OK, running down hills is tough – real tough – and it’s something I’m not great at.  I believe this is what’s given me so much flippin’ pain in my lower right leg this week.  Monday/Tuesday I had a lot of trouble walking down stairs, and on Thursday morning I went for an easy jog before work – I lasted less than two minutes before I gave up.  I’d caused some nasty damage down there so its time to keep off the running.  To be honest I’m not suprised after a tough few weeks of racing.  I’m happy to give my legs a bit of a rest – but not *that* much of a rest though….

Saturday morning came and I went and watched the 5k time trial at Bushy Park.  The weather wasn’t the best but if I’m in the local area I just have to watch a time trial on a Saturday morning.  Following this (and a customary coffee in Teddington) I returned home, pumped up the tyres on my bike and set off for a long bike ride…. I’ve fancied the idea of cycling to my parents house before (they live on the south coast of England) and thought this would be a good day.  Sharon had been invited to a BBQ at a friends so the plan was for me to cycle 60 miles, and for Sharon to go enjoy a BBQ and then drive to my parents later on.  Hmn, does that sound fair?

Anyway, I found a reasonable route that kept me away from any dual-carridgeway roads as much as possible and kept to small ‘A’ and ‘B’ roads.  After a nasty hill just south of Dorking it was just a little up’n'down until I made it to the last big hill – Bury Hill – at about 48 miles.  This takes you up and over the South Downs, and from here its mostly flat all the way ‘home’.  As I headed over the hill it was raining – pretty hard – and wasn’t much fun.  I then fought through the next few miles to Arundel (which is a lovely little city) and at this point my legs told me they couldn’t do any more.  At this point I was pretty much forced to pull over and just walk for a few minutes and try and stretch my legs a little.  I also ate the last of my ‘energy bars’ to help me with the final 10 miles that remained.  I know I could have called my Dad and he would have come and collected me but there was no way I was going to give up.  I jumped on the bike and got on with it.  It wasn’t fun but it had to be done.

I eventually pulled up at my parents house just over 4 hours after I left home.  My actual ‘active time’ on the bike was 3 hours 50 (which includes a brief toilet stop) and I wasn’t in great shape at the end.  Its funny that two weeks before I cycled 52 miles at the Bala triathlon (which was much tougher) and didn’t feel half as bad as I did on Saturday.  I’m sure nutrition on the bike had a big part to play this time.

Anyway, after a bath (cold of course) and a bit of a rest it was off to the pub for a pint and then a lovely Indian takeaway meal.  A great end to a tough afternoon.

Sunday morning dawned and the wind was blowing strong.  I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it here on this blog before but I used to be a bit of a keen windsurfer.  I’ve got a load of kit at my parents house and today I took advantage of being in the right place at the right time to go for a sail.  I spent around 2.5 hours out on the water in total and had a great sail – and it was great to see that I hadn’t lost too many skills after not sailing in just over a year!

Sharon took a few photos that can be found on our personal gallery but for readers here I leave you with one of my favourite photos from today – me getting a little ‘air time’….

Whilst all this ‘fun’ has been going on Sharon and I have also been keeping a close eye on what’s happened today (Sunday) in Nice as part of the Ironman France race.  We know a few people who were taking part in today’s race and were really pleased to see good friend Stuart finish in just over 12 and a half hours (3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42.2km run).  Brilliant stuff.

Sharon, Danny and myself went along to watch the racing and it was fantastic. The track at St. Mary’s is really good for spectating and there were a few hundred people milling about eating, drinking and watching the top class athletes racing in events from the 200m through to 3000m steeplechase. Some of these athletes were seriously quick – for example the 800m race was won in 1 minute 47 seconds (by Joseph Sajeesh of India).

For me the main highlights of the event were the U20′s Women 3000m race featuring Steph Twell and Emma Pallant (Emma pulled ahead on the final lap and won) and a 1500m mens race featuring Mo Farah who, after going from last to first in the space of 300 metres and then dropping back to second, pulled off a turbo-charged finish to win the race.

Naturally I was there armed with the camera and took just over 100 photos from the evenings racing which can now be found over at the Rowe Photo website.

Results from the event can be found at the St. Mary’s website and a short report is online at the UK Athletics website.

I’d not planned to race this one hard and wanted to treat this as a training run with a bit of a difference. Dorking is just over 20 miles away and not far from Box Hill – a place that I’ve cycled to a few times over the past few months as part of my bike training. Well, the plan today was to cycle to the race start, meet up with Sharon (who was taking the car with some friends) and then run this race off the back of the bike ride. I arrived after a 75 minute solid bike ride at about 9am giving me plenty of time before the 10am race start (although to get to the start you have to leave race HQ at about 9:35am).

Last year I ran this in 1:08:29 and I was planning on running this steady today at around 7 minute miling to aim for a 70 minute finishing time. Well, as the race started I settled into a pace just quicker and 6:40 pace and felt really good. I ran neck and neck with one chap for about 5 miles and then drifted slightly ahead of him. Over the final few miles I pushed harder and managed to overtake a few people. I had a good little back-and-forth with one chap over the last few miles and managed to ultimately stay ahead of him – actually I believe once the main race pace was established nobody got past me (and stayed ahead of me) over the final 5 or 6 miles.

After a final push to the finish (thankfully the last bit is downhill!) I finished in 1:06:48, which is 1 minute 41 quicker that last year. I’m really happy with this, especially as I could have raced this a little harder but didn’t want to. My overall position was 82nd (last year I was 83rd) out of 666 finishers – just like last year there were a few drop-outs in the race – maybe the hills just don’t work for some people… I was also pleased to noticed that I was one of the scorers for the Ranelagh Harriers mens team – who finished 7th overall out of 45 teams.

I kept the heart rate monitor on for this race to just see how I compared to last year and interestingly my average was exactly the same – 170bpm. Reading last years report I also wrote “I know I could have pushed harder but that was never my intention today.” Maybe next year I’ll push harder (provided I’m not racing the following weekend).

Now, over to Sharon…

You may have gathered from my posts recently that my running has not being going as well as it was. However, I intended to use this as a training run rather than racing it.

I set off right at the back of the field, literally on the back row. My aim was to just pootle along. In 2007 I ran this in 1:54:14, this year I crossed the line in 1:42:53, so an improvement of 11:21. Last year I finished 585th/600. This time I finished 631st/666.

I felt very comfortable until about 7 miles in, when I started to feel my lack of recent miles. By 8 and a half miles, my back was very clunky and I wasn’t running fluidly at all. However, I pressed on and soon enough I was up the last hill with just under a mile to go. All the way through the race, there had been a couple of women who overtook me, then dropped back on every hill, then overtook me, then dropped back…you get the idea. As we turned into the final straight, they were just ahead of me. I dug deep and tried my hardest (successfully) to finish ahead of them. I know it doesn’t mean anything in the scheme of things but it’s a good boost for me that I can still at least do a bit of a sprint finish after nearly 10 miles! Overall I was pleased with the result based on my recent running, I thought I would be outside the time I finished in last year – but instead got a course PB. I didn’t get my finishers t-shirt though because they ran out…apparently it will come in the post!

Well, after standing for hours in the pouring rain this past Monday taking photos at the London 10,000 race the photos that I took were tracked down on the internet by the editors at Athletics Weekly who contacted me (yup, I didn’t go to them), asking if they could use some in the 29 May edition that was about to go to press. I was more than happy to let them use some of the photos and I’m delighted to say that in the current issue of Athletics Weekly there’s no less than eight of my photos featured in their report of the race (which is one of the main articles this week – it’s advertised on the front cover). I’m really pleased that my little photography hobby is getting some more recognition and I don’t feel at all bad about getting soaked through on Monday!

On the back of this I sent a couple of photos to the local newspaper (Richmond & Twickenham Times) which got included in their report of the race, both in the physical newspaper and on their website.

The race starts on Birdcage Walk and follows an anti-clockwise route around the City of Westminster and the City of London via Parliament Square, Embankment, Blackfriars Bridge, Queen Victoria Street, Cannon Street, Great Tower Street, Crutched Friars, Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall Market, Cornhill, Queen Victoria Street, Puddle Dock, Embankment, Horseguards Avenue, Whitehall and via Trafalgar Square to the Finish in The Mall.

The weather was terrible – heavy rain and lashing winds, and with part of the course taking in the exposed area of Victoria Embankment (alongside the River Thames) it didn’t look like fun for many of the runners. I found myself a good vantage point on Embankment, was dressed head-to-toe in waterproof clothing and had the camera protected by a decent rain cover – it sure needed it out there. The rain probably explained why about half the entrants didn’t even turn up (12,500 entries and just over 6,000 finishers)!

The mens race had some top class runners including London Marathon winner Martin Lel, Micah Kogo (the world’s fastest 10km road racer in 2007), Dan Robinson (Great Britain’s representative in the 2008 Olympic marathon) and Mo Farah (2006 European 5000m silver medalist). In the womens field there were entrants such as 2008 London Marathon Winner (Irina Mikitenko) and two of the three 2008 Olympic marathon representatives for Great Britain – Mara Yamauchi and Liz Yelling.

The race was certainly exciting to watch (even though when you’re there the action flies past rather quickly!) and it was good to see Mo Farah stick with the two leading men for most of the race – especially as he’s a 5000m specialist and aiming for that race in Beijing and not the 10,000m distance.

Watching the leaders race past at 9km was very impressive, and one thing that stood out was the effort that some of them were clearly putting into it – and I had to include in this post a photo of Liz Yelling – who is clearly pushing incredibly hard – and this is with over 10 percent of the race remaining. I got a good sequence of her running past which show her determination very clearly. Superb stuff.

My set of photos can be found at our ‘Rowe Photo‘ site, and for the official results (including race reports), head over to london10000.co.uk.

On Sunday morning the Steyning Triathlon was held in Horsham, West Sussex and as the morning went on, the weather closed in. The official photos have been posted over at Antbliss.com but here’s a shot I picked up via TriTalk and Rightzone that I just had to post here as well!

This was the bike transition area – fancy a 36km bike ride and 8km run in this weather? Don’t worry – I didn’t take part in this race – however I was somewhere probably just as cold (more on that later).

Finally to those running in London – do not fear – the weather forecast for Sunday is looking pretty good.

On 26 January of this year the Midlands Cross Country championships were held in Royal Leamington Spa. One of the ‘highlights’ of the course is the infamous ‘ditch’. Via a friend I came across a video on YouTube which shows highlights from this years race. If you’re into running (if not, then you’re not welcome on this site!), sit back, turn up the volume (the shouts from the crowd really add to the video) and enjoy…

Well, at the Osaka International Ladies Marathon this past weekend (well done btw to England’s Mara Yamauchi for winning) all eyes were on Japanese runner Kayoko Fukushi who was making her debut in the marathon. She has a number of national records at shorter distances and on Sunday set off at a flying pace – so much so that she ran off alone into the distance and created a very comfortable lead – or at least it seemed. After the half-way point she started to slow and her final lap inside of stadium to the finish is something that has to be seen to be believed.

Fukushi enters the stadium, falls flat on her face, stands up and soldiers bravely on. I timed her final 300m at 2 minutes and 21 seconds – a pace of 7:50/km! That includes two falls in the final 200m.

This quote, a link to a video of the stadium lap (well worth watching), and some interesting reading about how she ran her race can be seen at the excellent Science Of Sport website.

Athletics Weekly wrote…

What looked like being a dream debut for Kayoko Fukushi turned into a catastrophe. The Japanese record-holder at 3000m, 5000m and the half-marathon was on course for something in the low-2:20’s, after passing through halfway in 1:10:32. Fukushi even had a two-minute lead at 30km but the Japanese star began to toil badly. The Asian Games 10000m champion, who had been tipped to improve on the world-leading mark of 2:22:38 was swallowed up by the pursuing group by 35km, with the next 5km split taking a painful 24:48. Fukushi clearly hit the wall, as the last 2.2km took 15:37, to finish 19th in 2:40:54.

With my first marathon coming up at the start of April this is one mistake I don’t want to make (oh, and don’t worry, I won’t be trying to run it at 2 hour 20 pace!).