And now here is THE video of the Great Manchester run 2010 – the one and only daffodil waving, saluting and bowing to the adoring crowds. Muchly amusing 
I wandered lonely as a daffodil – is that how the poem went?
I had been aware of the fact, ever since the Bolton 10k, that my season’s preparations were in tatters, and that the next race, the Great Manchester Run, being a bit of a ritual for me, and for charity, could be in some jeopardy 
So at some point my twisted mind gave birth to the idea of joining the fancy dress fun runners, and not long after, the concept of running it as a daffodil sprung up (pardon the pun!) – I was running to raise funds for Marie Curie Cancer Care after all! So I started sourcing the goods to make it all happen! I got my race pack, and was in the white wave, but on the day just had to elect to run in the pink wave. Well, walk in the pink wave, with my right leg buggered to buggery, there was no way I would be running
And so it was not going to be a day for fast running, PB’s, or anything serious – but a day to savour the atmosphere of Britain’s premiere 10k, the Great Manchester Run, and just enjoy being out and running with 36,000 other runners. My eve of race ritual was a little different, concentrating not on eating well or resting, but making sure my daffodil head fit! And then the day itself came, up a little late – and then I braved my neighbourhood streets in my green tights, tutu, and yellow top – saving the daffodil head for the race itself. But I was not to get away with it! There were another bunch of pink wavers at the bus stop – girls – and they insisted I put on my daffodil head for a group photo, and then we piled on the bus and I got admiring comments about my legs. As we arrived in town, I jumped off at Piccadilly and went to get daffodilled up in the loos, and finally emerged resplendent as a bone fide daffodil.
I went to join the pink wave, and got someone to take a photo with my camera, so I could text various friends who had sponsored me. And then it was time for the off and I finally got to the start line mats! It was an odd experience having to walk, I couldn’t even have managed a jog with my knee – yet I knew on a good day uninjured I would have been flying past all these people… But this soon wore off and I just resigned myself to walking. The 1k marker came up pretty quickly, but without my Garmin I had no idea how long it really took – and it would turn out I was in for the long haul in this race! Along Chester road I was overtaken by a caterpillar and accosted by a mad woman shouting “Ray, Ray, Ray!!!” at me – it would later turn out this was someone off Runners’ Forum who had recognised the daffodil outfit but had forgotton I go by the name of Road Runner Rob and not Road Runner Ray It was amusing that I just didn’t click at the time!
Towards old Trafford I decided I needed to use the loo, so looked out for the portaloos – there were some of those weird public urinal things, but decorum insisted that I didn’t stand at one of those as I would have to pull down my tights, skirt, shorts and underpants in public, so I waited for a cubicle. I have never “been” in a race before, so it was another novel experience! So much so I would avail myself again later! This was becoming more like a leisurely sunday walk than anything else, particularly so as the runners thinned out and the roads were sparsely populated. At the 5k drinks station I asked if they had Baby Bio for me but am not sure if they got the joke – and then at the 5k timing mats my sister texted me to ask what time I had finished in
At about 7k Bats off RF started texting me encouragement and said he would wait at the end for me. Poor soul had a long wait but his e-cheerleading text service was appreciated! I gave the showers a miss! And then it was the final walk down towards the finish. I joked with a couple of people proferring vaseline coated rubber-gloved fingers, that although it may look like it, I wouldn’t be welcoming of such attentions – and then finally into the finishing straight, which although less populated than it would have been earlier in the race, still had a good crowd showing – the good thing was I had it more or less to myself, so raised my hands, waved to the crowd, and even managed a flowery little bow as the cameras clicked away, and even got my name announced by the commentator as I crossed the line waving my petals about.
Then I met Bats briefly, before going home to get changed, then going back to catch some of the Great City Games and hooking up with Bats again – both of us ending up on the telly as two shady looking characters standing in a doorway.
So no PB, not even a run – but in a way probably one of the best things I have ever done. You just have to take what you’ve got and do your best with it, is my philosophy. And so I had a ball and wandered lonely as a daffodil
Here are the pics – I will post the video of my Great Manchester Run finish in a subsequent post!
With thanks to Liz, Rachel(s), Janine, Neil, Dawn, Dave (bats), the mad woman, Ray (whoever he is) and the entire daffodil support team 
Oh and my time? 01:45:50 
Ran this on April 25th – has taken me until now to be able to even mention it, as in the last kilometre I got injured, something happened with my groin, and ever since it’s been my knee!
Did an OK time but was struggling as went off too fast, really don’t know what happened to the leg, as apart from my back problems, there was nothing wrong with the leg
Hey ho – was good to see Neil and Dawn though…
My preparations for the Salford 10k, at least in the run up to the race, had a bit of a setback with the onset of my back problem. At first it seemed to be a minor thing, but after my easy run in the week, another sleep seemed to do more damage and I was in real trouble, eating painkillers like candy, and barely able to move without wincing. There were times when I considered pulling out of the race, because the pain was THAT bad, and I didn’t want to make it worse. But then I thought, I wrecked it somehow sleeping in bed – maybe movement would actually do it some good, or at least do me some good, so I decided to turn up, and even if I just trotted round, I would finish the race.
Didn’t get much sleep the night before, every time I got comfortable for a few minutes in one position, the pain would flare up again. I got up, had some toast for breakfast, then walked the dog, and then the taxi came. I chatted with the driver but felt very uneasy about the whole race deal – wondering if I would have to pull out half way through, if I would be screaming in pain with the jolting – or what? I got dropped off and found the changing rooms, it was a struggle to even pull off my jogging pants. I pinned my number on my top, then stowed my stuff in a locker and decided to go outside for a little jog to see how I fared. It was freezing out there! I managed to do a bit of jogging then came back inside. The back had hurt, but I figured I might be able to sustain a decent run if I could run through the pain.
Eventually, we were all at the start line, dodging buses and cars. It seemed a little further back down the road then when I did it last year. Anyway, I set the Garmin to only display the distance and time of day, and resolved not to look at it, but just run to how I felt. I felt quite good setting off, and settled into a pace that seemed to not bother my back too much – the only problem was, with it being a pinched nerve, my left arm was twingeing a bit and my thumb was getting progressively number… I enjoyed the first lap, and felt pretty good, then had to deal with the psychology of doing it all over again and seeing the same scenery. I was breathing very hard at 5k, but felt if I could just stay at the pace I was and save a little for the last few k. As the 2nd half of the race got more intense, I started to find myself drawing level with people in front of me, then overtaking them, I put on extra little bursts of speed to overtake a few packs. By the last 2k, I was really gasping for air and hurting, but just kept my legs turning over, turning over. As the 9th K turned over I did risk a quick look at my Garmin and saw I’d done that one in 4:51. I got a bit frustrated as the 9K marker showed up when the Garmin was showing 9.3K and indeed the last k seemed short from where the marker was. In any case, I thought, only 800 to go, it’s just like an interval session now, just one burst and I can do this in less than 4 minutes. I couldn’t quite see where the finish line was, there were a few of us neck and neck, a bloke with a stopwatch shouted “48:06″ as we went past him. Then it registered – if I could reach the finish line in another 1 minute 53 seconds, I would have a sub 50. I pelted it, thinking I could do it, then thinking the finish was going to play tricks on me and be much further than I thought, I was gasping almost screaming by this point, totally at my limit, then suddenly I was over the line and stopping the Garmin. As I walked down the funnel, I flipped it over to display my time:
49:24
I gasped, and almost sobbed. I’d finally done it. I wandered round in a daze, tears brimming at my eyes, and had to find a quiet spot for minute. 2 years of trying and I’d finally run a sub 50 10k. It had been a challenge worthy of the name! It took a while to sink in as I went to get changed, and had a bit of a chat with a nice chap who said he was running a 5k later in the month and had done this one as a training run. I went off to get the bus, still feeling elated, as the rain started to come down…
My splits were interesting:
4:58
4:56
5:00
4:54
5:00
5:15
5:06
5:02
4:51
4:16
It shows that I can afford a bit of a lull in the mid stages to regroup for the end – if I had been pacing myself off the Garmin, I could easily have though “5:15 for that K, I am stuffed now…” So that’s 2 PB’s where I have just run to how I felt, it seems to work – won’t always of course, but it saves on the psychological games!!
Well, as it coincides with the anniversary of my mum’s death, I guess I will always run this one in her memory – and today have a PB/Sub 50 to dedicate to her
This was the first 10k either racing or training I’ve run in months – ran it very even paced at about 5:40ish per k all the way, and just struggled a bit in the last k, as I was running out of stamina and there was a hill. Managed it though, and recovered well, it will only a matter of time before I’m knocking the minutes off and getting close to 50 mins once the races start coming up in April.
After Tuesday’s heroics and some swimming in between, decided to run another 10k at an even pace, to make it my highest mileage week for quite a while (a mere 12.5, but better than before!). Was tough in places, didn’t feel like I was going quick, and no heroics over last k, as some was up hill, but wound down at the end to finish in 54:57, another big improvement, without really pushing it (and only my second trot out at this distance since the injury)
Clocking up the swimming miles almost daily really seems to be helping to get my fitness up there, hopefully it will pay dividends after Christmas and into the spring racing season, as long as I can stay injury free – will keep building slowly.
Had a stressful morning, and was already running late, by the time I got my kit on my window was closing in (had Uni later). So, I was going to do a half hour run and make do with that, trouble was I headed out on a usual run route, and kind of got carried away and by the time I realised I had gone too far, I had already done 6k – so I decided to run back to the main road and get a bus, by which time I had completed 10k.
Sprinted the last k and the Garmin was flying along – 4:40, which was good for the last 1k of my longest run for a couple of months.
Have not updated my running blog for a few weeks due to picking up a bit of a niggle somewhere along the way – was worst after my last 8 miler in the preceding post, the next day, but had been lurking for a while but the 8 miler really seemed to be the last straw in a slow build up of overuse. Probably shin splints, but not sure. In any case, rested for three days then tried a gentle 2 miles, and no go – was really bad to walk on, so had to quit for a couple of weeks and miss both the Trafford 10k (my favourite race) and the Boggart Chase 10k
Earlier this week, I felt there was considerable improvement, so swam 50 lengths on Wednesday and then tried a very tentative 3 miler on Thursday. I was going to stop at the first twinge, but it didn’t come, and the leg felt the same after the run as before – so I elected to run the City of Salford 10k, being my last race of the season; I didn’t want to end on a miserable note, and felt fit enough to be able to jog round a 10k, so decided to monitor the leg, and if all well, go for it.
Even as late as Saturday night I wasn’t 100% sure I would run, but I got my number pinned up, my chip fastened to my Adidas Supernovas, and went to bed. Woke early on Sunday, and thought yes, let’s do it! So I walked the dog, then got the bus into town and a taxi out to the Lowry. Already some athletes around, I did some warmup stretches indoors, but no running warmup. I wasn’t going for a time here, so I would use the first part of the race as the warm up, having had no running in my legs for a bit, I felt 10k was my limit, without a few k’s warmup on top!!
The inflatable arch went up, and I positioned myself right at the back. The horn went, and off went the front runners. It felt quite surreal to start off plodding along at a very slow trot, without the slightest inclination to bomb out in front of people, but I felt a certain camaraderie with these runners at the back, even as I slowly started to find my form and overtake them. I heard someone beside me tell their mate the first K had gone by in 5:30 and figured I wasn’t running THAT slowly, then, and at 2k I felt Ok and started to go a bit faster, steadily overtaking people, which gave me a lift.
Somewhere along a big main road, I spotted two girls running in frilly pink skirts, and decided I would just have to catch them and enjoy a bit of flirting and banter about the skirts, so I kept them in my sights and slowly reeled them in. They said they thought the skirts might cheer people up on the way round – which they certainly did But it seemed to affect also their running aerodynamics I passed them, and waved to them again later when they were on the other side of the road.
I passed a drinks station, which was two people trying to fill one cup at a time from a barrel of water, so passed on joining the queue I was feeling OK as I passed 5k, but was into unknown territory by then, as had not run any further than that since back at the beginning of the month. At about 6k I saw Ron Hill going down the other side of the road, and shouted “Go Ron!” and got a thumbs up from him, which motivated me, and then it was the long slog back to the Lowry Plaza over the bridge, by which point I was grimacing, but still going as hard as I could, and still overtaking people (in fact I was only overtaken once in the whole race). Got over the bridge and it was torture to see the blue finish arch straight ahead, but know their was still another k to go around in a big circle. I overtook more people, swearing blue murder at myself and pushing even though I was really hurting, and made a sprint over the line, to find I had tied my chip so tightly to my laces, that half the lace had to be sacrificed to get the chip off I hung around and cheered in the very last runner. You can see me in the official video at the end, grinning away and there’s also a glimpse of the girls in the skirts
My time was 53:26, a very similar time to my first race of the season, and very similar in tone. I really enjoyed this race, the atmosphere, the banter, took it easy at first and ran harder near the end. Not a bad time at all considering my preparation hit such a hitch, and nice to finish the season on a bit of a high after the low of picking up an injury.
Now if I can keep injury free this winter, and build up a solid base, I might just get that sub 50 next year.
But my main goal is – to enjoy the journey
Pictures and video courtesy of Sports Tours International, who ran both the City of Salford 10k and the Salford Cycle events, and who organise lots of different sporting events and holidays
My training’s been going well and I had given myself a relatively easy running week in preparation for the race, so was confident of good things. Didn’t get much sleep the night before, really, but was up bright and early and made my way off to Oxford Road station, where I duly caught the train to Birchwood. Things were a little different last year; then, I used the toilets in the train station, until eventually they decided too many runners were using the facilities and pretended they were out of order. This time, the toilets were “closed for cleaning” when I got there and still closed when I left. Additionally, I remember the actual shopping centre being open when I got there last year, at least to walk around and use the toilets in Asda, but it was shut up by the looks of it – maybe the recession. So it was the portaloos or bust
Anyway, on the way to join the queue for the portaloo I saw Dawn and Neil so I waved and went over, and was introduced to Ashley, one of Dawn’s daughters, who was going to do the fun run. We chatted and then went off to catch the fun run, which involved a bit of a stroll out to the finish line at the other side of the area. All the younger runners did really well and Ashley did fantastically
Then it was time to make the portaloo queue this time, and then do a warm up, although the line was so long, my warmup ended up being a bit curtailed, and ended up being a jogged 1.5k instead of a few jogs and walks, but by that point there was only 5 minutes left till the start. I lined up, and then the horn went, and we were off!
Probably, with hindsight, I set off far too quickly. I remember thinking all the people in front of me were going quite slowly and was dashing around a bit to overtake. I did the first k in 4:51 but may have done the first half of that at twice the pace. I didn’t get near that pace again, maintained roughly sub 10 pace up till about 5k, but then by the drinks station I knew I was in trouble when I needed to take double water (stealing, I know, apologies!) and stop to drink it. I was wilting after that and when the inclines over the motorway came I had just about had it! I stopped about a K from the end and this bloke tapped me on the arm and said come on not far to go now, and it got me going again, in fact I went ahead of him until I ran out of steam near the end and loads came flying past me. I saw Neil in the finishing straight, and more or less limped to the finish line in a final time of 52:35. Of course all the info above is with the benefit of hindsight, I had the Garmin set to show only the distance and time of day, but it was tempting to look at the time of day and work out my potential time from the start time, so next time I will keep all trace of time off the display, though I think it was more to do with possibly humidity, or just my recent training catching up with me at the wrong time
But all’s well that ends well. I saw Dawn come in and finish and found her, then we found Neil and Ashley, and then this lady collared us for some free finishing photos courtesy of http://www.absoluterunning.com/ All the people in the pics ran really well on the day and it was good to see everyone
The results are below, with a nice group photo, together with us doing some mad Usain Bolt arrow posings, Neil would have had my eye out if it hadn’t been for the shades
Ok, I finally found out why it’s called the Moonraker 10k – apparently locals in that area call themselves moonrakers, and it goes back to a tradition when poachers, about to be apprehended, would throw their spoils into a pond and then pretend to be raking the moon’s reflection, for the cheese…
Hmm, anyway, this was a rematch with what was my third ever race last year, but to date my slowest 10k time unless you counted my first 10k. Last year I found the course really tough, with a big hill and heat, but after this race my times started to improve dramatically. So this time round, I was really looking at it as preparation for my next 2 flatter 10k’s, and was just hoping to get a course PB, and see what racing with the Garmin switched to ignore mode was like.
What a change from last year in so many respects! I had a different cabbie from my usual one, and the motorway was all shut down and diverted. Instead of sunshine and the hottest day of the year, it was threatening rain, and this duly started to come down before the race. I did a bit of a more sedate warmup than usual, trotting around for 15 minutes but resisting the temptation to start bombing around like a mad thing.
The time came, and we were off. I set off at what I hoped was a manageable pace, and kind of let the flow of people around me dictate my speed for the first k. I resisted a look at the Garmin, which I had set to silent so I could ignore the lap alerts. I felt OK as we came up to the hill at 2k, and was determined to take this easy come what may, rather than attacking it with gung ho bravado and paying for it later. A few people came bombing past me, full of confidence, but they started dying like flies as the hill took its toll and I started to overhaul them. I kept my pace steady enough but once I got to the top of the hill I was filled with adrenaline and went flying down the other side, determined to make up, and I enjoyed the downhills before it became a bit flatter. I had no idea what time I was headed for, but just got into a pace I felt I could keep up, and ramped it up a bit when I felt I could, focusing on runners ahead and taking them one by one. By the last 3k it got really cat and mouse, I overtook a group, but for a while I could hear them on my heels and I was starting to hurt. Someone overtook me but I just tried to stay with them. I just had to keep going somehow! A few from an earlier group overtook me in the last 200, and I had a sprint finish in which I pulled away from another chap. It was all good fun. Those little mini races helped me keep going! I crossed the line feeling tired yet really good. I looked at the Garmin, flipped it to show my time, and I had done 50:21 – not just a course PB but a lifetime PB, and with that bugger of a hill as well!
Looking at the splits, the hill added a couple of minutes on to my time, really slowing me for a couple of k’s, but the good news was I had handled the hills well and left myself enough in the tank to run a negative split – did the first 5k in 26, the second in 24:21 – which equates to my 2nd or 3rd fastest 5k best. The reason I could do that, was I didn’t know I was doing it. Normally I would look at my 5k on the Garmin, feel I was behind, and maybe give up on some level, or feel there was no way I could run fast enough to make up the time. Without the Garmin to refer to, I didn’t know, and I just seemed to run faster in the second half quite naturally, without all the mental guessing games. From now on this is how I am going to race, if this performance is anything to go by, it really helped!
Considering what happened last year, this race was a springboard to real improvements – if the same happens again, in the 3 remained 10k’s of the year I hope not to just to beat the 50 minute barrier, but to smash it once and for all
