Upping the Mileage

It's all going pretty well at the moment but I'll be a lot happier once I'm up to 20 miles. So as it's been over a month since I've done any distance with the balls so I decided to do 15 miles today.
I had to get out to Norman Park pretty early today as I had to get to Christmas lunch at my son's rugby club. I started while Junior Parkrun was still going and I'd forgotten how muddy that top bit of path gets in the winter. Both the junior and adult Parkruns come across the grass and hit the path at that point and as a consequence that bit of track was very wet and muddy. The soil is quite sandy too so it's a bit sandpapery on the hands dribbling through that section. It also takes a little more effort as the mud takes some of the bounce out of the balls.
I settled into a rhythm and had a few comments from people today. Some from friends associated with Junior Parkrun and a few more from other park users, most notably from a fitness class on the grass at the top end of the park. At about 9 miles or so, as I passed them, they all stopped what they were doing, came over to the edge and clapped and cheered as I went past. A little embarrassing really!
I stopped very briefly every mile today for a quick time check, a jelly baby and a sip of water. I wanted to make sure I averaged under 9 minute miles and I managed to do it, just. Obviously it's getting a little tougher but I completed the 15 miles in 02:14:28 which is an average of 08:58 per mile. This gives me 01:56:15 to complete the last 11.2 miles which gives me around 10m20s to complete each mile which would allow me to slow considerably. Clearly I'd like to run a more even pace but if I can keep up the 9 minute miles so much the better. As I increase the miles I'll get a better feel for the pace I need to start at.
In other news, my running club, Petts Wood Runners, have very generously given me one of their club places for the VMLM for my record attempt. This takes away the huge burden and responsibility to raise thousands of pounds for a charity place and allows me to concentrate on my training. I'm incredibly grateful to the committee for their generosity and belief in me. Although I don't HAVE to raise a fixed sum for charity I do want to help some good causes and I have chosen Orchid Cancer and Demelza Hospice Care for Children. I have chosen Orchid because they are a testicular cancer charity (and other male cancers) and I figure there's some good PR to be had out of the two balls link. And I have chosen Demelza because they do a lot of good work for the children at my wife's special needs school and I raised money for them doing my very first half marathon several years ago.
I'm going to have a little break over Christmas now, I'll still run but the balls (that I've now named Steph and Kyrie after Stephen Curry and Kyrie Irving) won't get another outing until the new year. In the meantime, if you'd like to support my charities you can sponsor me at:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserPage.action?userUrl=KevHowarth&faId=774354&isTeam=false

Happy Christmas!

Me, Steph & Kyrie

Potholes, Puddles & Stones - Shakespeare Half

Another half marathon in the bag and another PB. Which is a minor miracle considering the conditions at the Autumn Shakespeare Half today. It's held at the Shakespeare County Raceway which is a drag strip and air field in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The start is at the beginning of the drag strip and it was really wet with a lot of standing water. Now, I've never walked on a drag strip before but the surface is covered in rubber from all those spinning wheels so all those trainers on a wet rubber floor made for a very squeaky start.

The forecast had been for heavy rain, right up until the day before and I drove though some pretty heavy stuff on the way there this morning but thankfully it held off for the race itself. However, there were, of course, lots of puddles to contend with and the further I got into the race it became clearer that it was going to be madness to try and dribble through certain parts of the course. Just have a look at some of these pictures I took after I'd finished:

Not even the very worst London marathon road is going to look half as bad as this so I didn't worry too much about occasionally picking the balls up, although I did dribble through that grassy bit of track.

Before I started the race I got chatting to a guy called Tomas Bolton who ran the 2015 London Marathon dressed as a police phone box. He was making a world record attempt that year and as such is still in touch with Jerry Knox whose record I'm after. I've always wondered if Jerry had got wind of my plans to take his record from him. I get a good few page views from the USA each time I post. Well I guess he'll probably know now.
Hello Jerry! I'm coming for you!!! And thanks for the inspiration.

Anyway, back to the race. A bloody dreadful surface. Grass patches, cracks, holes, puddles, gravel, stones, standing water everywhere. It was superb obstacle avoidance practice but mentally draining planning a route through it all for both feet and balls. And having all that standing water makes it much harder work, as even if I avoid the puddles (which I didn't always) the surface water still takes some of the bounce out of the balls so I have to push them harder into the ground.

I was a bit worried about my hands as now it's getting cold outside and despite frequently applying hand cream they're really drying out and last night my right thumb split. I taped it up with waterproof plasters but by the time I'd finished the first 3 mile lap the ball had scuffed them off. Fortunately I didn't do any further significant damage to it and it didn't bleed (hang on while I get more hand cream).

I only looked at my watch once at around the 10 mile mark. I'd just been running at a pace I thought I could cope with. So when I realised that I was close to finishing in my 01:55:00 target time I was pleasantly surprised. In the end I finished in 01:56:39 which was 25 seconds quicker than I did the Bristol Half in and a new balls PB. Just after I'd finished a fellow runner thanked be for motivating him to finish ahead of me. He wasn't going to be beaten by a crazy man dribbling two basketballs.

I don't have any more races with balls lined up until Silverstone now. I think I'll just concentrate on upping the miles around Norman Park. If the weather is agreeable I'll take the balls out and if it isn't I'll just to a regular long run around the streets on a Sunday. There's still plenty of training time but it's only just over five months until race day!

Post race, overlooking the finish

Still Got It

So I've been back training for two weeks after a four week enforced layoff and it's feeling pretty good. This last week in particular has felt great. A good night in group 10 at Petts Wood Runners (PWR) on Tuesday where we did about 6.5 miles and I had plenty to give at the end and another great track session from Mike Reeves on Thursday.
I finally managed to get a response out of the people from the Autumn Shakespeare Half and I do have a place next Saturday. In their defence they said they had responded several times before but I don't know what happened to their emails. I couldn't find anything in any of my in-boxes including the spam filter. The race is just over 4 laps of the Shakespeare County Raceway so it should be a good surface and the field will be considerably smaller than Copenhagen and Bristol. With this in mind I'm going to set myself a target of going sub 01:55:00.
I haven't been out running with the balls since Bristol but I figured it's more important to get my stamina back at this point. I know a half marathon is no trouble with the balls so today I went out to simply run the half marathon distance in a moderate time. I set off in glorious autumn sunshine thinking I'd run at just over 8 minute miles and make sure that didn't fall below 9 minute miles. Just past 3 miles I bumped into self-titled Old Scrote Tim Springett from PWR who was running my way. Rather annoyingly Tim is both older and faster than me so we ended up running closer to 7:30 minutes per mile for a couple of miles (I'm happy for Tim to be older than me but less happy with how much faster than me he is). Tim left me at about 5 miles and I slowed just a little.
It was a really nice day to be out running this morning and I even felt pretty good running up Farnborough Hill at about 10 miles. I finished the 13.1 miles in 01:48:56 which is an average of 8:19 minutes per mile.A good comfortable run to set me up for next weekend.
I did re-inflate my basketballs this week and managed to get out early one evening in the last of the daylight but from now on it's going to be dark by the time I finish work. So I had a chat with the headteacher at my son's school to see if she'd let me use the gym in the evenings. She seemed pretty positive about it as long as they don't have any bookings so I'm waiting to hear back from the office as to which days I can get in there. It keeps me sharp messing about with two ball tricks and drills so it's a good thing to do when I'm giving my legs a rest.
I will need to get the balls out again this week to get the pressures right as they're both a little flat and I'm off up to a friend's house in Burford on Friday night, ahead of the race on Saturday. I'll post again next Sunday to report back on the race and whether or not I managed to break 1:55:00.

Finished in Whitehall Rec. Sun still shining.

I'm still here!

Just a quick update as it's been nearly four weeks since my last post. I haven't done any running since the Bristol Half. I haven't even re-inflated my basketballs since I got back. I was always going to take a couple of weeks out but after the visible bruising from my fall healed I was still left with considerable discomfort on my left side, especially when trying to sleep. I've now had it looked at by both my Physio and my Osteopath and they've pretty much said the same thing, which is encouraging:
Falling onto the tarmac and crushing my Garmin into my ribs has bruised my costal cartilage. Apparently I'm lucky. If I'd dislocated a rib at the affected point there's no putting it back, you just have to live with it. However, it could still take 10 weeks for it to heal properly. But when I'm ready I can run again. I don't have to wait for another 6 weeks and although it will hurt, I'm told that it will not delay the healing process. Armed with this information I intend having a little trot out on Monday. In the meantime I have to regularly ice it.

I've been trying to confirm that I still have a deferred place at the Autumn Shakespeare Half on 12 November. I was unable to run the Summer race and so should have a place in three weeks time for the Autumn one. We'll see. If I can start running again this coming week I should be fit enough for it. Better get those balls pumped up.

That watch hurt when I hit the tarmac

Bristol - New Balls PB

So I did my second half marathon in seven days on Sunday - not nearly as impressive as a couple of friends of mine that trumped me by doing the Mallorca Ironman on Saturday though. That's just crazy. Anyway, it was the Bristol half marathon yesterday and I was determined to go under 2 hours. I was contacted by BBC Radio Bristol via Twitter and asked if I would take part in a phone-in on Friday morning which I was happy to do. You may find it's still available on-line if you're interested. I'm on after Elton John at about 41 minutes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04699s4

After my little stint on the radio I got the train to Bristol. My friend Matt had arranged tickets for the rugby that night and after a few beers I returned to his house in the early hours of Saturday. Not perhaps ideal training ahead of a Sunday race (although honestly I only had three pints and it wasn't that long past midnight when I got in). Others had a few more and were out a little later (Matt, Neil, Cormac & Morgan) although in fairness none of them were running.

Having got bogged down in traffic in Copenhagen I wanted to make sure I got a better start at Bristol. However, I still didn't really push as far forward as I should've in the start pen but it didn't matter too much as the start was in four waves so runners were more spread out. The starts are always congested but once past the suspension bridge it got a lot easier. I could see a lot more road and needed to as it had rained before the start and the roads were wet with puddles I needed to avoid. I had decided that I needed to go for every gap on the out and back section down the Portway as I was expecting it to get more congested as we came back into town on the narrower streets, many of which (as it turns out) aren't in the greatest condition.

I got lots of comments. The usual mix of astonishment and incredulity. It rained heavily but briefly on my way back down the Portway creating more standing water on the course. I was able to avoid the obvious puddles but many of the road surfaces had a thin layer of water on them which absorbs some of the power out of the bounce making it harder work. At about 7.5 miles, not long after I'd crossed a bridge and shortly before I had to cross another one I had a little wobble and suddenly my left foot slipped on the wet road and I hit the tarmac. Hard. Someone handed the balls back to me (thank you, whoever you are) but I had to take a few seconds to compose myself. It was only seconds though and I carried on. Aside from that, I picked the balls up for three things;
1. Where the road was flooded all the way across and everyone was crowding to take the shallowest line.
2. Through the section of old cobbles (I dribbled on the new cobbles).
3. Around Queen Square which has a gravel track.
It's actually more difficult running holding the balls as it disables my arms.

I didn't look at my watch once. I just ran at a pace that felt good. I occasionally asked the runners near me for a pace check but that was all. As I got close to the finish it got a little trickier as I was caught between very tired runners that had spent everything and those that were spending their reserves and sprinting for the finish. The crowd support was great though. I crossed the finish line in 01:57:04 which is five seconds quicker than I did Silverstone in. I can do it faster though and I'm sure I can go under 01:55:00 quite easily in good conditions.

It was only after I finished that things began to ache. I wasn't too bad in the pub for a couple of pints but I then went back to my friend's house and after lunch I had a short nap. When I woke it really hurt just to stand upright as I had landed on my rib cage when I fell and my lower ribs were really bruised. I've also got bruised and scuffed knees and an elbow to match. Coughing and sneezing really hurts still.

So all in all it was another weekend of valuable experience. Thank you to the organisers for letting me take part and thank you to Ben Andrews who put a nice video clip of me on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BKynh7ljvLM/?hl=en
I'm not signed up for any more races until Silverstone in March but I will find others to do before then, even if I just run them without balls. But for now, I'm going to have a couple of weeks off.

Have you checked YOUR balls?

Copenhagen Race Day

What an amazing experience. I learnt so much from this race and I've got so much I want to record about it, forgive me if this drags on.
Firstly I'm really happy that I managed to get to the start line relatively fit. Since having had over 9 weeks out with my knee I had only managed a couple of outings with the balls, the longest being 10 miles just the week before. So I was a little uncertain how I would perform on the day, hence I decided to start towards the back of the 1:45 - 2:00hr start pen I was in so I didn't get in anyone's way. This turned out to be a bad idea. Almost immediately I realised that I was getting stuck behind runners I ought to be in front of and there was hardly any opportunity to overtake. As such I ended up getting blocked in with other runners passing me and going through gaps I couldn't fit through. Probably less than a kilometre had passed when I found myself getting squeezed into a tighter and tighter space. With nowhere to go I ended up tripping over and losing both balls. I dived to try and save one in front of me and ended up flat out on the floor. It's all a bit of a blur but I do remember someone retrieving one of the balls for me and helping me up. I was so embarrassed as the race had hardly started but I just had to get up and get on with it. It was only after I managed to regain my composure that I began to think of how Mo fell in the 10,000m in Rio and got up to win. It made me smile and gave me further confidence.
The roads never really thinned out. They were often quite narrow and largely unfenced. Regular bottlenecks were created by parked cars and traffic islands which would not have troubled most other runners but caused me considerable inconvenience as everyone bunched up. Pedestrians and cyclists were regularly crossing the road in front of me. Trying to find a clear patch of road between all the other runners was tricky. I need to be able to see what the road surface is doing so I can avoid road markings (where paint has been put on top of paint, on top of paint etc) and steer clear of patched bits of road where there are joins, cracks and holes.
Being so close to so many other runners is mesmerising when you're looking at their feet with all those heels and white socks flashing. Add to that the shiny confetti and streamers at one point and it's really hard to keep focussed.
I had to pick the balls up and run holding them through three of the water stations. The first one was mad. I wasn't stopping but suddenly there were people criss-crossing in front of me trying to decide if they were going to the left or the right for water and changing their minds. It was a proper melee and people were just dropping plastic cups in the middle of the road. I decided I wasn't going to risk losing a ball again so just picked them up. It has given me serious food for thought.
I didn't drink as much as I would've liked to, as in order to do so on the run I have to allow one ball to take a bounce on its own while I put the pipe in my mouth. I simply daren't do it for much of the race as there was so little space and room for error.
I bounced one of the balls in a discarded gel sachet and got sticky all over my hand and the ball. This really alters the feel for a while until the sticky gets covered in dirt. Then I found myself trying to dribble through another water station where the floor was wet which rehydrated the sticky again.
I realised that I needed to pay closer attention to where the corners were coming up as I needed time to position myself in the road on the outside of every bend to avoid the crush of the inside line. Suddenly looking up and realising I'm on the inside line as everyone starts getting closer is very unnerving. I knew there was a section of cobblestones and had been out practising over a similar set the night before. Having picked up the balls through some of the water stations I was determined to dribble over the cobbles but as I did so (I had to slow down) I was overtaken by the 2hr pacing group which then created an impenetrable wall in front of me.
I barely looked at my watch. I figured I was pretty much resigned to going with the flow. The race seemed to fly by. People were cheering. Many were laughing, lots were taking photos and filming. I had my chest camera on and at Silverstone I recorded the first and the last 3 miles but I realised that it was still running at mile 10 having started it just before the race. I knew it only had a 2 hour recording life and I wanted to film the end so I decided, as this was just a bit of training fun, I'd stop to change the battery so I could film the end. Rather ironically I then turned the corner to hear a DJ blasting out Culture Beat's dance tune Mr Vain!
As I turned the final corner and could see the finish line I decided I had little to lose. I had plenty left in the tank so I decided to weave my way past as many people as I could. It wasn't easy but it was kind of fun. Only after I'd finished did I realise that I'd missed my target of under 2 hours by nearly three and a half minutes. Initially disappointed I came to accept that it was a good time given the conditions.
According to my Garmin data I ran 14.18 miles in 02:03:34 which is an average of 8:45 per mile (and more than a mile more than the official 13.1 mile distance!). My fastest mile was mile 4 and apparently done in 6:33 which I can't quite believe. And my slowest mile was mile 11 which I'm pretty certain was the one where I stopped to change the camera battery and completed in 9:52.
A handful of people stopped me before and after the race to take pictures, to tell me that they'd read about me or to just ask what I was doing and wish me luck. Everyone I spoke to was very nice and supportive.
I am incredibly grateful to the race director, Lars Nissen for letting me run. It really was an immensely valuable experience and very enjoyable. I hope to return next year, perhaps with others from my club, Petts Wood Runners, to run it normally and to enjoy the sights of the race that I couldn't look up to enjoy this year.
Next stop Bristol - which will be a completely different race and one that I will be bitterly disappointed in if I do not finish significantly under two hours.
A massive 'thank you' to my wife and children for coming to support me in Denmark. I think they enjoyed it too but we're all very tired.

Track me in Copenhagen

...if you want live updates. If you know me I'll be cluttering up your Facebook feed once I've finished anyway! There is a Copenhagen half marathon app available, through which you can track my progress on Sunday. My race number is 8105.
I thought I'd better put in some decent mileage with the balls this weekend to give me the confidence I need to complete the race on Sunday, so I set out just after 11am yesterday to do around 10 miles. I'm not very confident in my Garmin data this week though as it kept getting lost under the trees and I'm sure it added an extra half a mile to my stats making me look a bit better than I was, but getting the numbers out of the way first: 10.68 miles in 01:34:17 which makes an average pace per mile of 08:50. Like I said though, I wasn't quite that fast. Good enough though considering I've only got to tack another Parkrun on to the end.
It was another full dress rehearsal but this time with a little adjustment I made to my hydration pack. Obviously I don't have a spare hand to drink with whilst dribbling but I haven't found it easy getting the drinking tube to my mouth and away again whilst moving. This is because the tube sticks to me and the straps that hold it in place. Once I'd pulled it up to drink from, it would slap me in the face once I'd finished. So I've taken a couple of key-rings and threaded them with short bits of drinking straw that will roll as the hose is pulled through them (look at the picture!). This means I can pull the hose up to my mouth and when I let go of it with my teeth, gravity will slide it back into place. It worked well until the hose slipped though the top ring. I've now added a hairband to the tube to prevent this from happening. I'll test it properly tomorrow.
It was hot yesterday. Fine when running in the shade but nasty in the sunshine but the good news is that the latest weather forecast for Copenhagen on Sunday is cooler and cloudier. As long as the start isn't too congested I ought to be able to meet my target of sub 2 hours.
The race organisers have published a short piece about me. Google makes a bit of a hash of translating it but it's all good PR. They also want to interview me in person on the day but if you want to see what they've written so far just search for 'Copenhagen half marathon' in Facebook.
I'm taking it fairly easy for the rest of the week. I'll post again after the race.
#kev2balls

Can't be stopping to drink!