Chiltern League XC 1, Oxford - I'd been here before…

Cross country is back

Shotover Park, November 1981. Oxford vs Cambridge second team, tortoises versus spartans. I was too rubbish to make the first team. The first teams raced in Richmond Park, we lesser mortals had to battle it out at Shotover, a hill a few miles to the east of Oxford. Back in ‘81 we had to start at the top of the hill, hurtle downhill, wade through a muddy bog, then struggle back up the hill. We did this three times, seven and half miles in all. Great fun. I cannot even remember if we won or lost. That probably means we lost. 

Shotover Park, October 2012. St Albans Striders versus the rest of the Chiltern League. Probably our strongest team yet in the Chiltern League? Certainly the best turnout since the St Albans fixture last December. How would we fare? 

The course was more challenging than Verulamium Park. Granted the Start and Finish were something out of a school sports day: a pancake-flat field with not a hint of mud. Even the grass where we dumped our bags was mud-free, a welcome change from some of the alfresco changing areas, aka quagmires, I have sunk into (Hillingdon, Alexandra Palace, Parliament Hill). There were changing rooms indoors, but the weather was too nice for those. 

After a lap of the nice flat sports field we had to exit the field via a ditch, 10 foot wide, two foot deep with a foot of water in it. There was a bridge about the width of a railway sleeper to help cross this, but it had sensibly been roped off to prevent the race being too easy. 

The ditch

The ditch itself was jumpable, I managed this three times in the warm-up without getting my feet wet, but the ditch was sufficiently wide to interrupt your running rhythm, i.e. you came to an abrupt stop whilst you regained your balance on landing. Surrounded by other runners in a race, you would not have much time or opportunity to choose the best landing spot, so I decided in the race I would take the alternative route through the ditch on the right hand side, where you could take two steps shin-deep in the water and keep running through and out the other side. Two wet feet, but momentum preserved. 

It was a good plan: I did not lose any time at the ditch in the race and could look forward now to the joys of the rest of the race. Unlike 1981, when we started at the top and ran downhill, in 2012 we started at the foot of the hill and made our way upwards, a long twisting climb, slightly reminiscent of the Ridgeway Run. At the top of the hill, it flattened out nicely into a broadish plain, with plenty of opportunities for overtaking. To my surprise, I caught a couple of slightly younger Striders here and then embarked on the descent. 

The descent was a blast. A twisty, muddy, rutted, quite steep path down through deciduous woodland. For some reason, I suddenly seemed to have no fear and started overtaking the sensible, timid people, who had started faster than I had and who did not fancy a reckless charge downhill. One wrong step and it would be a twisted ankle. At the bottom of the slope we took a sharp left into more woodland, which had a generous carpet of mud throughout. At this point, I surprisingly caught up with Ed, who I later learned did not have his spiked shoes with him. 

I was also gaining on the guy who has run every London Marathon in less than three hours. Did I dare catch him? Could I catch him? It would have to wait until lap two, which we were soon getting almost literally stuck into. Once more uphill. Several of the people I had overtaken on the downhill caught up with me again, Ed included. But I was just biding my time, getting ready for another bout of downhill madness. Four miles done with a mile and a half to go we hit the downhill again. I caught Ed and Mr 30+ Sub-3 marathons on the helter-skelter descent. I was not going to get caught again if I could help it. 

Dodging an impatient motorist at the foot of the hill, I turned left into the muddy woods for the second and last time. A few more bogs to negotiate, then it was a dash for the finish. School sports day all over again. Well, it felt something like it. 

I had just scraped in as eighth scoring Strider. The fast guys had had a good race, taking us to top of Division Two, and ahead of many Division One clubs. A great start to the season. Definitely more memorable than 1981. 

Colin Braybrook

Race Report: Windsor Half Marathon – 7 October 2012

I only did this race to beat my brother-in-law (occasional Strider, Matt Humphreys) and he beat me by 70 seconds. Bugger! 

Having said that it wasn’t a complete waste of time, Windsor Half Marathon is a great course on the traffic free roads inside Windsor Great Park. The course comprises of a mile up the Long Walk, a first lap of 4 miles, a second lap of 7 miles and finally a mile back down the Long Walk towards Windsor Castle. 

I last ran the course in 2001, when I ran 1:42:19, so I was intrigued to see what affect 11 years had had on my fitness, turns out not a lot as I finished in 1:41:40. 

So I guess with an improvement of 39 seconds over 11 years that’s the 'Most Improved Strider' trophy lost for another year. Humph! All this celebrating improvement gets a little wearing after a while. 

So how did I manage this incredible feat of consistency? Well running with the Striders of course! 

Training-wise from a reasonable base fitness I did a couple of months of three runs a week all with the Striders. Tuesday speed sessions; Thursday race pace tempo session; Saturday long slow sessions. I didn’t do any other training. I know we all talk about recovery runs, core strength, and cross training, but for me and for this race I found three sessions a week was a good balance of increasing my fitness and giving myself enough recovery time. 

I used the Thursday session to work out my race pace, I found I could do the 8 min mile group okay but struggled to keep up with the 7:30 min mile group. So at Windsor I already knew I needed to keep my pace to between 7:45 and 8:00 to last the race. 

For the race itself I broke it down into 3x4 mile sections (maths not being my strong point). I took a time check at 4 miles (30:40) feeling pretty fresh. This gave me confidence that I was running at the right pace so I targeted to get to 8 miles in 62 minutes, took a gel and focused on relaxed running for another half an hour. I was at 8 miles (61:20) feeling pretty tired but pleased that I had finished 2 of my 3 race 'sections'. This helped me focus on the next 4 mile section. I did drift a bit on this one, I reached 12 miles (93:10) but still it left me with a fighting chance of a PB in the last mile, if no idea where Matt was. 

As it happened he was a minute or so up the road looking over his shoulder a lot. Oh well! I’ll have to invite him over to Watford in January.

Steve Alexander

Strider in the Spotlight – Colin Braybrook

As he steps down from the Exec Committee, Colin steps into the spotlight... 

1. How long have you been running and when did you join Striders? 

I started running at secondary school, when I was about 15. So that’s over 35 years ago. We had to play rugby before that. When cross-country was offered as an option, I discovered that the sooner you completed the course, the sooner you could go home, so that was an incentive to improve! I also discovered that with some of your own training, it was easy to progress far faster than those who did not train. 

Colin, in the London Marathon

2. What’s been your best moment as a Strider? 

No single moment really, but a lot of good experiences (and a few bad ones!). In a race, possibly winning the Veteran’s prize with a PB in the Watford Half Marathon. Going sub-3 for the first time in Paris in 2004 was pretty special too, as was getting 3 hours in the Snowdonia Marathon. 

Outside of that, being awarded the Strider’s ‘athlete of the year’ in 2003 was a big surprise. I was always glad when the MWRRL fixture I organised for five years was finished without mishap. 

3. What’s your pre-race ritual? 

No big ritual really. The hardest part is getting out of bed in the first place. After that mind and body know pretty well what to do. I normally eat an apple, a banana and maybe some other fruit and drink as much as I can. Plus there is the usual queueing ritual to be performed! I once did not eat my apple before the Gade Valley 17 and felt quite lost towards the end of the run. I tend to get nervous the day before a race rather than on race day. 

4. What’s the most useful piece of running advice you’ve been given? 

Listen to your body. (But do not give in to all of its complaints!) 

5. Who is your sporting hero? 

The Ugandan hurdler John Akii Bua is hard to beat. He achieved Olympic Gold and a world record 400 metre hurdles in the 1972 Olympics pretty much by obsessive hard work. It is a shame he could not capitalise on his success. The Puma shoe company rescued him from a refugee camp after Idi Amin went off the rails. 

Let’s not forget our own Strider heroes. Mike Jubb, Deborah Steer, Zoe Lowe, the ladies marathon team, Caroline Walsh, Paul Adams and Jack Brooks – they have all achieved great things in their time. 

6. Where do you keep your race medals? 

I am sorry to say that most of them have been consigned to a bottom drawer! For a while I was winning veteran 40 trophies and kept an array of them on top of the lavatory cistern. But the dusting was too much hassle. The Watford Half and Snowdonia trophies plus the eight consecutive London Marathon medals are the only ones on show in the living room now. 

7. What’s your favourite local running route? 

Across the fields and the A414 to Tyttenhanger lakes, then over to Colney Heath and back via the Alban Way is a nice escape. The path from the A414 over Hedges Farm and back by the Ver is a nice little escape route too! I quite enjoy running to the Pub Run, doing the Pub run then running home. This brings me close to 19 miles without really thinking about it. Running to the parkrun and doing the parkrun beforehand makes it nearly a marathon! I tend to train quite slowly these days, and rely on the adrenaline of doing races for my speed rather than doing speed sessions midweek. 

8. What’s your next target? 

I need to do a crazy ultra some time soon. I have been feeling very claustrophobic working in a basement for the past year or so. I think it got to me recently – I ran 98 not particularly fast miles in a week without planning to. It just happened thanks to a spell of nice weather!

Jack's Marathons - September 2012

The Mooathon Marathon, County Donegal: 30th September 2012 (Marathon No. 298): Because I was ill on the day of Milton Keynes Marathon I had to find another marathon to keep me on target for running my 300th marathon in North Carolina on 4th November. The Mooathon seemed like a fun event and I happily registered for the Full Moo (the half marathon is called the Semi-Skimmed). The guidelines for the race are that competitors should only wear black and white clothing and that ideally clothing should relate to cows in one way or another. While some runners took this to extremes I borrowed a black t-shirt with a picture of a cow on it and the words 'I ran with the herd' emblazoned across the front. 

Unfortunately, once the gun went off runners started to appreciate that this would be an extremely demanding race. I don’t think that anywhere in Donegal is flat, but this course from Kilmacrenan Town to Downings plus a loop round the coast contained an awful lot of very steep climbs, which were certainly a lot tougher than any of the hills in Snowdonia. I think that I can safely say that, whilst the scenery was spectacular, this was the toughest marathon I’ve run since Liechtenstein Marathon in 2001. In the event 5 out of the 39 starters failed to complete the race and I was much relieved to finish 25th in a time of 4:38:01. 

The rest of the trip to Ireland was not without its odd quirks. Our hotel’s address was Lower Main Street, Letterkenny. Having driven the full length of Lower Main Street we discovered that the hotel was actually located on a completely different road. Subsequently on the way to Arran Island we came across 2 speed signs facing us on either side of the road. One of these stated that the speed limit was 50 and the other that it was 60.

Jack Brooks