Mutterings for the Minority

With just four days to go to my undercover mission, the excitement and nerves and starting to build in equal amounts.

Cardiff City Supporters Camper Van Club - Idaho Branch

As an ardent Swansea City fan, the thought of venturing east along the M4 to Cardiff (aka Basseyville) is enough to make me want to hire a coach with free police escort.

But alas, this trip isn’t football related, it’s all about running. Which incidentally – if you listen to all those Bluebirds out there – is what us Jacks are pretty good at, but I’ll let the heavies debate that one

Nope, I’m talking about proper running and the Cardiff Half Marathon. For this Sunday will see me take my first EVER leap into the unknown world of half marathon running. 13 miles of pure, ermm sweat, chafing and pain I guess.

Whilst I’ve done the distance in training, doing the business with 14,999 others will be a whole new experience and challenge for me. And doing it behind enemy lines in Cardiff just serves to make it all that more special and interesting of course!

Tempting though it is to wear my Swansea City jersey for the race, the fear of chafing induced bloody (literally!) nipples really doesn’t appeal to me, so I’ll stick to wearing some black and white running kit instead. In fact, the closest I’ll come to being tooled-up will be being having a jar of vaseline in my kit bag – which for clarification is purely for use on my nipples!

I’m hoping to complete the course in under 1 hour and 50 minutes, but as it’s my first time at this distance and with such a large field of runners, race tactics could be a problem. One thing for sure is that I don’t want to run the early miles too quickly, otherwise the last few are REALLY going to hurt.

So for those of you reading this, taking part or even perhaps just coming along to watch, keep your eyes peeled for my number and don’t forget to shout some words of encouragement – even if it is to only call me a “Jack B*stard”. I’d prefer a simple “Go on big boy you can do it!” instead though

Seriously though, good luck to everyone else who is taking part and especially those of you whom are raising money for such a wonderful charity as Barnardo’s.

Pob lwc i pawb!

Today saw the 30th anniversary of the Swansea Bay 10k race and I’m sure the organisers were thrilled with the glorious sunshine that greeted the occasion.

The picture that my wife took below of the view across the city from St. Helen’s rugby ground – whilst I was warming up – shows perfectly what a lovely day it was.

When the weather is like this, you can see why the event is considered by many people as one of the UK’s best 10K races.

From a runner’s perspective, the only slight issue was a northerly headwind, which wasn’t overly strong thankfully. It was enough however, to make it extremely difficult for the Kenyan athletes – whom always excel at the Swansea Bay 10k – to beat the course record, and in doing so win a brand new Ford Focus. It does beg the question how they’d have got it back to Kenya though…

For me personally, I was determined to finally ‘get the monkey off my back’ and do a sub-50 minute time. The quickest I had previously done a 10k was 50 minutes and 1 seconds – which incidentally was my very first 10k back in 2001!!

I knew I’d done the hard work in training and this was really only another step along the way in my preparation for the Cardiff Half Marathon in 3 weeks time – BUT I still had to perform on the day. I’d been chomping at the bit to get started since my last training run on Friday, so now it was time to deliver.

The omens were good, I had the weather on my side and Katherine Jenkin’s was blowing the horn – see the picture below if you don’t believe me.

I’d learnt my mistake from previous years and stood nearer the front. As the constant weaving and dodging does take it’s toll and I’m sure you’d end up doing 11k rather than 10k if it was all totted up!

Anyway, the horn was blown and we were off. I was armed with my trusty Garmin Forerunner 305 to pace me to my sub-50 minute time. However some 300 metres or so into the race, some twonk decided to cut me up and in the process knocked my right arm, resulting in my Garmin switching itself off!! OMFG

My initial reaction was (no not to give chase and thump said twonk, much as I felt like), but start the watch again.

This I realised would have been a bad move, as the 1km alert on my watch would have been out of sync with the course kilometre markers. Thankfully I managed to compose my thoughts, stop the timer and then start it at the 1km marker. Panic over.

At this point I decided to stop clock watching and to “just get on with it!”. The first 5k had gone well, but at the turn in Mumbles, the headwind kicked in and then it was really time to battle.

It’s at times like this that you really feel the benefit – both mentally and physically – of having trained hard prior to the event.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful – apart from the cheering crowds and jazz band – until probably the last 200 metres when I caught sight of the race clock… 47 minutes 18 seconds… I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was an opportunity for me to break the 48 minute barrier, let alone the 50 minute one!

Spurred on by the time, I somehow managed to find the energy to muster up a sprint finish and finally after nearly 9 years of waiting, I smashed my previous personal best with a finishing time of 47 minutes and 48 seconds.

I was elated, but refrained from giving it a top-of-the-voice “get in there” whilst-punching-the-air-at-the-same-time reaction, choosing merely to grin like someone who’d seen Katherine Jenkin’s blowing the horn (again)

In all seriousness, my time is the perfect tonic and boost from which I can build on ready for my first ever half marathon in 3 weeks time. But for now I’ll just savour the moment on a job well done and in retrospect, one which has certainly been worth waiting for.

A big shout out as well to all of the other 2,800 odd people who took part in the race – well done to you all.

My parting shot is to leave you with a picture of some of the after race freebies that are given to all runners whom take part. The customary bottle of water and bananas are missing though – which were down the hatch almost as soon as I’d received them!

Thanks to Swansea Council too for organising the event. It was as excellent as it always is and I’m already looking forward to the 2011 race.

Having been on what I’d call a 3 discipline fitness routine – running/cycling/weight training – since May, I thought it was high time to actually set myself a more challenging target than I had originally.

The original target was to train at least 5 times a week, running at least 20 miles, cycling at least 20 miles and doing 3 weight training sessions (of at least 1 hour in duration). This meant that I’d also have to discipline myself to get up at 6am most mornings to fit it all in or face it during my lunch break! It was a tall order but I was up for the challenge.

Looking back since I started, I’ve had some good and some bad days – not feeling 100%, work or home life impacting on scheduled training days, lack of motivation, etc – but all in all it’s gone fantastically well. Better in fact than I’d ever imagined.

But here I am some 10 weeks into my fitness ‘regime’ and I feel it’s time to focus on my next challenge as the existing one is starting to get repetitive – despite feeling and seeing the benefits of my hard work!!

So during my al-desko lunch break today I took the plunge and entered myself for the Cardiff Half-Marathon on Sunday, October 17th 2010. This will be without doubt my biggest running challenge EVER – as I have never run 13 miles in a race environment in my life. Please note that I’m not what you’d call a “proper” runner anyway!

The time between now and October will give me enough time to tweak my current training methods to focus more on longer distance running – something which I will have to do at the expense of (probably) the cycling – otherwise I am going to suffer big style come race day.

I’ve also decided to use the Swansea Bay 10K on September 26th, as a kind of benchmark of my progress (in terms of race time) and as part of my training.

Why do I do it? Well I suppose the main reason is that I’m a very competitive person and I always try and push the boundaries of what I can achieve, firmly believing that you can always squeeze that little bit extra out – be it running 2 seconds faster or lifting 5 kgs more. I think I’m pretty much like that with everything in life and I know my wife would agree with that statement!

Hopefully this half-marathon will give me the satisfaction of achieving another goal in my life and subsequently will no doubt drive me onto my next challenge – whatever that may be.

I’m glad to report that Team Thomas successfully completed the Swansea Sport Relief Mile 2010.

Thankfully the torrential rain of Saturday was long gone and was replaced by glorious spring sunshine by the time we ventured into Singleton Park – the venue for the Swansea Sport Relief Mile – in readiness for our family challenge.

With me opting to do the 6 miles at 11am and the rest of the Thomas clan doing the mile at noon, time was going to be tight, especially as I wanted to join them for their event.

I was hoping for a sub-50 minute time for the 6 miles, but the rather hilly setting put paid to any chances I had of doing that and I ended up coming home in 51 minutes 41 seconds.

The course was somewhat confusing as the 3 and 6 mile events consisted of doing 3.5 and 5 laps respectively – and shared with the 1 mile participants it all got a little confusing (in terms of keeping tabs on others and pacing yourself!).

In fairness the stewards did a grand job encouraging everyone and making sure that people went the right way – but the layout did nowt for my time keeping! Well I’m not going to blame my fitness levels am I

Still we had lots of fun and even the kids got in on the act with DDWT Junior running off and on for his mile (with Mrs DDWT) and Baby DDWT being quite content to walk along splashing in all the muddy puddles with me (although lagging behind somewhat!).

In fact it was fantastic to see so many families (including pets!) taking part in the events and having so much fun whilst doing so. Most of the kids seemed intrigued by the ‘fire’ juggler and were well chuffed to see Cyril the Swan present as well (well done Cyril for running the 1 mile event). Lee Trundle was also present to start off the proceedings at the 11am event.

The kids were well chuffed with their Sport Relief goodie bags – especially the medals, which my no doubt bring back a memory or two in years to come for both of them. I’m not sure what they made of the mini box of cereal or singular prune sachets, but they were welcome running food for me

I’d also like to say a BIG THANK YOU to everyone who has sponsored us so far. Thus far we’ve raised £66 – our target was £100 – but with more sponsorship pledged I’m still hopeful that we’ll beat our original target.

If you’d like to donate then please feel free to do so via the Team Thomas Sport Relief page.

Well after several weeks preparation that’s it, all done and dusted and in a time of 51 minutes 26 seconds. It’s been a good day and unlike other years I actually enjoyed it and managed to sprint over the last 100 metres or so, rather than amble along it!

The weather was great – sunny but not too warm – and there was hardly a breeze, perfect running conditions really. So with a sub 52 minute time in my mind and the 1k target time splits on my inner arm (thanks for that tip coach!) I was well up for the challenge and raring to go come the 1pm start.

Being a closet statto I thought I’d share my 10k time breakdown with you below…

As you can see I got off to a slow start – which then meant I wasted valuable enrgy trying to get back on track. This was mainly due starting off too far down the field (i.e. standing around the 55 minute marker) and then subsequently getting boxed on on several occassions. I finished strongly so I was pleased with that but kind of felt that I had more gas in the tank. Next time I’ll be sure to push the pace harder from the off and not stand so far back! Still my time was the quickest 10k I’ve done since 2002 so I’m very pleased with myself and am now on the lookout for another 10k to do. Any suggestions?

It was also great to see some familiar faces (and voices) along the route and the words of encouragement and support were a great help – so thank you all, you know who you are.

So all in all an excellent day and I even got to have my picture taken with Bertie the Bear, the winner of the Mascots race!

A big shout must also go out to Swansea Council for organising the event and for the scrumpious Warburtons Fruit Loaf with Orange that was part of the post-race freebies.

I can thoroughly recommend putting some strawberry jam on a few slices of the loaf and swilling them down with a cup of Kenco coffee…..mmmmmmmm.