"Are you going ALL the way round the park?"

...Yes. Ten times sir.
It was really quite warm today. Fourteen degrees by the time I'd finished. I wished I'd worn short sleeves. The weather was much better than my last outing with far less wind to contend with and no flooding, although the paths were still wet. Pretty good conditions in fact apart from the top corner of the back straight which was very wet and muddy from the Junior Parkrun they do on a Sunday morning. It's this bit of track that obscured my Garmin screen every lap.
Because it was considerably warmer than it has been, there were a lot of people in the park but thankfully all the dog owners had good control over their animals this week. I stopped briefly every mile as usual to wipe the mud from my Garmin and check my pace. I also took the opportunity to take on water from my camelback at this point.
The first seven miles or so were pretty uneventful but I did begin to get a few comments this week - the first of which is the title of this post. The following lap the gentleman in question removed his cap and proclaimed "I take my hat off to you sir!" On about the ninth lap a runner caught up with me and we had a brief chat on the move:
"Marathon?"
"Yes, next year."
"What's the current record?"
"4 hours, 10 minutes and 44 seconds."
"You'll do it easily at that pace."
"I know."
"Good luck!" And off he went.
On my final lap all the football games in the park had finished and the players were making their way home. As I passed a bunch of lads, one asked:
"What lap are you on?"
"Ten"
One of the other lads then colourfully expressed his astonishment!
Finally, after I'd finished and was stretching my calf muscles, leaning against the car with the balls at my feet, a small West Highland Terrier approached. He had a little sniff of my balls (you know, the way dogs do) - seriously though, I mean the basketballs. He walked round them and then cocked his leg! Fortunately his little squirt fell short but the owner was very apologetic.
So, I did ten laps which is 11.26 miles in 1:38:46. That makes an average pace per mile of 8:46. Not bad and still well within world record pace. Just another 15 miles to do.
I may not go out with the balls quite so often for the moment so my blog posts may be a little less frequent. I've decided that the Silverstone Half is not going to be a problem now and the important thing to focus on is getting fit enough to finish the Brighton Marathon in under 3:15 thus guaranteeing me entry to London 2017 for the record attempt. I've also got the Bramley 20 to run in three weeks.

Oh, and I lost a ball once today, damn it!

It wasn't immediately obvious what my time was!

New Year, New Balls

So, it's been nearly three weeks since I've been out with the balls. I have been out running, including the Box Hill Knacker Cracker on new years day which prevented me from training with the balls on Sunday because I ached so much. However, my right hand has recovered nicely.

Before Christmas I emailed Molten to tell my contact how my training was going with the two balls they kindly sent me to test. I included a link to this blog to prove I wasn't just a chancer selling the balls off on ebay. As I'd settled on the cheaper rubber ball as the best option (given what the more expensive ball did to my hand last time out) I put in a cheeky request for another couple of balls to continue my training with. I thought that given these balls retail for £10-£12 I presented excellent potential for some cheap publicity for them but I haven't heard a peep from them. I'm kidding myself that my contact is speaking to her bosses about putting together a serious sponsorship package for me but I'm not, in all honesty, holding my breath. Maybe they're waiting until after the Silverstone Half? Anyway, I bought myself a couple of new balls.

I was free all day today between school runs but I had to wait until gone 1pm for it to stop raining. I decided to wear my camelback water carrier and I had to spend some time getting the right pressure into the new balls but when I started off I lost a ball at the first corner, the wind was so strong. I lost control another two or three times on that back straight where it was so windy the gusts were like sticking your head out of a car window on the motorway, making it difficult to breathe. Halfway round the first lap the path was flooded and having had such a battle down that back straight I thought to myself 'Sod this! I'm going to throw the balls in the car and just go for a run'. But the sun came out briefly on the less windy side of the park and I decided to persevere.

There were four sections of path where I had no option but to pick up the balls to jog through flooding and I was chased briefly by several excited dogs at various points. I had to stop dribbling at one point so one woman could catch up with her dog that had done a runner when it saw me coming. She was screaming his name after him in increasing desperation: 'Budgie! Budgie! BUDGIEEEEE!' Yes, it's a stupid name for a dog isn't it? Anyway it turns out he was frightened of the balls so I had to wait for her to catch him. Another (thankfully small) dog took a particularly aggressive tone with me and took a bite at my leg. I stopped briefly to see if I was bleeding but didn't seem to be so I carried on. It's only as I write this that I've examined my leg more closely and noticed the little sh*t has punctured the skin.

At one point on that notorious back straight, the wind gusted so hard that it took a ball out from under me. It blew so hard that it was tricky catching up with it running back up the path. I lost a lot of time there.

I was a little concerned for my hands in the cold and wet, particularly in the top corner where the path was very sandy but I'm pleased to report that both my hands are unscathed this week. Ideally I would've liked to do an extra lap this week but the conditions and the fast approaching school run meant I had to settle for another nine laps. I did 10.26 miles in 1:35:02 which is an average page of 9:16. A little disappointing but it was my first trip out since Christmas and the conditions were the worst I encountered so far. I should be satisfied.

Maybe I'll hear from Molten before my next post?!