concrete covered in pale sandy stuff)- there were a few puddles along one stretch but nothing tricky. Each lap was the shape of a triangle, and had a long gentle downhill, a flat bit and then a shorter (but not too steep) uphill section.

As we ran past the finish area on the first lap, a bit like Ellenbrook all of the volunteers (time keepers, chip scanners etc) were out cheering so it gave you a nice boost.

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The finish line was a welcome sight after the hill the second time, and I was pleased to finish with token number 178/374. You had to walk back to the start area (maybe 20m) to get it scanned.

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28.04, parkrun number 86.

The scanners took the chips and put them into the baskets, and although your barcode offered a discount at the lovely looking cafe, I headed back to the hotel as we had Christmas markets to get to. Our hotel had a little Starbucks in the lobby so I got us breakfast from there on my way back (although they didn’t stock cinnamon rolls, boo).

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A really enjoyable parkrun, and one I would definitely go back to if I was in the area.

What type of scenery does your local parkrun have? What type of parks do you like to run in? I much prefer the ones closer to countryside than manicured city centre parks.

Brighton Brooks 10k 2016 (nearly- thanks Angus)

So after parkrun and delicious pancakes on Saturday, we got the train to Portslade- a few stops along the line, basically on the outskirts of Hove. We wanted to look in a flooring shop (as you do) and then thought a walk back along the seafront would be lovely. At first the weather was great, but as we got closer to Brighton the clouds were really rolling in.

img_20161119_130244670_hdr It did make for some dramatic scenery.

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Of course we found more Snowdogs- I could not work out why I had not seen this one last time, but a lady taking a photo (she had been looking for them all, and only had 2 more to find) told me it had been in London until a couple of weeks ago.

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I also got a bit over-excited seeing the km markers up for the race.

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I also thought it was crazy when we got closer to the old pier- so much of it has fallen into the sea now.

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As the clouds were fast approaching we headed up into town to the shopping centre, and got there just after it started pouring. We then mooched around the shops for a bit, before buying a few snacks (we shared some hummus and carrot sticks, crisps and mango) as we didn’t fancy lunch, and went back to the hotel to have them as it was very wet outside.

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As the rain eased off, we headed out for a wander around the lanes, and treated ourselves to a big pot of tea and some lovely chocolate mint cake in Catwalk Cakes- they do such lovely flavours in there. Our dinner wasn’t until late (8.15- that’s very late for us!) so we went back to the hotel yet again – I did my pre race prep of painting my nails, getting my kit out, putting my number on my vest etc. Dinner was so good- we went to Food for Friends as they do such good veggie food- I had lovely baby aubergines stuffed with various things and served with some sort of tomato and bean thing. I also had such a lovely drink, called a ginger zinger (maybe)- ginger and star anise and lime juice, warm, with probably some other things too (I think a slice of orange?)- anyway it was so warming and festive.

The race organisers had posted on facebook on Saturday about watching out in case the storm was bad, but I didn’t really think they would cancel. I woke up on Sunday before my alarm and saw I had a text message from them- it said it had been cancelled, but also it said more news to follow. There was a similar message on facebook, but I looked outside and it didn’t look too bad. I put my running things on, so I decided I would head out just in case- not sure what I was thinking.

The wind in town was fine, but as soon as I got along the seafront it was crazy.

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Huge waves were smashing up over the marina and groynes, and the trees were flapping wildly.

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I thought I would prove I went running along the seafront, although not for long! I saw all the marshals for the race out, turning away runners that had not heard the message. It must have been so hard for them to decide to cancel, and the poor volunteers were still out in the bad weather although luckily it wasn’t raining.

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I ran along to the marina (seeing more Snowdogs) and then decided to cut in and run back through Kemp Town (where we stayed when I did the marathon). Normally I would not just make up a route, but I feel I know my way around Brighton quite well, plus I knew that I was heading back parallel to the seafront, and at each intersection I could look left and still see the sea.

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I was originally planning on running for 6 miles but in the end I did 5 before calling it a day, stopping off at Pret to get us each a warm drink.

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I looked on Strava after and could see where the wind was behind me- so much faster! (9.55 vs 11.12 minutes per mile!).

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It was a shame to not run the race, as I don’t think it would have been harder than the crazy wind they had last year, but I got to go out for more pancakes which is never a bad thing!

They sent an email later explaining their reasons- the race has always been along the prom before, but because it’s getting bigger they had permission to close the road along the seafront. However, the police would not let them do this (I suppose because of access for emergency vehicles) plus the wind meant that they would not get the port-a-loos to the start/finish area (which would not bother me, but of course would bother a lot of people). They have said we can get money off next years entry, as they can’t find a date to hold it a second time, and seeing as it’s fairly cheap (I think £14?) I don’t mind too much. Although I wonder what they will do with the medals, as they have the date on them usually.

After breakfast and a quick walk along the pier to see yet another snowdog, we headed to the train station. Another lovely weekend in Brighton, although not quite the result I was hoping for!

Have you ever had a race cancelled? What is your hot drink of choice? We went for Earl grey tea on Saturday, because tea goes very well with cake, but on Sunday morning I went for a chai latte (hooray that Pret do them now) because there is something more warming about that sort of drink.

Preston Park parkrun

So this weekend, on Friday evening after dinner at home, we got the train down to Brighton. The last few times I have been to Brighton, I’ve been to Hove Prom parkrun, mainly as it is easy to find (find the sea, and turn right and run along the seafront). But when I looked last time, it turned out Preston Park was marginally closer, and although I thought it would be complicated to find, Andy reminded me that it was where the marathon started, and basically from the main road near the Pavilion (very close to where we stayed) I had to turn left and keep going straight. Simple.

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A Snowdog by Preston Park

It turned out to be a very good idea for many reasons:

It was my 12th different parkrun (or 11 if we don’t count San Fran), so now I’m over half way to 20.
It was very windy and running by the sea would be tough.
I got to spot more Snowdogs on my way as we had not walked in that direction.
They were having a pacing event (or maybe they have pacers there a lot? I was looking on their facebook page as I always check in case of cancellations, and there was a discussion about pacer runners as recently they had an event and had some uncomplimentary feedback about having a 37 minute pacer- for goodness sake if you are a speedy runner does it really matter how many pacers are running behind you???? Argh! Anyway, the overwhelming number of comments were about how great it is to have a range of pacers- I digress…)- so I could choose a pacer to follow and try to stick with them.
I had forgotten to pack facewipes but I ran past a Boots so I popped in on my way back.

Saturday morning was beautiful- so frosty and clear, with such blue skies. As I took a little detour looking at more snowdogs, when I arrived I had run 1.8 miles, so I pottered up and down the path a couple of times to get it up to 2 miles, and to stay warm. I had worn a long sleeved top over my t-shirt, planning to take it off but it was so cold I kept it on the whole time.

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The park seemed busy- of course when I first got there I had no idea where in the park it started, and ended up getting lost in some sort of maze bushes. I’d seen some runners in the distance heading for the top of the park, and luckily I found it!

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They even have high viz jackets for their bollards! How brilliant!

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The new runners briefing was friendly, although another person “won” (coming from a further distance) and then the full briefing was as usual- clapping for people’s 50th/100th runs and so on. All good.

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It was so frosty, and the path was covered in a thin layer where it was still in the shade, but I knew the runners in the front would sort that out! They had pace posts (?- numbers on posts to help you line up in the right place), although I lined up by the 28 minute sign and behind the 30 minute pacer.

The route sounded a little confusing (and the new runners briefing didn’t totally help- in the end he said unless you’re planning on running sub 17 minutes, just follow the person in front) but in fact it wasn’t too bad- you started off facing anticlockwise, and ran half a loop of the park, before turning around at a cone (and a marshal) and running clockwise back to the start. Then you did two full clockwise loops, with the finish funnel being a peel-off from the main loop. I started off fairly steadily- as my watch had been running since the hotel I had no idea of pace, but I went past the 30 and 29 minute pacers just fine. I could see the 28 minute pacer up ahead, but on my second time running up the hill I managed to drop back a lot (I had a bit of a cold so needed to get a tissue out of my pocket which did slow me down). Anyway, there was a nice long gentle descent so I managed to catch up and then overtake him before the final hill (it’s only a small hill). I had seen my watch said 9.02 as we crossed the start line, and it was bang on 9.30 when I finished, so I was hoping for sub 28.

I got my chip scanned, and to my surprise the scanner didn’t keep my chip, she gave it back to me. I asked her where to put it, but she didn’t know. So I wandered back to the finish line and asked another volunteer- they pointed out a table, a bit further from the finish line and scanners, with a parkrun banner. Here I joined a queue and people had to put their tokens into the right section of the token sorting box (e.g. mine went in the 190-199 section). Now, I have no problems with this at all, but it wasn’t totally clear. They actually put a message up on their facebook page saying they had lost a lot of tokens this week, but I am not surprised by this- if it was my first parkrun I may not have asked where to put it. I’ve seen this sort of token sorting at Wimpole Estate, but they had a huge board and it was pointed out at the main briefing, and then at the end the scanners were close to it, and you were directed over once you had been scanned. Anyway, a small point.

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When the results came through I had managed 27.54 for my 85th parkrun- I feel like the 100 is now in sight which seems crazy!

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I didn’t hang about as I didn’t want to get cold, so I headed back to the hotel, running nearly 7 miles in total for the morning.

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Cafe Coho was also calling- after a shower it was time for delicious pancakes with Greek yoghurt and berries.

Have you ever seen people running wearing crazy costumes? I ask because one guy was running the parkrun wearing chain mail. An actual top made of metal. Mental. How does your parkrun collect in the tokens? Ellenbrook has little buckets and then the people empty them every few minutes and sort them.