London Stalling

(a slightly harsh headline perhaps, but too good an opportunity for a Clash reference to pass over )

Artistic angle of St Paul's Cathedral (aka wonky photo taken whilst running)

Whitsun Bank Holiday Monday - at 6:00 am thirty nine runners took to the roads of central London in a trial run of the route and associated technology for the marathon route for the 2012 Olympics. Just under three hours later, the feedback from the athletes and observers was overwhelmingly positive. The route consists of four laps starting and finishing in the Mall via the City of London, and later in the day, at 11:00 am, one lap of the Olympic course formed the route for the BUPA London 10k contested by 12,000 runners of varying abilities including Mo Farah, Paula Radcliffe, Juliet and myself.

Advance media coverage of the race focused on the long awaited return to competitive action of Paula after 18 months following various injuries and the birth of her second child in September 2010. I say 'competitive' because a couple of weeks earlier I watched her take part in the opening 2011 Race for Life in Battersea Park. Paula acts as an ambassador for Race for Life, which is organised jointly by Tesco and Cancer Research UK, and participates each year in the big launch event. With our Tesco connections, Hannah and I have been able to swan around in the VIP tent at battersea for three years now. The Battersea race was won by the very shapely Nell McAndrew with Paula floating home effortless alongside a runner a few places back before twice heading back along the closing stages to encourage and accompany other participants to the finishing line. What a great feeling that must be!

Paula's second sprint to the finishing line!

Juliet ran a good time, and although Paula didn't accompany her to the finish, she did later kindly agree to pose for a photograph.

Back to today. My pre-race dilemma centred on whether to use this event to further assess my progress and continue my preparation for my main attempt at a 10k PB in September, or, buoyed by three encouraging performances thus far, to launch a full attempt on a best ever time for the distance today. I opted for the latter, which would require sub-6 minute kms from start to finish. Last year Juliet and I ran the event together and crossed the finishing line hand-in-hand in just over 73 minutes (how romantic, I bet you're thinking), so with beating last year's time the goal I advised Juliet not to set out too quickly and to stick to a steady 7 minutes per km. Excellent advice as it turned out.

Blending in with the scenery before the start!

The race got underway and by the 3km mark, having passed though Parliament Square and the tree-lined Embankment with its noisy crowds and inspiring musical bands, just over 18 minutes had elapsed. This was marginally over schedule, but by now the packed mass of runners had dispersed considerably making it much easier to achieve a steady stride and I remained hopeful of stepping up my pace sufficiently to dip below 59:37 at the finish. This was as good as it got for me, however. The fourth km, into the City of London, a steady although by no means steep ascent, coincided with my legs seeming to turn to lead and all spring disappearing from my hitherto bouncy step. Even after entering Cannon street, where the terrain levelled out, my progress remained slug-like and by the time I passed the halfway marker along Crutched Friars in 32:15 my chances of a PB had evaoprated into the increasingly warm Bank holiday sunshine. At this point I switched to more of a jogging mode, resolving to simply enjoy the historic route and the exuberant atmosphere. The boistrous beat of the drumming band within the confines of its ornately covered roof momentarily made my legs feel much less leaden as I progressed through Leadenhall market.

Leaving the Square Mile past the magnificent St Paul's Cathedral and heading back towards Westminster along the Embankment I felt increasingly as though I was grinding to a halt as each km took a few more seconds than the last. Just before the 8km mark, though, I was in for a big surprise that was to provide me with a second wind and enable me to finish the race in a positive glow. It had occurred to me that if Juliet had managed to stick to the pace I'd advised her to follow, I would be in serious danger of being overtaken by her sometime soon. With this thought in mind I glanced behind me and took in a vision in green - it was Juliet running smoothly a few metres back.

'What are you doing here?' she enquired, and so I explained how I seemed to have been going backwards since the halfway point. A few strides further on, though, I started to feel a lot more fluent again and we ran the final two km together passing along Whitehall, through Admiralty Arch and a final 400m along the Mall waving to Hannah and her Uncle Nigel stationed 200m from the finishing line.

Entering the Mall through Admiralty Arch - only 400m to go!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable end to the race, and as in 2010, we finished with identical times, 69:04 nearly five minutes faster than last year, although this time achieved via different trajectories.

Applications for 2012 open on 13th June

With that wonderful thing, hindsight, I was probably not quite ready to attempt a PB today and would have fared better by starting more steadily and trying to build gently on my time of 64:26 from Newham, especially as it was extremely hot out on the course. Finishing nearly five minutes slower than at Newham was disappointing I suppose, but overall the event was so fantastic especially with Juliet smashing her previous best time that I wasn't going to let it spoil my enjoyment. It also served to make clear how much more I need to improve before my final 10k of the year at Richmond in September.

However, I wasn't the only one to struggle in the middle of the race today. Whilst Mo Farah sped to an impressive victory in the men's race, hot favourite Paula Radcliffe described her comeback as 'a bit of a disaster" as she finished in third place behind Jo Pavey and Gemma Steel in the ladies event. A tear in one of the discs in her back Paula had prevented Paula from performing to her full potential.

'It wasn't particularly sore in the race' she explained, 'It just felt that I didn't have any power out there.'

I know exactly how you feel Paula - I tried to push on at the 3km mark but my cupboard was bare.

'At 4km I just started to go backwards' added the Marathon world record holder. You know what Paula, I couldn't put it any better myself. Performance-wise, it was just not meant to be for either of us today.






Over-ripe Banana

I stopped work slightly early today and headed off to London to take part in the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF)'s 'Beat the Banana' London fun run in Hyde Park. It was time for the third event in my Project Five O race schedule. After entering Hyde Park I was dazzled by a riot of colour as I made my way to the start via the gardens just inside the Queen Elizabeth Gates.

By contrast the scene by the bandstand grew increasingly yellow as the competitors assembled in anticipation of the start.

'Beat the Banana' is a 5k run with a twist. The banana, who was male, looked remarkably fit and possessed impressively muscular legs. He set off 30 seconds before the rest of us, whose task it was to get to the finish line before him. I don't know how many people managed this, but the nearest I got to the banana was during the warm up. When I enquired after his whereabouts at the 3k mark, a marshall informed me that he had passed by a long time since. At a rough estimate I finished around the middle of the 500 strong field, so I would be surprised if more than 100 runners managed to beat him.

A sea of yellow at the start

They really should have had three bananas. A green one one to challenge the serious athletes, a firm ripe yellow one for the slightly less speedy and an over-ripe brown speckled one for veterans and other plodders like myself. I think I might suggest this to the WCRF for next year, as it would have been nice to have a realistic chance of beating a banana given the name of the event.

Nevertheless, for me, the run was a great success. I kept up a good pace all the way round, overtaking many runners half my age in the process. Undeterred by the erratic placing of the km markers that meant I had no firm idea of what my time might be until the finishing line was in sight, my time of 28 minutes 42 seconds was a full 7 minutes quicker than my only previous 5k, which admittedly I'd run wearing a Santa suit whilst feeling decidedly under the weather. 28:42, though, not bad for an over-ripe banana!

So, my first PB of Project Five O - a great feeling even though 5k was always by far going to be the easiest one to achieve. Because of this my real aim for this race was to go below 30 minutes as to do so would give me genuine hope of being able to better my best times for 10k and 10 miles before the end of the year. Cracking 30 by over a minute was especially pleasing, although there's still work to be done. As yet I don't thinkI could maintain today's pace for another 5k but I'm definitely getting there.

If you can't beat it, eat it!

Everyone received a medal and goody bag at the finish line. Amongst other things the goody bag contained a banana, my third of the day.

I chose this event because my schedule required a 5K and it sounded great fun. It scored well on both counts, but I want to finish with a few words about the organisers. The WCRF is part of a global network of charities carrying out and disseminating research on cancer prevention, a key element of which of course is physical exercise. You can read more about their work by clicking on this link. Asking for sponsorship always seems rather awkward, and having raised a total of over £5000 for the Down's Syndrome Association and Breakthrough Breast Cancer from my three London Marathon runs, I didn't feel it appropriate to ask people to sponsor me for a fun event requiring relatively little effort on my part. Instead I have made my own donation to this worthwhile charity over and above the entry fee. Nevertheless, if you do feel suitably moved to throw a few quid the WCRF's way, you can do so via the following link.

Now, how did that song go?   .... Na, na, na, na... na, na, na, na, hey-ey-ey, goodbye ...