Post Event Analysis

At the end of a race, or other such event, it’s very easy to take a snapshot feeling of how things went, sometimes this means being overly critical of your own performance. On other occasions you may be celebrating a fine personal best before you realise the winner set a new world record and the course was clearly short. That’s why it’s important to gather all relevant information before a serious analysis of your performance. As a runner the first thing I do, after I cross the finish, is stop my watch and check my time, to see how fast I was. This can leave me feeling a little disappointed if my time isn’t as good as I had hoped, or elated if I’ve run faster than I’ve expected, but then I park it until I see the full result. In my best years I didn’t wear a watch in races, I preferred to race the opposition rather than worry about the time so my initial success criteria was based more upon position than time. Now I’m an old geezer it’s more important to see how much I’m slowing down rather than if I finished 36^th or 37^th.

The analysis of a track race is often easy as it’s a regular distance, generally the same surface and flat, but you may need to take into account weather, altitude, temperature and how tactical the race was. For a road race or cross country event, you need to take into account different terrain and also different conditions to similar races. So it’s important that you get a full picture of what everybody else in the race did, before critiquing your performance.

When I’m assessing my performance I’ll look at the winner’s time and see how they did in comparison to my time. Then I’ll look at the runners who normally finish around my finishing position to see how I fared relative to them. Of course non of this is perfect as you don’t know what their personal circumstances were on the day but if there is a large enough group of peers it should give you a decent indication. If I’ve done the race previously I’ll compare my time and position against that, taking into account who else was in the race, my current fitness level and differing race conditions. Lastly I’ll run through the race in my mind to see where I thought I did particularly well or any aspects that I could improve upon.

As a Coach/Personal Trainer I help my clients to evaluate their performance in the same way. If I’ve been there to watch the race I’ll already know some of the areas that need to be worked on, but it’s important to ask the runner what they think of their own performance, before giving my opinion. On some occasions the person may be too wrapped up with what they think they did wrong that they forget to think about the things that went well. Other times it’ll be clear there were areas that need to be worked on so then it’s up to us to identify the best way to do that. If I can, I’ll always try to end on a positive, it’s a much healthier way to live your life.

And onto the latest race in my calendar:

After my run for Salford, last week, I was so inspired by the atmosphere that I pushed myself a little harder in training this week. I hadn’t realised what a difference not competing for my club regularly had on my enthusiasm, now I’m all fired up and want to improve, to play my part in making Salford the best club in the country. On Wednesday I did my usual quality session but, to me, it felt like I was shifting along that little bit quicker than I had previously. It’s a good sign but I’m still only one week into my quality work so need to be patient. On Thursday I decided it was time to push things a little more and ran for 10 miles, about 3 miles longer than anything I’d done for about 8 weeks. It felt good to be out for more than an hour, even though my hamstring was a little sore afterwards, but Friday was a rest day so I wasn’t unduly concerned.

Come Saturday it was another race day, this time the Northern Road Relay Champs, so tougher opposition and I’d been promoted into the C team. Couldn’t afford to have a bad run or it would mean a quick demotion to D. There were a couple of guys in the B team who had been just a little quicker than me at Marbury so I had them in my sights, but I knew this run was all about building up my confidence, I wasn’t going to make a difference to Salford today. My hamstring was a little sore so I was still a little nervous but I was confident enough that I’d get through it.

It came to me that Sean, the team manager, must’ve read my blog from last week, and focused on the bit about my first relay run for Belgrave, as once again I was on 2^nd leg taking over from somebody else I didn’t know. Not only that but I didn’t get a chance to meet him before the start. During the race I was out on the course trying to spot him but couldn’t find number 97 anywhere, I was beginning to think he’d dropped out so wondering if I’d get a run at all. As the runners came into changeover I still hadn’t seen 97 but I decided to get to the start just in case. Then he turned up with a number that was obscured to the point that it didn’t look like a 97, but I was away.

This course was not at all to my liking, it was confusing, a number of runners didn’t really know where they were supposed to be running (though I’d made it my business to make a proper recce of the course so I was fairly confident I knew where I was going), many of the paths were slippery, corners were very tight (one was so tight I had to stop and start again every time I went round it), runners were intermingling from different angles and it was narrow. I also saw a lot of people cutting a particular corner and whilst they might have been well down the race, so not affecting the top positions, it may well have had an affect on some honest runner’s ranking. I also think the marshals cry of ‘where are you going’ wasn’t the most helpful to those people who did go wrong. Still, irrespective of my feelings for the course I gave it a good go and managed to bring our team home 27 places higher than I set off. Nobody overtook me, though there was one guy behind me chasing me down, and I not only managed to run fastest leg for the C team I also beat all the guys in the B team.

You might think that I wasn’t happy being in the C team when hindsight’s view shows I should have been in the B team, but I know how difficult it is to the select teams, I was involved in making the choices for some of Belgrave’s 12 stage medal winning teams and it’s not easy leaving people out of that. To be fair to Sean, guys in the B team had beaten me the week before, I am still coming back from an injury and even I didn’t realise I would run that much better than last week. In fact I was pretty impressed with Sean’s management style, despite being on 1^st leg, himself, he put in a lot of time for other members of the squad, putting their enquiries before his own preparations. I’ve never met anybody so laid back that they can still be putting their racing shoes on and chatting to others after the starting gun has gone, and then he still managed to overtake some of the teams, not only a good manager but he has talent too.   

Credit too for all the Salford runners and supporters, they seemed to crop up everywhere on the course and it really is a big help to have them cheering us on. Many of them were shouting out my name, which is always nice for individual attention, so I have to apologise that I’m still not familiar with all of theirs, but that’ll come. I also had my secret weapon, Carole turned up, despite having to go to work for the night shift. I can make out her Bonnyrigg tones anywhere, unless I’m racing in Scotland, and it always spurs me on. Finally I have to thank Paul Simons for convincing me that I could catch those guys that were 200m ahead with 700m to go, in fact if you could have shouted it louder, Paul, I might have caught those that were 300m ahead.

The final result was that my team finished in 46^th position, the B team were in 34^th but our A team came away with Bronze medals, not too far away from winning the event. Plus we had 6 men’s teams finishing. The ladies had 3 teams, with their top team coming 5^th. Good effort all round and another move forwards in our bid for national glory.

Following on from the main point of this blog, what analysis did I make of my performance. My initial reaction to the time, 20:06, was a slight disappointment, being so close to breaking 19 minutes. However when I saw the results I realised I’d run well against my peers, closing the gap on some who ran faster than me the previous week and beating others. It gives me the impression that I’m about 20-30 seconds off where I was before my injury, which surprises me as I’ve not really trained anywhere near as hard as I was then. That means I’m about a further 20 seconds away from where I want to be, and I actually feel I can get there. I’m sure I could have run faster, I wasn’t quite ready at the start so didn’t really get into my stride until about 100m, I also got baulked on some of the tight corners and had to overtake a lot of people on the slippery grass and I know, although I ran hard all the way, I still wasn’t at 100%. My injury still keeps me from committing that final amount and that means I wasn’t aerobically challenged. I don’t think I’m far off but I need to allow myself the confidence to push more, it’ll come and lets not forget this part of the year is about having fun, though a win or two would be welcome. So onto the next one and lets see what comes of that.

Written by Roger Alsop

www.rogeralsop.co.uk

Supplements

As a Personal Trainer, and probably like a number of other people in the self employed sector of the fitness industry, I receive an awful lot of calls for people trying to get me to sign up for various things. Many of these calls are related to the use of supplements. Now I have no specific problem with supplements, I’ve even used them on occasion but I don’t use them as a matter of course. I think that people should make their own informed view on whether supplements are for them or not, I’m not there to promote any particular brand but I’m happy to give general advice. I’m don’t get paid to sell supplements and, in fact, generally people want me to purchase the supplements and sell them onto my clients. But I’m not a selfish seller at all costs kind of guy, I will purchase things on behalf of my clients but only when I feel that I can get them a better deal, on something they want, by getting it via me. In fact it’s one of the things my clients tell me they like about the way I operate, i.e. I don’t try to sell extras to them all the time.

Now I’ll openly admit that I do have my own nutritional planning programme, that I will sell onto clients and anyone else, but I don’t push it onto clients, there are other dietary planners out there, but I believe the product works and I do use it myself. I also do a certain amount of work for Ronhill and Hilly, for which they provide me with kit, they don’t expect me to push there products onto my clients either, but I do wear the products in public places and will happily endorse them to anybody who’s interested as I really do think the products are great and innovative, I just wish they made trainers too.

Well I’ve digressed a little but only to make the point that I’m not paid by anybody to sell supplements and I have no bias towards any particular products out there, the following blog will summarise my feelings about supplements. I’m not currently taking any supplements, and haven’t for some years but I know plenty of people who do. Whether they need to take them I’m not sure, we all have our own knowledge of what our body is up to and can make those decisions ourselves.

I first came across supplements as a child, though in those days they were called vitamin pills. All of a sudden my mum started bringing home sanatogen vitamins, horrible hard round sweet tasting things, and we would all have one each day. My dad, being bigger and older than us three kids, got to eat the horrible bitter tasting red ones which were big enough to make them hard to swallow. I didn’t envy him. As a child I didn’t really know why I was taking the vitamins, I just did what I was told, perhaps our diet in the 70s wasn’t as good as it is now, I didn’t even have my first Indian meal until I was 17.

When I left home I was still a student and, naturally, I didn’t really care much about healthy things, I didn’t take vitamins, did very little exercise, ate badly and drank too much too often. I did have a good time mind you. Luckily I survived any abuse I gave to my body. As a young man starting out a work, I continued to drink too much too often, I ate better, still not great, and I started to get involved in sport, occasionally.

It was only when I started to train properly that the question of whether to take supplements came up. I actually remember one of my training partners Adam Armstrong (incidentally Adam was an actor who appeared in Grange Hill, Crimewatch and various other things – in fact I must relay the story about Crimewatch latter in this blog, see if I can write it as funny as it was) telling me that one of the 800m runners we knew had been taking creatine and was complaining that it was making his legs heavy. In actual fact it was probably the fact that he was training harder due to taking the supplement that made his legs tired. Around 1992 one of my training partners, Nutritionist Alex Luce, asked me if I’d take part in a study he was working on. I said yes as long as it didn’t include taking any banned substances and didn’t impact my training. Alex didn’t tell us what the study was at the time but it was a study on the effects on vitamin c on the athlete.

I thought this was a great opportunity to help one of my training partners while gaining the benefits of taking extra vitamins, I even didn’t mind trying to swallow these gigantic pills every day, until I found out I had been taking the placebos. I’m not sure what the results of the study were but I was progressing better than everybody else, even with the placebo effect. As a thank you Alex did give me a proper consultation and, because I was having a few bowel problems, he gave me a detox and suggested a course of vitamins and minerals. This seemed to resolve the problems I was having, which I consider were stess related. I took these vitamins and minerals on and off for a while, whenever the problem returned. I also took iron supplements when I was feeling run down, as I’d previously been diagnosed with slight anaemia and extra calcium when I got a stress fracture in my foot, but I’ve not taken any supplements for years.

Due to my lack of supplementation I can’t really give you much information or recommendation on particular types. I don’t take supplements because I believe I can get the nutrients I need from fresh ingredients, though not everything you buy in the shops is fresh and therefore it may not be as nutritious as it could be. Food can be stored too long and lose some of it’s nutritional value and it can be overcooked with nutrients being lost in the process (I generally steam or stir fry my veg as I believe it is better nutritionally). I’m lucky in that my lifestyle is such that I am in a position to take care with what I eat but others may not be so fortunate. It’s worth considering supplements if you feel you’re not able to maintain a healthy diet because of your lifestyle or you are feeling run down, however, ideally, supplements should not be taken in place of normal nutrients they should be taken to supplement them and the bulk of your nutrients should still be gained from natural ingredients. 

If you are going to use supplements, make sure you understand what benefits you will get and if there are any side effects. Also be sure to check out what is in the product, particularly being sure of any hidden ingredients (this is particularly important for athletes who may undergo drug testing). Of course there is the worry that supplements can become contaminated during production but if they are made by a reputable company that is unlikely and of course natural food can also be contaminated.

I’m currently in a phase of hard training, in fact I’m training harder than I’ve trained for a long time and I’m feeling tired. Therefore I’m using a lot of the nutrients I’m putting into my body, do I need to take supplements? Well it’s a good question, I’ve been carrying a bit of a cold for weeks and it is affecting my breathing a little but taking supplements doesn’t necessarily protect you from colds and I do eat well. I feel like I’m replenishing all the nutrients I need but maybe I’m missing something, perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad decision to take some. If I did take them the one thing I would ensure I did would be to check the register of banned substances, yes I know I’m not going to be selected for London 2012 but I do still compete at a reasonably high level and don’t see the point of getting banned because of carelessness. Plus I like to know what I’m putting into my body. But in truth, I think I just need to eat a bit more, I’m burning calories at a pretty high rate (over 300 for 10 minutes workout) so I’m stocking up with more food and ensuring I take breaks in my day to eat.

This weekend I went to the Heaton Park parkrun. Heaton Park was the scene of my first parkrun, back in March, when I finished 8^th in 17:25. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve raced so I was thinking about going to Pennington Flash but then Ray got in touch and suggested Heaton Park, as it was going to be the last run on the course, before they changed it to another one in the same area. I was happy to try it, I figured I might get a chance to run faster on the, mostly, pathed course rather than the multi-terrain test that Pennington is. As it has been some time since I ran there I went to the website to remind myself of the course and found that it had actually been won, on a number of occasions by people running slower than 17 minutes. So there was a possibility that I could win, but then again there were a considerable number of winners who had run significantly under 17 minutes and a number of sub 16 minute winners with a course record of 14:49, so there was a good chance I wouldn’t win. But it wasn’t the win I was interested in, I was keen to get another sub 16 minute run under my belt and having run 16:56 at Pennington I thought I should have a chance, particularly when I saw my old mate and Santa Claus world record holder, Paul Simons, had a 16:58 timing. Paul and I go back a long way, we used to compete against each other in the British League when he was Shaftesbury Barnet and I was Belgrave, and that has continued over the years in road relays. Now us two ‘Londoners’ are both based in the North West we see each other at various races and are still finishing within seconds of each other. So I was confident of a sub 17 minute run, although I did notice that Tommy Prenders had only run 16:50 and he had a 16:40 clocking at Pennington Flash.

We were a little late setting off and only arrived at the car park about 10 minutes before 9:00. Not the sort of preparation I normally like for a race but this was a parkrun and I’m pretty chilled out about them, I treat them as time-trials rather than races, so as long as I get a chance to warm up my muscles I’m ok. Mind you there was no need to panic anyway as the presentation of t-shirts before the race meant a very late start. Before the off I, almost literally, bumped into Ron Hill. Although I do some work for Ronhill and Hilly I’ve never actually spoken to Ron before so I introduced myself.

It was a nice morning, sunny with a bit of a chill in the air. It was warm enough standing in the sun, so I wasn’t too bothered by the delayed start. As we walked to the start line I looked ahead and wasn’t really sure where we were going to head, as the path appeared to fork. I asked the chap next to me and he pointed out the route and then said ‘but you won’t need to worry unless you’re in the lead’. I didn’t say anything at the time but I was thinking to myself that it was a possibility. As we set off I did indeed find myself in the lead. The course was well marked with arrows, unfortunately, with age, my eyesight is starting to fade at a greater proportion than my leg speed and I was approaching the signs quicker than my brain could register the direction to take. Thankfully there were plenty of marshals and they were a big help on the three occasions I had to check the route.

After the initial small loop it was nice to pass the start line again in a clear lead, to generous support from the spectators. As I came close to the start of the hill for the second time I noticed a bunch of runners on the corner. I recognised Andi Jones and his wife, it looked like a group of Salford Harriers ready for a training session. Needless to say they let me pass then started their rep session, running in the same direction as me. It brought back memories of my old fartlek training in Richmond Park, where we had a 5 minute rep on part of Ranelagh Harriers cross country course, occasionally there would be a race on as we were kicking off our rep. It was good fun as it gave you a load of runners to chase but I remember one occasion when a guy worked really hard up the minute long hill to try to hold onto me, only for me to stop at the top. I wasn’t going to fall into that trap today I let them go past without upping my pace and then I was on the hill.

The last bit around the lake seemed to take an age but I’d checked my watch and was confident of running sub 17. I relaxed, perhaps a bit too much, and then the finish which seemed to stretch on forever. I crossed the line in first place in a time of 17:04 and it was hard to hide my disappointment. I know some people can’t see why I would be disappointed with winning but my focus wasn’t on winning, it wasn’t a championship race, I wanted to run sub 17 to give me a booster for the next race. But, as always, the disappointment was short lived and I started my jog back around the course to thank the marshals and cheer on the other competitors.

Ray came through, running yet another pb, he seems to be setting them every week now. Next was Carole, leading home Ron Hill. She’s quite proud of the part she played in pacing Lee Riley in his training for the marathon world record, now she’s outpaced another multi-world record breaker, albeit a septuagenarian. And then Sharon came home in a course pb. So all 4 of us had set course pbs, with Ray setting an absolute 5k pb. Not a bad day on reflection. The disappointment of not breaking 17 minutes was soon forgotten as I thought of the fact that I have 7 parkrun wins under my belt this year, not bad for a man approaching his 47^th birthday rather more rapidly than he would like.

All in all, though it’s not been my best year, the two months out through injury have definitely had an impact on my fitness levels and this is the first year since 1993 that I haven’t won a championship medal of any kind. But on the bright side I’ve helped others to achieve great things; Ray only has to wake up to set a pb, Lee has set 3 world records, and I have a number of other clients who are on their way to something great in the near future. And, more importantly, I am enjoying my running, even if it is a lot slower than my memories tell me I used to run. I know that I have the capability of running a good time in a race, it’s just a matter of when, so onto the next challenge, the next race is a 10k.

This weekend coming is the British and Irish Masters International Cross Country Championships. I’ve run it for the last 5 years, 4 times for Scotland and once for England. This year I didn’t make the team, but I know most of the runners who did, so I’d like to wish them a good run and enjoy the Scottish hospitality.            

Now for the tale about Crimewatch. In our little training group we had a guy named Vic. Vic had a certain amount of talent when he was younger but family responsibilities took him away from running. I’m not entirely sure what brought Vic back to running but he was a good man to have in the group as he was a good judge of pace and would lead out one of the sub groups perfectly, he was also full of interesting stories and had a great way of telling them. Vic also like a drink and would often go home after training, collapse into an armchair with a few tinnies and fall asleep in front of the TV. On one such occasion he woke up while crimewatch was on and it just so happened that Adam was acting out the role of one of the criminals in a particular scene. Vic opened his eyes, saw Adam, heard the request for anyone who knew anything to contact the police and promptly phoned up the police. 

Running With Clients

I am a runner. I’m a fully qualified Personal Trainer with lots of fitness and nutritional knowledge and experience. But the truth is my route into Personal Training was through running. Because I’m a runner that doesn’t mean that all I do with my clients is run – I had a hell of a job convincing people of that when I first started in the gym, I guess it didn’t help that I wasn’t built like Mr. Muscles, unlike some of the other trainers – no I have all the capability of training clients, in any way, without them having to run a step, whatever their goals.

That’s not to say that I don’t get my clients to run, sometimes with me and sometimes without, but I don’t go into a new client/trainer relationship with the intention of including running, unless they specifically request it. For starters some clients aren’t able to run, others just don’t want to run (though I am able to talk most of them round, if I think it will be beneficial), but the real reason I limit the running is because my body just wouldn’t cope with running with all my clients plus doing my own training (which often includes running for more than an hour at a time and some of it is quite intense). So I may well run in short bursts with some clients, as part of an overall session but I restrict the number of clients that I do running only sessions with. So far it’s worked well, particularly with Ray who is now running at a level that I can call a good run for me, so I need to cut back on my own running on those days. I’m starting with a new running client soon, a Chef (no not Gordon Ramsay) so we’ll see how that goes. I’ve had to adjust my own regime to cater for him, as I have three clients I run with in succession on a day I would normally do my quality run, but don’t worry I’ll still aim to win races, and one of my strong points is to maximise impact on minimum effort, when required.

Before I started Personal Training I trained to be an athletics coach. In fact it was that experience that threw me into Personal Training, I realised how much fun helping people to achieve their goals was. I cut my teeth with the athletes at Edinburgh AC, being mentored by that Edinburgh stalwart, Alex McEwen. They were good days, I built up a rapport with the group and, I believe, they respected me for what I did. I didn’t run with them at the time as it was a large group of mixed ability and I wanted to maximise the coaching experience for me, in order to do well in my exams. Sometimes I came up with the sessions, which Alex approved, but my main role was keeping time, particularly on recoveries, and to learn from the expert, that was Alex by the way. And yes, I was stringent with those recoveries, if it was a minute, 60 seconds was all they got, and I know the group appreciated that, after all they were athletes and I, as an athlete, wouldn’t want 63 seconds when I was expecting 60. But guys and gals, you’ll be interested to note I’m not so stringent with some of my clients, they’re not trained athletes, like you, and sometimes need that extra time to recover. Oh I’m still no softie, I know when they’re ready but I’m a little more flexible, until they become more Ray like.

Before I qualified as a Personal Trainer I first qualified as a Run Leader, which meant I could coach groups of endurance athletes, or beginners wanting to learn to jog/run. So I organised running groups from Sandbach, Crewe, even a treadmill group in the gym, and Northwich. At most of these I didn’t participate but when the mix was right I was able to take part too, which was great fun for me, particularly when I had members of the paras and ex-marines. It was at these sessions that I met Lee Riley, who I later helped to achieve his marathon world record (but you can read about that in an earlier blog). They were fun sessions and it was nice to have a group to lead, but I decided to stop working weekends to spend more time with the family. Ok so the family is just Carole and myself, but we both work hard so deserve some time to ourselves.

When I’m running with clients I tend not to just run with them, I like to introduce intervals, I feel that it is the best way to get fitter and lose weight. Obviously, as I know from my own painful experience during my early running days, intervals need to be introduced gradually and with relevant recovery, but I do feel it is more beneficial than just steady running, though this has it’s place but the client doesn’t generally need me to be there in order to do that. I use this method with Ray and his fitness has improved no end over the past six months.

When she’s not working, and it fits in around my own training and that of my clients, I run with Carole. Now Carole’s training goes a little differently, we’re both keen to tell each other about how our day has been and I’ve found the perfect way to ensure Iget to tell my story first. I use the first 6 minutes to warm up gently, this allows her to tell me some stuff and gives her the feeling that I’m interested, I then make her hit the first rep hard and bingo, she’s out of breath for the rest of the session and up to 10 minutes after it’s over, by which time I’ve told her all about my day and moved onto making dinner. Harmony in action.

At this point I’d just like to post a picture of an old friend of mine, Paul Coughlan. Paul used to be a great athlete, or so he keeps telling us. Over the past few years he’s had injury issues, that have kept him from competing at the level to which he would like to. Two weekends ago he was in action in a race, back in his beloved New Zealand, and it was interesting to see which running singlet this former Belgrave Harrier was wearing. (For those not used to singlet spotting, it’s a Herne Hill Harriers singlet and it looks good on him, even if he doesn’t look good in it!).

the latest Belgrave Harrier to start wearing a Herne Hill singlet

A little update on what I’ve been up to. As you’ll know, if you’ve been reading these blogs regularly, I’d been upping my training intensity and mileage, laying down some foundations for the winter. Well a couple of weeks ago I started to get aggressive achilles pain and also a little niggle around the left knee again. I thought that if I were to carry on with the same training I’d end up with an injury, so I took a couple of days off, not just running but any activity on the legs, other than standing and walking, and it seems to have done the trick, I’m still a little niggly in the legs but I’m starting to run more freely and with less pain. I’ve also reduced all my quality sessions to 3/5 of the number of reps, which allows me to maintain intensity. It’s a ticking over exercise and hopefully, in a few weeks I’ll be able to pick it up again.

Yesterday I ran the Birchwood 10k, only the 3^rd road race and 2^nd 10k of the year for me. Last year I ran in pain, my left knee, and only managed 33:59 – though still first M45. This year I felt pretty good, I didn’t really know where I was with my fitness but I felt I was coming into form. I set off aiming for 33:20, thinking that if I struggled I should still get a faster time than last year. And I was going pretty well until the last 2k when I started to struggle a little, though I still managed to pull away from some runners who’d been with me for the past 5 miles. I finished, a little disappointed with my 34:14, 13^th overall, 2^nd M45, 1st M45 ran 34:01. But I’d had a great battle with Warrington’s Andy Green, many of you may recall he was a 2:12 marathon man in his day, we chatted afterwards and he’s aiming for the Chester Marathon, so a bit of a feather in the cap, he finished 1 place and 2 seconds behind me. I think times were a little slower than last year, all round, though my mate Louise Blizzard ran around 4 minutes quicker with 37:47. It was also good to catch up with so many friends from the past; as well as Louise I was chatting on the start line with other ex Belgrave colleagues Paul Freary and Mark Miles (Paul took the 1^st M40 prize 23 seconds ahead of me, unfortunately Mark pulled out at around 8k, having been involved with the front runners). I also had a good chat with Herne Hiller John Kettle, who was always just a few paces ahead of me, apart from a stint when the group caught him, he finished in 10^th place, 7 seconds ahead of me. Then there was my old British League rival from the 90’s Paul Simons (who holds the world record for completing a marathon wearing a Santa costume), he was in the same group as me for most of the way but I just managed to gain some ground on him towards the end, he finished 16^th, 8 seconds behind me. I had a good chat with Bill Bradley, who organises the Pennington Flash Parkrun, he informed me that my prediction that Jeff Whittington would raise the bar had come true as he ran another pb to win Saturday’s Parkrun. After the event I had a good chat with a guy introducing Scott running shoes to the market. They looked vaguely similar to the MBT shoes and felt really nice to wear. They also retail at a reasonable rate for running shoes. I was interested and may well invest in some at a later time but if you’d like to find out more visit http://www.scott-sports.com/.

And finally, some news about a new development in my business. I’ve purchased some licences in a meal planning programme that will help my clients with their weight goals, whether that be to lose, gain or maintain weight. I believe it will allow me to offer more to my clients at a very reasonable price. I’ll focus on this more in a future blog, I’m planning to launch it in early September. Alongside this I’ve decide it’s time to get myself a logo and have employed the services of my Australian friends Zoe Gell, she of ‘the girl that runs’ blog. She’s come up with some really good designs and we’re just in the process of refining them before I announce it.

Over the next few weeks I need to select some more races to get some improvement to my times. I think my chances of the England vest, this year, are pretty slim. This will make Carole happy as I was aiming to run in Exmoor, in the BMAF 10k Champs but that falls on her birthday weekend, so now she can be pampered instead of standing around in the cold watching an old man attempt to run fast. But I’m not giving up just yet, until I’m announced as not being in the team I’ll keep training hard and looking for opportunities to race.