Medio Maraton de Benidorm

Yesterday was a day to forget! Of the 2,000 or so runners many had travelled from Northern Europe to run hoping to combine a half marathon with a break in the sun, they were to be disappointed! It was probably the wettest day of the year. Within about 2 minutes of the race my socks were already soaked through.

I started off cautiously, given the conditions I didn't want to push my luck trying to get through the crowds and end up in a heap on the ground taking a bunch of other runners with me, then after the first kilometre started to pick up the pace abit. I reached the one kilometre mark in 4:59, with the next seven between 4:20 and 4:30min/km pace. However, things started to deteriorate abit from there, my stomach started to scream at me to take a toilet break, I tried to hang on to see if it would pass but eventually decided to take the hit, cue the search for a suitable bar to make the stop.

I lost about 4 minutes for the toilet stop, I don't have the same efficiency as Paula Radcliffe! I started again feeling suitably refreshed and covered the next couple of kilometres at about 4:20min/km but with the rain still falling, the going getting ever more treacherous and having lost the opportunity of improving on San Javier with the stop I opted for caution and went steadily through the last five kilometres, going at about 4:30min/km. My official finish time was 1:40:18, while on my watch I had 1:39:54.

You can see the details of my run by clicking here.

Despite finishing in a worse time than in San Javier on a considerably flatter course I'm not too despondent. I finished feeling good, like there was alot more to give on another day whereas after San Javier I was running on empty. Without the rain, at some points I had water up to my ankles, I'm fairly confident I could have got somewhere close to 1:30 if I could have avoided the need for a toilet break.

Now to close this entry it's time to review the goodie bag. I said after San Javier that the gauntlet had been laid down for Benidorm, and despite a good effort Benidorm didn't quite live up to the challenge. Here you can see their effort:

The cap and gloves came in useful, we got the goodie bags before the race and with the cold and wet weather lots of runners made use of them. I am short of mugs so that will get used while the t-shirt seems good quality, albeit a little too green for my liking. It's all good stuff, but no medal or oversized vegetables means the vote has to go to San Javier. Next up to the face the challenge is Santa Pola, the last two years I've come home with huge tubes of salt, neither of which are close to being finished, hopefully there will be something new this year.

Happy Running

El Maratonero

6 days to Benidorm!

No, this post isn't a countdown to my holiday in Benidorm, but instead to the Benidorm half marathon. Next Saturday evening I'll be running my second half of the academic year. The race will be a first for me on two fronts, the first time running in Benidorm and the first time racing after the sun has gone down. The second 'first' led to a slight change in my weekend to help with preparation.

Most races take place early on a Sunday, while I also do my longer training runs on a Sunday, so I'm fairly comfortable with going out running on the fuel of the previous evening's dinner. I've only raced once on a Saturday afternoon, and that represents one of my worst running experiences. Running in Monforte del Cid on a Saturday evening in June I got round a half-marathon in a little over 2 hours, to date my slowest time by a distance, after suffering with dehydration from about km 5 onwards. Thankfully in November the energy-sapping heat shouldn't be an issue, but the timing of meals definitely is.

With this in mind this weekend I switched my long-run to Saturday afternoon, and it went well, I ran almost 19km's, and at a faster pace than I was able to do the same route a week out from running in San Javier. You see the run here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/57419650
It all went well, no lack of energy, still feeling strong at the end. Unfortunately I couldn't go out at exactly the same time as the Benidorm race, my routes are all unlit so I have to aim to be back home before the sun goes down, but with a couple of snacks through the afternoon I should get to 6pm well fuelled.

I'm looking forward to the race, its a flatter course than San Javier since the route stays close to the beach throughout, and running at night will be an interesting experience, fingers crossed everything goes to plan and I go a good couple of minutes quicker than in San Javier.

Happy Running
El Maratonero

The Barefoot Running Experiment

On various running forums and in most of the running magazines I have browsed through in recent months there has been mention of a new fad amongst runners to go barefoot. That's right, they ditch the €15 padded sweat-wicking socks and the €100 trainers designed to protect you from the forces applied to your body by repeated pounding of the concrete. Its obviously an appealing idea in times of economic crisis, but ignoring the cost saving I initially, as most other sane people would, thought it was madness. However, after reading a few articles I've been persuaded that it might be worth a shot.

The main "potential" advantage of barefoot running is that it may be prevent repetitive strain injuries, which are the bane of anyone training for a marathon. The argument runs something like this, when wearing trainers your running gait adjusts so that when your foot hits the ground it is heel-first, you are a heel-striker, and this gives a sharp force that goes straight up your leg risking injury to calves, knees and hamstrings. However, when running barefoot you tend to land on the ball of the foot just behind toes, you land with less force and you make use of all the shock absorption capabilities in the foot to prevent the sharp force going up the leg.

Here are a few links that I found useful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrnj-7YKZE
http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-240-319--6728-0,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/feb/07/the-challenge-barefoot-running
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barefoot_running

One of the more philosophical arguments is that by wearing shoes to run we are going against thousands of years of evolution, since man learned to run barefoot. However, this argument conveniently ignores the fact that despite this evolution somewhere along the line someone decided there was a reason to create a running shoe, i.e. when people ran barefoot they got injured so somebody had the eureka moment and created the trainer.

If you watch the youtube video above there are what seems very convincing graphs measuring the forces resulting from running barefoot and in shoes, with two peaks for the shod runner and a smooth hump for the barefoot runner. I have one fairly major question mark over what they are doing, you can see in the video that they put the sensors on the shoe rather than on the foot of the shod runner, so they are measuring the forces applied to the shoe rather than the foot. If the trainer is effective at absorbing the force of the heel strike then the two peaks of forces shouldn't be so much of a problem.

I hope you can see from the last two paragraphs that I am questioning the argument in favour of barefoot running, but I thought it was worth a go anyway. The main point for me is that running without shoes you will run differently so different muscles in your feet and legs will get exercised, leaving your feet and legs stronger.

This morning I headed out for the first time leaving my trainers and socks at home. I had read that I should ease in to it, precisely because you are using muscles you don't normally use you need to be gentle to start with, so just went out for a little over a kilometre. So how was it?

The first thing that occurred to me was that it wasn't as cold as i'd imagined, the initial step outside gave a little bit of a chill, but within thirty seconds I was already accustomed. I had read about the joys of feeling the ground beneath your feet, I was running on concrete and I definitely couldn't describe it as a joy, I guess on grass or on sand I might have a better experience but on those surfaces it is more difficult to see what you are treading on. I did find I was shortening my stride quite alot which almost inevitably led to a slower pace than normal, I averaged 5:18 min/km, in the past year and a half of using a GPS I don't think I've ever run slower than 5min/km. The most notable thing from the run was the reaction of people, while pedestrians I passed seemed oblivious to the fact I was without shoes, three or four people felt the need to shout at me from their cars to point out that I didn't have trainers, people are so helpful!

Will I try it again? Yes. Will I completely abandon my trainers in the near future? Definitely no! I think it is worth adding to my training as a different kind of session, just to keep things interesting, but the restrictions placed on where you can go and when make barefoot running quite limiting, I wouldn't run in the dark both because of the cold and fear of where I might be treading. I think it might add something to my training, i'll build-up the distance I am doing barefoot and let you know how it goes.

Media Maratón de San Javier

Today I completed my first half marathon since the end of February, which was also the longest run of any kind I had done since struggling around the London marathon in April.

All-in-all it went well, somebody asked me before the start what time I thought I could do, I said that given my lack of training 1:35 would be a good time, and I got round in 1:35:31. I felt good all the way round, despite running at a considerably quicker pace than I had been doing my long runs in. I don't have official timings yet, but here are my 5k splits for the race from my GPS:

5k   22:22
10k 22:35 44:57
15k 22:23 1:07:21
20k 23:09 1:30:30
21.07k 5:00 1:35:31

The first and third 5k were both downhill, while the second and fourth were uphill, which explains a bit of the difference in pace. I felt good during the fourth 5k so it surprises me that it was so much slower than the earlier splits, but given that I'm out of practice with running 20kms+ it was almost inevitable that I would slow towards the end.

The route and plenty of other info on my run are on this link:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/55862059

Now we get to the best part of the day, the goodie bag! I knew before I arrived that on finishing I would get a long sleeved, and some, lower leg warmers, they probably have a proper more technical name but until I find out what it is i'll stick with lower leg warmers. That in itself is quite generous, but added to those there was a pair of running socks which is fairly normal compared to the last items, a four pack of lemons and two of the largest courgettes I have ever seen! Here is the photographic evidence:

I can't think what led them to think of putting courgettes in a runner's goodie bag, but it will get eaten. Benidorm, a marker has been laid down, beat that bag!

Countdown to San Javier and waist fluctuations

On Sunday I will take part in my first half-marathon in more than nine months.

Back in February I ran in Torrevieja and set a PB for the fourth race in a row. Seven weeks out from the marathon in London I was buzzing, I was really looking forward to seeing what I could do, both in the marathon and in the further half-marathons I had planned. Three weeks later injury struck, my participation in the marathon was in doubt and I had to pull out of the remaining half's I had planned.

My PB in Torrevieja was 1:27:41, I don't think there is any chance of getting near that on Sunday, I just have not been on the road enough. I have only had three weeks of training towards the race and I haven't run more than 20km since the marathon in April. I feel confident of being able to finish, I did an 18km training run yesterday and finished feeling good, but the speedwork is still to come. I kept myself ticking over through the summer, running two or three times a week, but never more than 12km in a session, with the heat here in August any more is suicidal, and just as the temperature started to fall I was away for two weeks.

I was in Africa for two weeks to climb Kilimanjaro, so spent most of the time at altitude. While spending time at altitude is generally a good idea for distance runners, as you acclimatize your body begins to carry more oxygen in the blood stream so that when you descend again you have to work harder to become breathless, there were a few reasons why the trip was a hinderance rather than a help to my running. Firstly, I wasn't running, I was doing strenuous activity, ascending up to 1,500m in a day, but since trekking involves different muscle groups to running inevitably there will be wastage of some the muscle mass built up from running. This brings me to my second issue, in two weeks I lost almost 10% of my body weight.

I was suffering with diarrhea for a few days, which makes it very difficult to replace the calories burned in climbing the mountains so the inevitable consequence is losing weight. Most running magazines suggest weight loss as a means to improving your PB, but there is a key reason why this simply won't work for most runners, it assumes you are carrying too much weight to start with, in my case this is most definitely not true. Added to that losing such a large amount of body mass in such a short space of time cannot be good.

In the past three weeks I have started to put some weight back on, but it is a slow process, and it is an even slower process to get the weight turned into muscle. However, in the meantime I can just enjoy the extra bowls of ice-cream!