a run in the woods...

last weekend I took part in the Helly Hansen 'WEAVERS DOWN AUTUMN ASSAULT' adventure race at Longmore Camp in Hampshire. I was a very last minute entry filling the space left by a friend of mine who had to pull out. As it happened one of the other team mates dropped out on the morning too, leaving us as a pair.
The day started pretty early for me (0600 hrs!) in order to grab a lift from my other team mate, Chris, in Wimbledon. I was very pleased to find out that we both live on parts of the underground system that will accept bikes. It would have been a very chilly and dark ride otherwise!
So we arrive in time for a 1000hrs start with frost still on the ground (Checking when I got home told me that most of the race was sub 10c!), and clear blue skies - it was going to be a beautiful day. The gun went and we were off , first on a 3km or so run which gave us a good idea of the terrain for the day - lots of sand, water and wooded hills. Into transition we swapped woolly hats for cycle helmets and were off on a 25km ish two lap bike route. It was an awesome ride through a whole variety of country side - water, hills, lumps, bumps and mud! For some reason though my lower back started to ache quite considerably, but could be eased with 30 seconds of stretching every 10-20 mins or so. Rather frustrating for Chris I'm sure, but he was very accommodating. Worryingly my gears also started to slip from quite an early stage. It's a new bike (less than 6 months and only my second proper trail ride) so I was rather annoyed that they needed to be adjusted already. It was only when I got home at the end of the day that I noticed that one of the chain links was actually broken! What would have happened if it had given up completely doesn't bear thinking about. Happily wiggle have now replaced the chain for free :)
Back into transition and it was on to the next run section. A roughly 5km route through what seemed to be a mogul field of bumps down through a giant sand pit, gorse shrubs and finally a marsh to the inflatable kayak section where we had to paddle a lap of a small lake, then back onto the last 5km run to home. By this time we'd been on the go for nearly 3 hours and sitting in a puddle of cold wet water for the 15/20 minutes or so that it took to negotiate the lake had left my quads far from impressed and I was fighting some pretty bad cramp on the way back up towards transition. However, I was far from the only one - there were people all around me having to stop and stretch out.
The last time through transition and it was onto the 'challenges' in another giant sand pit including a three legged race around a hill. Finally we ran to the finish line, but could only cross after crawling under netting in 8 inches of muddy and sandy water (ensuring that anywhere that had remained dry or free of grit, now wasn't!) and over a steep 6' high slope covered in vegetable oil... which was nice.
We finished in 03:29:42. Unfortunately as we were now only a pair we didn't actually place, but would have come 56th out of 237 if we had counted.

Happy with that... :)

beautiful morning...

Following on from my previous post, I have just had one of those 'perfect moment' runs.
Normally I find running hard work, heavy on the limbs and generally an unenjoyable but necessary part of my fitness regime. However this morning was different. I went out early for a change and found myself running under clear blue skies with a lovely cool breeze. The run seemed easy and comfortable and was infact a genuine pleasure. The trees were an amazing range of colours, their was an abundance of wildlife and few people. I've been feeling genuinely uplifted all morning as a result.
A sharp contrast to yesterday where I was suffering from a migraine for most of it. Very unpleasant...

autumn cometh...

I went out for a couple of short runs last week to break in my new shoes and judging by the amount of slippery rotting leaf on the paths, Autumn has definitely arrived.
It's my favourite time of the year for running - the colours, smells, coolness... all great reasons to be outside exercising. The flip side to that is the mud and rain! I think this cartoon by a wonderful and very talented friend of mine sums up my last run very nicely!
Talking of breaking in running shoes, I've just confirmed my place at this weekends' Adventure Race in Hampshire. Again it's a bit of a scratch team, with the place becoming available rather at the last minute as a friend of mine dropped out (probably so he wouldn't have to worry about the post rugby hangover on the Sunday!). I rather suspect that the last vestiges of newness in my shoes will have disappeared by Monday morning!

I went to see an extremely funny play at the weekend - Cooped by Spymonkey. The show can probably be best described as the bastard offspring from Monty Python and The Pink Panther, indeed one of the actors looked remarkably like the great Peter Sellers. The play featured farce, slapstick, nudity and fart gags. Right up my street! Although, it could be argued that there was rather too much nudity at times... infact it was probably the all-male nude ballet that took it over the edge! However, I would say if you can get the chance to see the group, you should...

London rat race...

After weeks of trying to put together a team for the two day event and with a last minute drop-out I found someone to run with on the Saturday Mean Streets event - Sam Phelps, a member of the Serpentine Running Club.
I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be competing in both events, but as it turned out that was a blessing in disguise!
The race started at 1700hrs on Saturday in the park between Tower Bridge and the Mayor's office. We had 2.5 hours to cover as much ground as possible including up to 39 checkpoints around London. In the end we completed 20 checkpoints over 18km in 2hrs 33 minutes gaining 241 points. The results are a bit ambiguous at the moment, but it looks like we came in 8th place amongst those just running on the Saturday, but doesn't place us in comparison to the other 200 or so teams who did both events. I shall keep you posted!

The checkpoints were either just a matter of 'dibbing' our race chips in a cunning widget, or completing a particular task, which ranged from climbing the ice wall in the Covent Garden Ellis Brigham (which made for a refreshing pit stop!) to completing a Sodoku and Sumo rolling....

Suffice it to say we had a lot of fun and the organisation was superb. The next day however, my left foot was in a right mess. I've been having physio on it lately to complete the recovery from a hit-n-run accident nearly 4 years ago but for some reason it took great exception to the running despite not hurting at all at the time. Sunday saw me sat on the sofa, watching movies and eating crumpets whilst my foot saw the attention of a number of hot water bottles to reduce the swelling. I suspect that had I been booked into both days I would have had to drop out. I guess my physio still has a long way to go. I also think a new pair of runners would be a good thing - my current pair have over 400 miles on them and the sole has split...!

So, my goal for next year is to sort out this bloody foot and get a team together to compete in the full two day event :)

Any takers...?