Hill reps

Ran up Pendicle Road four times in the evening, from the foot of the hill on the Station Road side to the top, just to sharpen up a bit. I wasn't really timing them, although it seemed like each one was 70 seconds or so.

3 miles slow, 7 miles hard

Went out with Natasha after breakfast to jog down to St Vincent Street and then the footbridge over the Expressway to watch the Great Scottish Run.

In the afternoon I had limited time available for a run so went out for a 7-mile route I haven't run in a while, up Maryhill Road, through the Science Park, down to Anniesland Cross and back home via Great Western Road. The plan was to set out fast and see how long I could sustain it. I reached Queen Margaret Drive in exactly 6 minutes, then the gates of the Science Park inside 18 minutes for the first time, the bridge over the Kelvin in 19:02 and the top gate on the other side of the Science Park in 22:12. This was about a minute ahead of my previous PB pace for the route. I slowed down a bit in the second half of the run but by the time I got stuck at the traffic lights at the Botanic Gardens, sub-45 minutes was certain and I was aiming for sub-44, although I couldn't remember exactly what my previous best time was. I got held up again for a few seconds crossing Maryhill Road, but without really pushing in the last stretch, I arrived back home in 43:41, which turned out to be a course record by 14 seconds. Average pace was 6:14 per mile.

3.35 miles slow

Went out in the morning with Natasha for a slow run around the West End, via Shakespeare Street, Great Western Road and Napiershall Street. Vaguely considered some speedwork or hills in the afternoon but eventually decided against it.

5.5 miles tempo

The club training session was a 5.5-mile route down the Kelvin Walkway, through the Botanic Gardens, back along Great Western Road and up Crow Road. The numbers were down overall, possibly due to the Great Scottish Run on Sunday, and the pace was slightly slower than usual for most of the route but picked up a bit towards the end. Finished in 36:20 or so.

3.25 miles recovery

Went out after playing football for 3.25 miles around the West End in just under 25 minutes.

1.75 miles slow

In the evening I dragged myself from Bearsden Asda up to Bearsden Cross, down to Canniesburn Toll and back up Milngavie Road. Going downhill was very difficult but I seemed to be loosening up a bit towards the end of the run.

Hunsrück Marathon, Simmern

The Hunsrück Marathon was easily reached from Hahn Airport, and on the Saturday the centre of Simmern was given over to the junior races, registration, the pre-race pasta party and various other events. I got there in the late afternoon and collected my race pack containing t-shirt, drinks, energy bar, bottle opener and various other bits and pieces, as well as my timing chip, and we walked the half mile or so to our hotel on the edge of the town. On Sunday morning I had a quick breakfast at the hotel and walked down to the sports hall for the bus transfer to Emmelshausen.

The marathon course consisted of about 5K on roads around Emmelshausen, followed by the Schinderhannes cyclepath along the route of an old railway line, and a short road section to the finishing line in Simmern town centre. The route profile showed an overall drop of 140m, albeit with gentle gradients, and a climb of 50m between 4 and 5K. The sun had been out all morning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so even when the race started at 9am it was already quite warm, although not particularly humid.

A small group of runners set off at a brisk pace, so I tagged along on the downhill stretch right after the start. I was in about 7th place when I reached the 1K marker in 3:46. My plan was to run 4 minutes per kilometre for as long as I could manage, so I eased off slightly and dropped a few places over the next few kilometres. On reaching 4K I was in 10th place, but I used the hill over the next kilometre to get back into 7th place by the time we got to the start of the cyclepath. One of the runners I had passed on the hill had tried to keep up, so we ran more or less together for the next couple of kilometres before he gradually fell away. The hill had been steep enough to cost me a bit of time, but the kilometre markers were so accurately placed that I worked out my average pace at 4:07 and could see I maintained it exactly for quite a while. Somewhere around 12K it started getting difficult, and I began to think I hadn't recovered sufficiently from the previous weekend's marathon, or even from Thursday's training session, but it did eventually occur to me that I must be going slightly uphill as the undulating countryside made it hard to judge the gradient. The cyclepath was mostly lined with trees so the sun wasn't a problem.

Every few kilometres there was a water station manned by the sports club or volunteer fire brigade from the closest village. I let the first couple go by but had a quick drink of water at the next. The helpers were holding out pink cups of water, but there were supposed to be sports drinks available, and I had noticed some more small bottles on a table. One boy was holding a pink cup as well as a small bottle, so I took the bottle as I passed, but it turned out to be plain water. Some laughter behind me suggested those drinks were probably for the helpers. At this point, I could still see the 6th-placed runner in the distance.

By the halfway mark (which also had a separate sign) I had dropped to a 4:09/K average, which took me through in 1:27, a couple of minutes down on my previous marathon. I became concerned about running a poorer race on a superior course, and even possibly blowing up altogether and having to walk. The mental arithmetic for calculating my pace was also becoming more difficult. After what appeared to be a slightly downhill stretch I reached the town of Kastellaun, with nobody visible behind me and the 6th-placed runner apparently now a couple of minutes ahead. There was a tremendous reception from the half marathon participants (of whom there were many more than there were marathon participants) who had most likely just arrived on the transfer buses and were watching the marathon going through as they waited to start their own race. Every road crossing, water station and path through the fields also had a few spectators watching and cheering on the runners.

The last gradual climb of any note lasted a few kilometres, and there was another water station at the end, where I stopped to have a couple of drinks, one water and one isotonic, as the temperature had been rising all morning and the route was about to swing round towards the sun. One of the helpers kindly advised me not to drink so much, but dehydration was more of a risk than an upset stomach. The next 12K had a steady descent almost all the way to the finish, a drop of 140m overall, and although it looked very welcoming on the route profile, it began to present problems of its own when my quads began to hurt. My pace began to drop a bit more and one of the runners I had passed on the hill up to the 5K mark came through very strongly to move me down to 8th. I also stopped for a couple of seconds to try to stretch my quads.

With a few kilometres left, and somehow having managed to press on despite aching quads, it became possible to work out quite easily what pace I would need to maintain to finish inside 3 hours. I felt I should still be capable of 5 minutes per kilometre, and as I went past the last few markers, I noticed I was building more of a cushion. I had a quick drink of cola at the last water station, where they apologised for not having any beer, then struggled up the last little hill which passed our hotel's biergarten, and headed off towards the finishing line, which I crossed in 2:58:23. I was the last runner to finish inside three hours, in 8th place out of about 250 finishers. After collecting my bag of clothes we went back to the hotel to drink a recovery beer or two and watch the runners from the marathon and half marathon pass by.

6 miles tempo

The club training session tonight was a 5.7-mile run via Crow Road, Danes Drive and Anniesland Road. I found the pace no problem for the first couple of miles, but we took a wrong turn in following the pack in front, which added a few hundred metres and cost us a couple of minutes while we disputed the route with them from afar. After turning around and heading towards Anniesland Cross I started to fall behind and thought about taking it easy for the last couple of miles, but I caught up at some traffic lights and was able to stay with the leaders until we got back to the Science Park. Finishing time was 39:30.

2.5 miles steady

Went out before breakfast for a short recovery run via Queen Margaret Drive and Napiershall Street. It came out at 2.56 miles, time was 17:49.

800m

I drove to Nethercraigs expecting to take part in both the 5000m and the 800m in the club championships, only to find out the events had kicked off at the unusually early time of 6.35pm and the 5000m had already finished. A few other people had missed the race as well. I was still in time for the 800m, and ran from the front, going through 400m in 64-65 seconds. There were footsteps close behind me all the way round, and they got a bit faster coming out of the final bend, but I held on to win in a season's best of 2:11.

3.2 miles recovery

Went out in the late evening for a few miles from Bearsden Asda around one lap of the old 5-mile club championship course, just to stretch the legs a bit. I felt OK apart from sore quads.

Raduga Marathon, Minsk

By Friday I had got used to the heat and was fairly confident of surviving, although I had tired legs from walking around Minsk all week. I had originally planned not to take part if it was too hot, but too many people had already been told I would be running a marathon, so on Saturday morning I was pleased to see that the sky had clouded over and the temperature had dropped. I had discovered earlier in the week that it was too far to walk from home, so we got a taxi to the registration area where a few tents had sprung up. The organisers seemed quite excited to have a foreign participant, although I escaped the attentions of a small camera crew who were interviewing the oldest competitor, presumably for the local news.

The course consisted of 16 laps of a dirt track around part of the Slepyanka Water System, with a short section of tarmac across a bridge at one end, and a longer uphill section of pavement at the other, with a short, steep climb just before it. The path was strewn with stones and rutted in a few places, although ordinary running shoes were adequate. A couple of minutes before the 10.30am start, the clouds suddenly disappeared, so it would obviously be getting much hotter as the race went on and midday approached.

There were over 70 runners, a fair mix of ages and abilities. A few of them were wearing the national vest and looked like seasoned distance runners. The winning time from the previous year's race was 2:44 so I planned to settle in behind the leaders for a bit and see how it went, with the main goal of setting a PB or at least running inside 3 hours, ideally without winning which would not quite have been the done thing. One of the younger runners wearing the national vest took an early lead, closely followed by a female competitor who was breathing far too heavily within the first kilometre and soon fell away. I stayed a few paces behind the leader for the first three laps, which were run at a comfortable pace of about 10:40 per lap, but he started to slow down on the fourth and I soon found myself at the front. On the seventh lap, somebody else wearing the national vest came through fast to take the lead. I was surprised as I hadn't slowed all that much, so I guessed he must have missed the start by a few minutes. Soon afterwards I was passed by the early leader and another runner in a yellow cap who had been consistently a couple of dozen metres behind up until that point. I went through the halfway point in 1:25 or so which was perfectly fine and discovered the early leader seemed to have finished as he was just standing around at the water table, and although he appeared to run a few more laps later on, this moved me back up to third place.

After about two hours, with the conditions starting to become a problem, the runner in the yellow cap finished. He had been pulling away gradually so I can only guess he had planned to run for exactly that amount of time. This left me in second place with no sign of anyone behind me whom I hadn't already lapped, and the leader disappearing into the distance. By this time I was drinking lots of water or PSP22 every time I got to the water table at the finishing line, and planning what to drink next time around on the following lap to make the race less monotonous. By the 13th lap I was dropping below 8 minutes a mile and the third-placed runner went past me at a pace I was never going to keep up with (although at this point I thought he was still a full lap behind me). Any chance of a sub-3 time was also starting to disappear. Having got to the bell without being lapped by the leader, I managed to pick up slightly on the last lap and finished in 3:06:39, almost 10 minutes outside my PB from the 2001 Amsterdam Marathon, which was also my previous marathon.

My prize for second place in my age group (third overall, as I discovered when the official results appeared a few days later) was three bottles of shampoo and some equipment for drying wet shoes from the race sponsors, as well as a race t-shirt and medal (with a "2" on it). One of the officials played a few tunes on some kind of small wind instrument during the presentation, and we recognised Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town and the theme from the Russian version of Sherlock Holmes - perhaps in honour of their sole British participant, although I didn't ask. The official results showed that of 73 runners, only 34 completed the distance.

4.25 miles slow

Went out in the morning with Natasha for a 4.25 mile loop - along Platonova, around the back of the Botanic Gardens, through Park Chelyuskintsev and home in about 36 minutes.

5K slow

Went out in the morning with Natasha for about 5K, down some side streets to Park Gorkova, around the park and back home in slightly under 30 minutes.