A day at the seaside

[andygates]

On Sunday I ran the Weston AC Christmas Cracker 10km run. 

The conditions were perfect: cool, bright and still - yes, no wind at Weston, the Southwest's prime kitebuggy beach, a miracle.  It must have been all the Little Baby Jesuses or something: this was a fancy-dress event so the serious club runners were in a single bit of tinsel, and the serious charity runners were going as entire Nativity scenes (there were two!) or mobs of Wise Men and Sexy Santas.  I donned some angel wings and a tinsel halo and hit the beach. 

The plan was that ehutch and I would pace around for a 55:00 finish, leaving despaer up ahead to mount an assault on a serious time. The beach was a little harder-going than we'd like (but easier than at Burnham, man, everything is easier than Burnham - Ice Cold In Alex was easier than Burnham).  After 7k of tougher-than-expected-for-so-flat running we split and I had a good old gurn to the finish before my hips seized up completely, then it was off to enjoy the finishers' mince pie and be surprised at how good I felt. 

Time?  I finished in 57:10, which is a PB for that distance by well over two minutes.  (I'll let the others post-mortem their own runs)  The pacing alarm on the Suunto worked a treat, though I'll have to calibrate it with a GPS-measured klick as it said I did 10.25km.  Certainly it's easy to pick up the pace when the thing's beeping "beep-beep-beep, pick-it-up!".  The 55:00 target was a tad optimistic given the lack of training ;)  Apparently I was putting out an average 161BPM, so about 5-10 over my usual run - which was what I wanted to do and was the sustainable max I could manage.  And the new shoes came right on the day, which eases my worry about having hurled a ton of cash at the wrong bling.  Generally happy with my performance and confident that I can keep working at that distance for the Olympic. 

Photos and official times when the club get them online...

Comments

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The only marathon on my list (other than the putative ClassicMan) is the Marathon du Medoc - which is basically a pub crawl as it rolls past vineyards and there's fine wine at every drinks station. Like it said in Runner's World, to rush the race is like rushing a good wine: unthinkable.

(ClassicMan, for what it's worth, is an idea I keep bouncing around involving swimming the Hellespont and running a marathon into Marathon itself, with a connecting bike leg over some suitably mythic terrain.)

[skean.livejournal.com]

Bike leg: Go vist the Oracle at Delphi. Or better, the Gods atop Mount Olympus.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Hmm, we need a map...

[skean.livejournal.com]

So, we swim the Hellespont, bike the, what, 700km? to Mount Olympus which is only about a 2,900m climb, then cruise on down to Marathon for the final stroll into town.

I think Classic is an understatement. "Epic" might be better.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

5km swim (allowing for currents); 650km bike; 250km run - assuming that you run from the top of Olympus to Marathon. It's the run that would kill, but yeah, that's epic. All you need is some incest and a monster or two to round that off a treat.

Though it has highlighted the beautiful, self-contained bowl that is the Aegean. Maybe as an extreme holiday tour than as a race?

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

I'm in!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Loon!

Actually lets ride down Olympus at all. It would be simply cruel to deny participants the descent...