New Unofficial PB

The hamstring feels good. I've been exercising & stretching it and today I ran for the first time with out bandaging it - and to be honest, I didn't even think about it until I was on my walk home.
I was contacted this week via Twitter by a Runner's World editor who wanted more info about my record attempt for a feature in the next edition of RW. I sent her some stuff, she sent me a draft, I filled in the gaps and edited it and I'm going to be in the May edition (UK) which is out on 31st March. It's going to be 200 words and a photo. I might have to renew my subscription! We have left a gap in the article to put in my PB for a half marathon with the balls as I'm running the Silverstone Half next weekend. So naturally I want to put in a good time. With this in mind I went out today round Norman Park to see how long I could maintain a 08:30 mpm pace. It turns out I can do a whole half marathon at that pace which I did in 01:51:16 - averaging exactly 08:30 minutes per mile. My fastest miles were one and two which were both 08:19 and my slowest was mile ten 08:42. Mile ten could have been one of the ones where a dog tried to tackle me. Two dogs had a go today which delayed me slightly.
Around mile 12 I caught up with another runner who said "Hello Kev!" when I pulled alongside him. I confess I didn't know who he was and wasn't able to get a good look at him as I was concentrating on the balls. My running club, Petts Wood Runners, has got so big recently I assumed it must've been another PWR but it turns out it was Robert Elbourn, the stranger I overtook a few weeks ago who took the trouble to find me online and sponsor me. Thanks again Robert and good luck with the Brighton Marathon. I hope the 18 miles you were running today went well. On the subject of sponsorship, if you would like to send me a good luck message with a few quid for my charities (Orchid Cancer and Demelza House Children's Hospice) feel free to follow this link! www.virginmoneygiving.com/kevhowarth
So I left Robert and powered up the final straight to finish the 13.1 miles I wanted to run today. I still had enough for a good sprint finish and felt pretty good at the end. Dare I try to go sub 01:50:00 next weekend? We'll see. Should be safe for a sub 01:55:00 though.
I walked home thinking about Silverstone and found my new race shoes (Brooks Glycerin 14s) waiting for me in the porch. Happy days!

Happy with that. Even though I don't look it.

Bluewater Sorted

It's been another month since my last post. What have I been up to? Well I've done a couple of 20 mile runs with the Bickley Station Harriers (a little sub group of Petts Wood Runners that go out on Sundays). It felt good to get that distance under my belt. I didn't do them with basketballs but it still feels good to get familiar with a relatively fast paced 20. I've been up at the school gym practicing ball skills and I ran the Tunbridge Wells half marathon last Sunday. I had a tiny twang in my right hamstring at track the Thursday before where I still ran but at no more than 80%. I didn't realise there was a term for it but I'm suffering terribly from Maranoia (mental anxiety found in marathon runners, characterised by the irrational belief that last-minute disaster is imminent). Basically I'm terrified I'm going to injure myself. So having had this little twinge and knowing I had a race on the Sunday I booked my legs in for a sports massage. After having a chat with our club coach (and sports masseur) Mike, I decided not to 'race' the Tunbridge Wells half but just to run it at a comfortable pace. It's a very hilly course and not one for attempting PBs anyway. I was enjoying the scenery and running comfortable sub 8 minute miles when I began to notice my hamstring tightening. Then, just before 10 miles, another 'ping!'. Not a terrible pain but enough to make me walk the last three miles. I had my legs carefully massaged again at the finish and saw my Physio on the Monday night. Sparing you the details, I was taped, bandaged and given exercises to do and was able to run again on the Wednesday night. I have to moderate how many miles I'm doing but it's not as big a problem as I was worried it might be.
I ran 4 miles on Wednesday, another 6 on Thursday and on Saturday I took the balls out for 6.69 miles which I did in 57:49 averaging 08:39 per mile. All back to normal next week I think.
In other news I went to Bluewater shopping centre last weekend to walk a lap and see if my Garmin would work indoors - it did! But it turns out that a lap is only just over a quarter of a mile and not the half mile I was lead to believe it was. This means I'm going to have to do in the region of 80 laps to cover 20 miles. And I'm probably going to have to stay on the upper floor if I want my Garmin to work - I can't imagine it's going to work on the lower floor (I forgot to test that). Whilst I was there though, I popped in to the management suite to see if my contact in Security was there. Fortunately he was so I was able to introduce myself. He's happy for me to do the 20 miles on 2nd April as long as I start at 05:30! And miraculously I've found three people so far that have expressed an interest in getting up at silly o'clock to come and run with me. This will be a great confidence boosting run just before I begin to taper. I want to take advantage of the perfect conditions to run 9 minute miles.
I have the Silverstone half marathon with balls on 12 March so I'll probably run a half marathon with balls round the park next weekend. I want to get a balls PB at Silverstone which means going sub 01:56:39. I want to get below 01:55:00 and as close to 01:50:00 as I can.

80 laps of Bluewater Shopping Centre coming up - 02/04/17

Darn Parkrunners!

They make a terrible mess of the path in the winter, those Parkrunners. Muddy sludge all over the top corner of the park. I'm joking though. I love Parkrun. It is a brilliant thing and long may it continue to grow. It does make it difficult for me though. The balls don't bounce well in it, it splatters mud all over my legs and shoes and makes a terrible mess of my hands.
It amazes me how different the conditions are on each side of Norman Park. On one side the wind whistles through you and it's cold, wet and muddy. On the other side there's no wind, the path is dry and in the sunshine it's much warmer. As I started on the muddy side I was immediately concerned that I'd underinflated the balls. They could've done with a little more perhaps but the main problem was the mud. On the better side of the park they weren't performing too badly.
Earlier in the week I'd been discussing with fellow Petts Wood Runners how I should approach this run. The last run I did before Christmas I was on fire. It felt really good and I did the 15 miles averaging less than 9 minutes per mile. I wasn't sure if I should let my ego try and keep this pace today or if I should deliberately slow it down. I don't think it's standard practise to do all your long runs at race pace - it's more about being on your feet for longer. Anyway, it was almost immediately clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to average under 9 minutes for the 17 miles I had planned today. I'll get to the stats later.
I measured how much water I put in my hydration pack today. I put 600ml in it. I need to get an idea of how much I need to carry for the marathon without carrying more than I need. I finished it at 16 miles. I stopped every mile for a time check, a bit of water and a Jelly Baby today. God knows what I ingested in the filth I'd accumulated on my hands each time I fumbled for a Jelly Baby.
At one point I found myself slowly catching up with a woman jogger. When I eventually got alongside her she said "I wondered what that stupid noise was". I laughed it off at the time but it was too late before I wished I'd queried "Stupid?". I don't think she lasted long.
I found it very tough today. I could've cut it short to make the average stats look a bit better but that wouldn't help me in the long term. I was set on 17 miles and it will have done me good to battle though to that today. I have to get used to running on tired legs. So to the stats:
I did the first mile in 08:42. My slowest mile was mile 17 which was 10:34 which will include stopping for water and Jelly Babies but the clock won't stop for that on April 23rd. I did 17 miles in 02:43:04 which is an average of 09:35 per mile. At that pace I would miss out on the world record by around 30 seconds. That annoys me but it was a training run and this is still well within my grasp. It's just not in the bag yet. I was so drained at the end that I have spent most of the afternoon in bed. I might give myself a light week this coming week. I think I need to recover before I try 18 or 19 miles.
STOP PRESS! My phone has just buzzed. Someone has sponsored me. A man called Robert Elbourn. Never heard of him! Not surprising though. This is the message he sent:

"OUTSTANDING you overtook me and I followed you for 12 miles today. You are well on for the record. I was following at 9.06 per mile"

How lovely! That's not the only sponsorship I got today though. Joe the cyclist stopped me and gave me a fiver after I explained what I was up to. It turns out he's done a bit of fundraising for Demelza House in the past too.
In other news, I heard from Bluewater shopping centre this week that they are going to let me do a 20 mile training run around the mall. I asked them a while ago as I read somewhere that a full circuit is half a mile. I thought it would be fun to do 20 laps on each level. Nice and flat too. No potholes. A nice confidence booster before the main event. Anyway, I've got to sort out the details with them and hopefully will have more info for my next post.



Splattered shoes

Sock mark form the mud splattering I got

 

Mucky hands. Took a bit of scrubbing

 

 

 

New Year, New Balls

...And by that title I mean when I get round to doing my first balls run of the year I need to start thinking about getting my record breaking balls worn in for the race.
It's been another month since my last post and we've had Christmas and New Year to deal with, during which time I had to take a nine day break due to illness (certainly not related to overindulgence). My first run of the new year was a track night which ended in 8 x 60m sprints. I was feeling pretty hot end enjoyed pretending I was a sprinter (having never been any good at it). I really threw myself into it - so much so that all that arm pumping made changing gear in the car painful on the way home. It also meant that I tore loads of muscle fibres in my quads, no doubt in an ultimately good way but I was genuinely feeling sore for a full week.
I've been in the gym at my son's school practising my ball handling skills this week and as the track was closed this week due to snow I had time to put together the following video:

I didn't do a balls run last weekend as I was still aching from track and was taking photographs at the Minnis Bay cross country race on the Sunday (although I did run 11 miles on the Saturday). I've been away for a family function all this weekend but did manage to get 15.65 miles in in Newton Aycliffe (without balls). Mostly road. Some of it icy. A bit of cross country thrown in, all in 02:11:57 which is averaging 08:26 per mile. I won't get to take the balls out this weekend either as I've got the Canterbury 10 on the Sunday which I ought to be able to do in somewhere between 70 and 75 minutes. So it will be the weekend of the 28th January before I have a go at maybe 17 miles with the new race balls - that's if it isn't snowy or icy.

I may have some other news to share before then and if I do I'll make another short post.

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.