The missing August one...

You may or may not have noticed (or cared) that I had a gap in my 'places I'll be appearing' section in that I had nothing during the month of August. This has been annoying me as I was doing pretty well to have a race a month for the rest of the year.

Well today I found one that I liked the look of and i can now state *with a fanfare playing in the background* that I will be running the Hard as Snails 10k on the 22nd August. Admittedly, it was the name that made me laugh and therefore I had to sign up but for £15, a Saturday morning and some good hills, I couldn't say no.

If you're trying to find a race to run in August then come along and join me. It's a 10k but they reckon because of the hills, it feels more like 7.2 miles. Yay to punishing hills!

Right, now I just have to mention it to Lovely Girlfriend. I can almost feel her eyes rolling from here!

Slacking but not through laziness

I seem to have done a little damage to my hip although no-where near as much as Jogblog managed to do to her ankle but because of this (my hip, not Jogblog's ankle) I've only ran once since my Touch Rugby session. This was last Tuesday when myself and Lovely Girlfriend went to Richmond Park for a bit of exercise as it was a lovely evening. LG is going to be running her first ever 10k at the end of June so it's good for me to be training with somebody again as it hasn't been done since myself and eatingtrees trained for the Royal Parks half last year and frankly, I was starting to get bored of my own company.

Anyway, it consisted of a 1.5m run from the car to the hill, then we ran some hills for a bit before running back again. It was on this return leg that the pain really intensified to the point I had to stop because I was overcompensating so much, my left knee started aching too. Now the hills weren't what caused it as I'd noticed it a week or so before but they certainly didn't help. It's now the following Monday and there's still a little ache on the hip but nothing too bad. However, because the BUPA 10k costs a sodding fortune and I don't want to waste that money, I'm not going to run until then and then just try and get round. I don't have a PB for a 10k as such as I've only done one race before and all I can remember is that I finished in 53:xx so the plan as to go under 53mins. Unlikely now which is a pain but I'll give it a go anyway.

Now not being able to do either Touch or running for the past week, I've had to do a couple of things to keep the week interesting. So I've, in order:

a)Looked at a new car
b)Went to an Album Launch Gig
c)Went for many, many drinks to celebrate LG's and another friends birthday
d)Test drove new car
e)Bought new car
f)Went to Cambridge and camped in an airfield
g)Trained to jump out of a plane for LG's birthday
h)Didn't jump out a plane as we have tremendously crap weather in this country
i)Went out for a meal for LG's birthday
j)Slept

See, I've been doing other things and here's a picture of the new beast! We pick it up on Thursday and I can't wait. It may only be a Citroen to some people but as we've been driving a P-reg Clio, this thing's going to feel like a Rolls Royce!!

Nice touch!

So instead of getting bored and just doing more pavement pounding while doing some sprint training and on the back of The Red Buckets recent ramblings, I went to my first Touch Rugby session last night. I signed up as an individual player for £35 for the season (8 weeks). This meant they would put me in a group with a load of other people who had no-one to go with and we would then form a 'team'. At this moment in time, I use that term very lightly! There were 11 of us in a mixed team consisting of 8 males and 3 females. 6 people on at a time and rolling subs.

Things to consider at this point:
- I've never played before and haven't even picked up a rugby ball since I was 11-12 years old. (Even then only to put it down again when the big boys ran at me)
- Only one other person on my 'team' hadn't played before
- 80% of the people there were Antipodeans who'd been playing this forever as they actually want to play sport in the southern hemisphere and from a young age
- I knew it would be tough but was confident that all the running would help at least in some small part. IT DIDN'T!!!

We play one game a week (15 mins each half) and during that time, when you're on the pitch, it's all about the sprinting! Every time you tackle (touch) an opposition player, you have to get back 10m. And bloody quickly or the ref calls you offside. It's tiring hence the rolling subs but good fun. Our 'team' let them in for a few tries and I think it was something like 3 or 4-0 at half time. Second half we came out slightly more organised after some of the finer rules had once again been battered into our head. In fact we scored a try. Bonus!! They scored a few more (I'd lost count) and then I came back onto the pitch for another go. I reckon I had about 5 minutes left and intended to sprint my heart out. I did exactly that as we held our ground in defence and had the odd attack thrown in. Being around the centre of the pitch, the ball came to me on about the 4th touch during on of our attacks. With team mates (notice the lack of irony marks) running towards the wings there was suddenly a gap.

This was it. No Guts No Glory! Time was running out. We had no chance of winning but it was all about pride now.

I went for it, putting in a short burst of space I split 2 players, being in our own half I had a long way to go but this was it... I squeezed through without being touched and it was me being very quickly pursued by a guy from the opposition team. I just had to get to the line and the glory was mine. My lungs were on fire, my teammates weren't around. It was a straight race now! He was behind and close but not catching. I could see the headlines being written, the name in the Hall of Fame, the cheers and celebrations of my teammates. Only around 15m to go so I'll just need one last look behind.

Oh Cock it!!!

I'd tripped myself up when I'd turned and was now eating dirt still around 12m from the line due to a 3m slide and the chance had gone.

As you can see, the slide caused some cool grazes that I haven't had since I was a kid but to be honest my pride had taken the bigger battering. Even more so when my pursuer came up to me after the game, shook my hand and said 'unlucky on the trip mate, you had me as well'.

So in a nutshell, a LOT of fun, extremely tiring, I have new aches that I've never had before and can't wait to go back. Unfortunately due to prior commitments it will be in 2 weeks time and not next week but I'll be there with my number 9 shirt and my restored pride. However, this time, I'm not going to look back!

Music makes the legs go one in front of the other

I've mentioned my playlist (not the quickie Sony W one but my actual training and race one) before but it was only while explaining it to someone the other day (and being called a bit of a geek at the time) that they mentioned I should do a full post explaining why and how it works for me. The actual choice of songs doesn't matter at this moment as there won't be a single person who would look at my playlist and say 'Wow! the boy's a genius, I will listen to only that and nothing else whenever I run from this point forward' so please stick with me. It's more about the placing and type of songs you use so this is just a post explaining a couple of my choices and how I did it.

The way it works is having a set distance to run to. Mine happens to be based on 6 miles and is pretty much 52:30 long exactly! So if I'm doing a 10k, it's almost perfect, if I'm doing an 8 miler I'll turn it on at 2 miles and so on and so forth. This means I don't have the constant music and therefore it doesn't become background music. It means when it starts, I know exactly where I am in the run, the distance to go and also, how long I have to get my arse home! See, I race the music home everytime. Mind you, racing it home is one thing, beating it home is a completely different matter. I think we're about level on results at the moment!!

The Starting Point
So, I had the total time. Now to find the tracks. I did a full search through my iTunes and also ended up buying a few bits of cheese from Amazon's MP3 store and gave myself a starting point. Strangely, this was at the 26:15 mark or 3 miles-to-go mark as I like to think of it! The reason for this was that I really wanted a big mental **HALF WAY THERE** in my ears and didn't want to think 'oh the halfway point is somewhere in the middle of this track'. This means I can check my pace in relation to where I am and in addition, the song was one of the big motivational clichés out there. Eminem: Lose yourself (minus the first 32 seconds of nothing obviously). Now this song has never been a favourite but was specifically purchased to become my motivational kick up the arse and dag nammit it works!!

The First Half
I then set about building 26:15 minutes of music up to that point. The idea of this first half of the playlist was about the beats, keeping the pace up but making sure I didn't revert to listening to music that I didn't like. Basically, that being what I class as 'dance' music! A couple of tracks that will be mentioned among others that won't be for potential embarrassment reasons are the starting track of Foo Fighters: Monkey Wrench and somewhere in the middle of this half is Arcade Fire: Keep the Car Running. Simple theory... music I like with a beat I could run to.

The Beginning of the End
After my Eminem motivational kick up the backside, I have a few tracks that keep not only the shouty motivation up but the beat and pace up too. The theory being that I'm getting knackered and just the beats aren't going to help as much on their own at this point but the shouty stuff does. Think teen pop!!! I'm saying no more than that. I have little street cred as it is, naming the actual tunes would just be hideous. Think of them as guilty pleasures.

The End
Now the beats matter even less. I've tried running to a set beat at the end of a run and for me, it doesn't work... at all! Now it's all about the motivation part. Making me smile as I head to the finish line. If I'm happy and have a rather embarrassing and stupid grin on my face then I'll be running a damn sight better than if I have boom, boom, boom going on in the background. So this is the point you need to find a couple of tracks that you can listen to and know you're having more fun than anyone else around you! Based on this, my penultimate track is Bellamy Brothers: Let your Love Flow and then the one that I'm always chasing home is Jackie Wilson: Higher and Higher. So much fun and I promise you it works!!

One last thing I must mention is once you've found these tracks, try not to listen to them day to day. Take them off your other music players and iTunes and your mind will start to automatically go into running mode when you hear them. All my tracks now have an immediate effect and when I'm having a slow day and I get to that 6 miles-to-go mark, it acts as a massive pick me up and gets me to the end every single time.

Distance done and the Sony W Series Walkman

Saturday morning and after sharing a bottle of Merlot last night because 'we managed to get through the week' I set out for a 10k. I finished in a credible 52:16 which I was pretty happy with being my first proper run since returning. It was good to get out and pounding the pavement to be honest.

I'm aching a bit now but that's because I've done sod all for so long but if I'm feeling a little more flexible later then I'm going to try this Yoga thing. It all depends on how I'm feeling!!

And so onto the Sony W Series. I have to be honest with you.... I'm not a fan. Brilliant concept but I just can't see myself changing from my shuffle if this is the competiton.

Benefits:
-No wires running down your back
-Good sound quality

Not so much:
-It's LIME GREEN people!!! (I know there are other colours but would love to know who thought this one was a good idea!!) I guess I should be grateful I didn't get the pink one!!!
-If you have a shaved head, you are going to get a ridicolous tan line. eatingtrees, you'll have the same problem as me!
-Yes it's lightweight. But it's double the weight of my shuffle and I don't have that sitting on my head!
-I found it a bit fiddly to control when on the move. Maybe it'll get easier with more use.

I should also mention the special technology they have to scan through the songs. It's like Ronseal, 'it does exactly what it says on the tin' but to be honest, I still find it pretty easy to press the skip button on my current player if I want to find a particular track. Overkill maybe?? Solving a problem that doesn't need to be solved me thinks.

So overall a very sound and quality product, just as Sony generally produce but this particular one, I don't feel it's any better than what I currently use.

The challenge I was set however was to produce a playlist and this is mine. All from my own iTunes and for various reasons including beats, motivation and just generally loving the track! Here it is:

Living in Jungles - Bedouin Soundclash
Helicopter - Block Party
Trains to Brazil - Guillemots
Oh My God - Ida Maria
City Lights - The Bishops
Keep the Car Running - Arcade Fire
Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Blood - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Over and Over - Hot Chip
What Your Boyfriend Said - Little Man Tate
Soul Limbo - Booker T and the M.G's
Angel Interceptor - Ash
What a Wonderful World - Joey Ramone

Not to everyone's taste but it'll get me round a few training runs!! Enjoy your Bank Holiday weekend if you're in the UK or just your weekend if not! I feel a BBQ coming!