Finished!
I have now, after a hot bath, recovered quite well from my exertions this morning, in the Kilomathon, a 16 mile road race from Nottingham to Derby, along with 5,700 other people. The weather, as I am British, and should as a matter of culture, discuss first, was very good, although changeable from, sun out, quite warm to cloud cover, got very, very cold. So the two t-shirt solution proved the prudent choice!
The race organisation was okay, but we still get to the point where they do not provide enough toilets for the amount of racers in the race so you stand in the queue while the race is getting its runners to the start, which as an anal, ritualistic runner, I abhor breaking my routine. Yet the bonus was that I started the race as the very last runner in the field, which a) was novel, but b) helped slow me down and not go too fast. And as they stuffed up the start I being the last runner in the field didn't start last, as our pen was released before the faster pen.
So, while taking it steady and under continual advice from my beloved's gift of a heart rate monitor, meant that I kept my heart rate between 159-165 beats per minute (who said the romance of running was dead!). This has proved a good tool to me as it means that I can judge my performance through how hard my heart works, so for instance the longer the distance the lower my heart rate needs to be to cope with the length, a marathon would be about 145-159 bpm to get me across the 26 miles, whereas I used my half marathon pace today which was 159-165 bpm. In the last 6k I raised this to around 174bpm which is my 10k race pace. It's all thoroughly helpful when trying to control not running too fast, which I was not particularly great at previously.
It worked out to be a target time of around 2hrs 30mins.
In the end, I managed a fairly comfortable 2hrs 36mins, which I was pretty satisfied about as it was my first competitive race in a year or so, and it was confortable, or as comfortable as your body can feel running 16 miles.
Onto the goody bag and medals, which is what I really for. A way to get free stuff. I am sure there is an easier way, have yet to find it!
The Medal, which my daughter, took a great interest in, as a form of food to start with then spent a lot of her afternoon, waving it in the air smiling, as though she had won it herself. I think we have discovered today a ripe seem of glory hunting/competitive spirit, we didn't know existed. She didn't even stop waving it, after she swung it into her head. It's a pretty nice medal, as amateur runners medal go.
Another to add to the box of medals I have stored in a draw somewhere. I think from memory that my Rome Marathon medal is my favourite. It is, unsurprisingly very stylish, being italian and has the she-wolf nursing romulus and remus, the mythical founders of Rome.
The goody bag was good too, nice t-shirt, bit too small for me so my wife has already declared it would fit her better, so I'll never get to see that one again. here is a photo of the goody bag contents, minus the t-shirt and the rather nice, Yazoo Strawberry milkshake, and bottle of water.
Here we have a range of stuff, from a collection of tetley tea bags, to a nut and hemp bar, I was concerned when I found an Anti-Aging moisturiser. The obligatory goody bag staple of the Nature Valley Granola Bar, which you find in every bag after every race, in the whole world. The strangest entrant, which still doesn't come close to the 6 fresh eggs received once is the Swiss Herbal tablets. I am not sure what the herbs are and am slightly concerned I should not be driving after having swallowed them or in fact, dance with the pink elephant, regardless what the laughing penguin says.
It is also a good tip to fuel yourself correctly after a race also. As an elite athlete, I advise you to healthy so you'll need nuts to eat, water, isotonic sports drink, a banana perhaps. Here is my post race fueling choice.
Here you can see I have followed my own advice. I have some Jelly Beans (beans are a natural source of fibre), a block of Bournville Orange (this equates to one a day of your fruit portions, as orange, unless I am mistaken, is a fruit) and jelly babies, these are a complex carbohydrate and also contain fruit again, so happily increase your one a day of fruit, on top of the bournville orange. We also did have an unopened packet of Hob Nobs (contain oats which is a great source of energy, think of hobnobs as to porridge what water is to steam, merely the solid state version), sadly as I finished the race, it appeared that a Hob Nob monster had descended on the packet and there was only 4 left! It was either my 10 month old daughter, who is as co-ordinated as a monkey on acid, and is not, I would argue, therefore, be be capable of opening a packet of biscuits herself, let alone not manage to bury herself and any innocent passers by under a hobnob crumb mountain, or it was my wife?
The race organisation was okay, but we still get to the point where they do not provide enough toilets for the amount of racers in the race so you stand in the queue while the race is getting its runners to the start, which as an anal, ritualistic runner, I abhor breaking my routine. Yet the bonus was that I started the race as the very last runner in the field, which a) was novel, but b) helped slow me down and not go too fast. And as they stuffed up the start I being the last runner in the field didn't start last, as our pen was released before the faster pen.
So, while taking it steady and under continual advice from my beloved's gift of a heart rate monitor, meant that I kept my heart rate between 159-165 beats per minute (who said the romance of running was dead!). This has proved a good tool to me as it means that I can judge my performance through how hard my heart works, so for instance the longer the distance the lower my heart rate needs to be to cope with the length, a marathon would be about 145-159 bpm to get me across the 26 miles, whereas I used my half marathon pace today which was 159-165 bpm. In the last 6k I raised this to around 174bpm which is my 10k race pace. It's all thoroughly helpful when trying to control not running too fast, which I was not particularly great at previously.
It worked out to be a target time of around 2hrs 30mins.
In the end, I managed a fairly comfortable 2hrs 36mins, which I was pretty satisfied about as it was my first competitive race in a year or so, and it was confortable, or as comfortable as your body can feel running 16 miles.
Onto the goody bag and medals, which is what I really for. A way to get free stuff. I am sure there is an easier way, have yet to find it!
The Medal, which my daughter, took a great interest in, as a form of food to start with then spent a lot of her afternoon, waving it in the air smiling, as though she had won it herself. I think we have discovered today a ripe seem of glory hunting/competitive spirit, we didn't know existed. She didn't even stop waving it, after she swung it into her head. It's a pretty nice medal, as amateur runners medal go.
Another to add to the box of medals I have stored in a draw somewhere. I think from memory that my Rome Marathon medal is my favourite. It is, unsurprisingly very stylish, being italian and has the she-wolf nursing romulus and remus, the mythical founders of Rome.
The goody bag was good too, nice t-shirt, bit too small for me so my wife has already declared it would fit her better, so I'll never get to see that one again. here is a photo of the goody bag contents, minus the t-shirt and the rather nice, Yazoo Strawberry milkshake, and bottle of water.
Here we have a range of stuff, from a collection of tetley tea bags, to a nut and hemp bar, I was concerned when I found an Anti-Aging moisturiser. The obligatory goody bag staple of the Nature Valley Granola Bar, which you find in every bag after every race, in the whole world. The strangest entrant, which still doesn't come close to the 6 fresh eggs received once is the Swiss Herbal tablets. I am not sure what the herbs are and am slightly concerned I should not be driving after having swallowed them or in fact, dance with the pink elephant, regardless what the laughing penguin says.
It is also a good tip to fuel yourself correctly after a race also. As an elite athlete, I advise you to healthy so you'll need nuts to eat, water, isotonic sports drink, a banana perhaps. Here is my post race fueling choice.
Here you can see I have followed my own advice. I have some Jelly Beans (beans are a natural source of fibre), a block of Bournville Orange (this equates to one a day of your fruit portions, as orange, unless I am mistaken, is a fruit) and jelly babies, these are a complex carbohydrate and also contain fruit again, so happily increase your one a day of fruit, on top of the bournville orange. We also did have an unopened packet of Hob Nobs (contain oats which is a great source of energy, think of hobnobs as to porridge what water is to steam, merely the solid state version), sadly as I finished the race, it appeared that a Hob Nob monster had descended on the packet and there was only 4 left! It was either my 10 month old daughter, who is as co-ordinated as a monkey on acid, and is not, I would argue, therefore, be be capable of opening a packet of biscuits herself, let alone not manage to bury herself and any innocent passers by under a hobnob crumb mountain, or it was my wife?
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