Coventry Half Marathon- The Moment You Think Of Giving Up, Think Of TheReason You Started

I woke up at 5:45am with the sweet smell of race day, not only that but it was my hometown half marathon! I've wanted to do this, in like, forever! 

Everything was laid out for the early morning start. I finished work on Saturday around 7:30pm, as well as going to see a friend for her 40th. They say... 

"get an early night before race day"

Nahhhh! It never happens. Your near enough always awake due to pre race nerves coursing through your body. But that feeling is kind of great. Depending on how you look at it. I arrived home at 9:30pm. Which was fine as my fiancé was due home at about 10:30pm. So I had the time to kill. 

I was gutted, he was unable to come due to work screwing him around as per usual 

:-(. Now running is a big part of my life, and it was my hometown half it was the only thing I wanted him to come too. After all, he hadn't seen me run in a event since last March, when I ran my first 5k. But fingers crossed- he'll be in the stands of the infamous F1 track in Silverstone in under 2 weeks time. 

Thinking logically, it's your home town. Maybe a little bit of lie in due to knowing the area, and being all of 6minute drive from the start. 

WRONG!!! 

Road closures around my area caused my dad to pick me up for about 7:20am. We drove to his girlfriends and then figured out the diversions to a suitably close car park. But thank God. We arrived dead on 8am. I was wrapped up with loads of layers. I seen fellow runners in just a short sleeve t shirt and their shorts/ leggings. No, no, no what are you doing with your life? Are you just immune  to the winter cold? Don't even get me started on the people that ran into town, ran a half marathon and then bike rode/ ran back home. How? Why? Yeah, nope, just nope. I'd be on my back before the start of the race or in the back of an ambulance. 

I met up with my solider buddy, friend of 3 years who had never ran a half marathon before and gained a late charity place with Coventry's own, Zoe's Place. His plan was to run it in his army gear and a 10kg rucksack! Safe to say, he decided to ditch the rucksack having been out on vigorous exercise back at barracks. He was planning to stick with a younger girl from my riding yard- who'd ran it last year. The time went so, so quick with an estimated 7000 people ready to be hauled off to the start. 

If anybody knows Coventry they started on the Burgess from Trinity street, which is fairly narrow to begin with. With us not being set off in waves. I had no clue as to how they planned to set us off. Turned out to be anyone hoping to run anything under 2 hours to the right and the latter to the left. I seen James and Sophie go to the right and waved them good luck.  So with the sub time paddocks I got confused and thought i'd entered the sub 2:00hrs. I didn't panic too much, as I'd obviously fall back. No biggie. Massey Ferguson, a local running team. Of whom I would love to join at some point this month, had picked members who were used as pacer with their big green backpacks with their sub times protruding like a flag. 

I got over the start for around 9:10am. Which was lovely, flowing and quick. 

The first mile was a loop of the city centre. Not too bad. A bit of your infamous dodging ability to get around the congestion. Some people have to hop skip and jump onto the pavement. I clocked in at 9:25 mile. A fairly optimistic start. I wanted at my worse a 2:30 finish, at my best, a 2:20/25. The week prior, I decided to rest completely. At this point in the race, there was no evident pain or discomfort anywhere. Saying this though, I doubted any miracles finish times, even without gaining injuries. My breathing and pace levelled out quicker than usual. I was just glad to be free and doing my snailtastic thang as well as having a Sunday off work! 

The second mile went out of the city centre up Lawrence Saunders Road and then onto Mosley avenue. Loved it. A nice breather and slight decline to prepare for what I knew was coming, the horrid Holyhead Road elevation, which I use for my training routes on numerous runs. 

I felt great... And then my ankle started to hurt. FFS's. I thought,

No. How? Why? 

But screw it, as usual I gritted and bared the pain, with the hope of it residing soon. I was running past the Holyhead Tesco and thought 

O, look one of my best friends from school works here, I wonder if she made it to work okay this morning.

Then... BOOM, I clocked her in her uniform standing to the right side. Looking pissed. She obviously couldn't cross to get over to work. So I whistled. She looked at me gone out, like who the feck is this crazy blonde headed bimbo and then clocked on and started waving. I was also about 50meters away from Mr 2:15 pacer! Hello my little friend ;). 

With my ankle still in pain, we come to the roundabout that takes you onto the A45 and my local pub where me and my paps go for our weekly Calvery. God, I could do with that". I thought as I passed. 

Soldiering on, my ankle still giving me a sharp pain on impacting the ground. This part of the route I'd never ran in my life before. I knew where it was and stuff. But I'd always gone up the Coundon Wedge Drive. But I shall now continue to go this way instead. It's way prettier and less tedious. We were heading for the country side/ greener side of Coventry, better known as Hawkes End. I was now heading into familiar territory. It's good owning a horse you get to learn some awesome running routes! 

By this point, 6miles had gone by with kind of ease at a pace of 10:08 mile. Not bad hey! 

At this point after however, i rarely looked at my time just the distance with regards to Mr TomTom runner. Mr 2:15 pacer was still in front. As we were on the decend I caught up to him. But on the inclines I lagged behind. I thought... 

It's hopeless. Just aim on not burning yourself out and getting up to Hollyfast Lane. 

The second drink station was 7.5 miles in. I'd taken a SIS gel at around 7 miles as planned. Sue, a yard local was volunteering giving out the electrolyte shots. Unfortunately she didn't recognise me. The water station, I grabbed my water selectively off Vicky, and screaming at her, Shannon and Nicole, whom I went to school with. Again, with the amount of runners running by, they eventually clocked on to who i was! Haha. The top of Hollyfast I seen a banner that my fellow Yardians had made, as well as more people from the stables outside the gates. I was frantically waving, jumping shouting "Team Hollyfast Meadows" as I ran by, again they took a about 3 seconds to click on to who I was. But reciprocated by shouting my name and words of encouragement. This definitely helped. I was feeling pretty tired by this point the gel hadn't seemed to kick in. But thankfully I knew Tamworth road was coming up- a lush decline of which, felt like Heaven on earth! Ooo yeah. Luckily my ankle had stopped hurting too. 

Mile 9 was running down Long lane and back to go back onto the Tamworth road where I'd see Mr and Mrs, Glenn and Sophie Harris who cheered me on. Just before the turning I'd got off the toes of Mr 2:15 pacer. My plan was to stay partially in front. Which I did, I didn't manage to look over my shoulder until going onto Coundon Green road. But he was probably 1 minute max away from me. Still fairly close. 

Mile 10. Woow, I was well and truly F'ed. I don't remember Birmingham being this hard, but I'm sure it was down to the 8 mile gradual incline that ultimately took the wind out of me. Running past Bablake playing fields, there was no Mr 2:15 pacer anywhere In front of me. I wanted to stop so badly and told myself 

Suck it up. Your a flimsily 3:1 miles away from the finish, don't let your brain decide this. Darling, you have to do this + 16.2 miles for your marathon. Get a grip fam. 

So I took another SIS gel and ran through my mini mental wall. My legs were sore, my feet hurt, my shoulders hurt form my Trex running arms. 

Eghhh, come on Mr finish. Come to me! 

The last 2 mile run into the city centre saw me thinking. 

Nicole, why didn't you just go to work this Sunday?"

I'd missed ringing my Stepdad, who was going to meet me at the end Lawrence Saunders, heading back onto Radford Road. To be honest, I was too tired to even contemplate pulling my arm band off in case of dropping it. New phone, not going to risk it. 

However, I took it off at the final hurdle incline and read over some of my pre race messages. Which again, proved to get me through to the 12th and a half mile. From here I hit the snailtastic turbo, I just visualised the final 0.60 mile and the finish being at my finger tips. The final 200 meter I gave it everything I had left in the tank. I don't know what it is, but with my headphones in I can always, and I mean I always seem to pin point my dad out through the other spectators in their hundreds. Daughter/Daddy mind GPS Locator or what?! He clocked on almost immediately too. Aha. Him and Helen were cheering me on. 

I did it! I crossed the finish of my home town half. Ecstatic doesn't even cover it! I was over the moon... And that was without looking at my finishing time on my watch. As always you have the runner congestion for medal and goody bag collection. After this, due to the small finishing area you went up Trinity Street and back down on yourself, on the opposite side. This spare cooling down time gave me time to look on Mr TomTom.

I cried...

Was it because of failure or that of success... ???!!

Keep on scrolling.... 

A bit more..... 

I can gladly say I finished in a whopping 2 hours 11 minutes and 19 seconds. Knocking off 14 or so minutes off my Birmingham Half time. All this consistency training really paid off. 

I can be equally as proud of My lanky solider boy, James who completed his first half marathon in 2 hour 5 minutes and Ms Sophie who stuck with him and finished with an amazing time of 2 hours 4. Great effort guys! 

All round I was amazed at this event. I can't believe it's took me this long to decide to do it. It's an amazingly organised event. Shows the good parts of my hometown and her secret, luxurious country side. Call me bias! But I love my city! The medal was also stepped up from last year which was a bonus and is by far my favourite!!! 

As always, I did this for my Nan, who was taken away from me on 24/12/2014. She is still my rock, my guardian from up above, who's memories and music we use to line dance to gets me over that finish line. I remember always saying to her when it was on that I'd love to do it. But I was crap at running. Again, I proved myself wrong and gained a PB in the process. Consistency and dedication is the key to success.

My official time was sent in a text. It was bang on from my GPS TomTom watch!

For my favourite part of the evening. The photos....

Under a Week to Go!!!

Okay so, I'm so excited. I also received my Silverstone half race pack and number this week. Ahh that post is always good to get through! 

So I concluded last week with having to do 1 more 4 mile before I started to chill per say, excluding the additional 10mile I planned to do! But... After the 4 mile on the Friday 12th the next day saw me in pain with my groin AND achillies! Noooooo. God. Nooooooo. You can only imagine what's going through my mind. I could not pull out of my home town half. I was itching to start my race season on a high! 

As a result, I took it upon myself to rest for the weekend and stretch it out. The deep heat and volterol were out again!

:-/ 

After all, it was only a 4 miler I was missing out on. To be completely honest,  having done a 10 week programme for the Birmingham Half Marathon. I definitely missed a week for going away to Rhodes (and that's with all the inclusive junk food) and an additional week altogether if I calculated the runs I missed throughout the whole training programme. I'm doing very well with my training this year. Considering it was a, excuse my French. A shit start to the year, medically for me! 

So I started the week off with a 4.2 miler on the 17th Feb. My Achilles seemed fine and groin was back to normal. The rest had paid off!  I came in with a 9:28 min mile! With a finishing time of 39:50.

19th Feb seen me take on my final 10mile/ long run before race day. I was in a good frame of mind. Feeling optimistic with my newly acquired SIS Hydration tablet in my drink and a SIS gel in my back pocket for around mile 7. I decided to go with less elevation gain than my previous 11.50miler. Purely with avoiding injury due to my stupid, random muscle pains. I passed many runners on this run.  Many of which were men, obviously with their game heads on. It made me think randomly, whilst I started my stretch on the Tamworth Road, about something I'd read in Women's Running the week before. Entries into half/ full/ ultra marathons are predominantly that of the male entrants. But studies conducted, show that women are better at judging their success rate. Whereas, men go into an event all macho, and are more likely to burn themselves out quicker, due to not being able to calculate a steady pace. Women, on the other hand, will only enter an event if they feel ready to do so. They will slow down if they feel tired, as to avoid burning themselves out. It has been shown that women may not be the fastest in an ultra marathon, but males have a higher drop out rate! Women also cope with sweating to cool themselves down more effectively (hormones or summit, summit) #womenpower! How can I recite all of this from an article I read 2+ weeks ago. But cannot remember anything from seminar reading i'd read the night before in Enviromental History and 200 Years of People Politics. I'm in the wrong degree- I swear.

With these pondering thoughts my breathing and pace had levelled out quite nicely. No pain was yet present apart from a bearable niggle in my knee. As I was heading up Nunts Lane (quite a steep incline), my Achilles began to feel tight. But I put it down to the steepness of the hill. Feeling a bit fatigued, but no where near as much as I'd felt on the other route. I got home in 1:40:49. Which was an average pace of 10.04! I love it! 

The next day I decide ain't nobody got time for a rest and went for a supposed 4 mile which ended up being a 5 miler. Thinking i'd better get it out the way due to starting work @2pm (which is a very late start). My plan to complete the 4 miles Sunday. Bad idea. I warmed up properly, my muscles didn't feel too tight. I'd strapped my achillies up and volteroled my groin over night too. The 5 miler was difficult, my knees felt like they were grinding against the bone and creaking, my groin didn't seem to phase me or my Achilles for that matter. To think, I'm only 20, as my stepdad says when I put my pettella straps on.  

"You shouldn't be needing them. You have young knees!" 

Well, my shift at work was painful. My groin started to ache like mad. My knees, where I'd accidentally twisted due to  attempting to look behind me and cross the road on Watery Lane began to be my downfall. I had to mop the food court that night too. So that added extra strain to my knee due to the forward backward motion. Ergh, you could say my day was slowly turning into a nightmare. I decided with a 10am start the next morning to see how I felt. Woow, my left hamstring directly behind my knee was killing me. Maybe an over hyper extention? I thought, well walking on it around work will keep it warm and kill the pain off. Ooo well I tell you, I had to use my 15min break @2:30 to run to Savers to buy deep heat and a knee support just to pull me through the last two hours of my shift. After smelling of eucalyptus oil for the remainder of the shift. Of which help immensely. I decided against the idea of the 4 mile that night. As well as feeling a bit under the weather. This week has sought me avoiding coughs and sneezes by people. Upping my vitamin C. You name it. Trying to avoid germs in general! I can't be dealing with a coming cold with only 4 days to go. Noooooooo. You mad? Not now! I've worked too hard for this mofo! 

It's now obviously Wednesday. My supposed virus attack seems to have been avoided (touch wood). My Achilles is fine, my groin still has a niggle when its severely cold in my house or when I start my walk to university which is the case ever since I injured it from weight lifting back in 2013. I'm currently sat with a support on my left knee with deep heat on it due to it being slightly painful when I awoke. The question is should I avoid even tapering this week like my mum advised? (being a fully qualified fitness instructor). Or go for 3,2,2 mile. :-/

Stay tuned!! 

This Weeks Running Antics and Achilles Pain

Monday was a no go due to going to uni for half the day and spending the morning with my fiancé, of whom I hadn't seen properly in a while. 

Tuesday comes along and I'm like yeah, let's get this 10miler under my belt. I decided to wake up with Jake, a lot earlier than usual, as I wasn't due in uni until 2pm, which meant I was on a 1pm out the house thang. 

I was umming and aring about this run, having a tight left hip flexor. But thought, okay I'll do the route backwards, if it gets too painful I could cut it to a 6, 4 or even 3 mile if I had to. I was aiming for a 1hr 45 finish at the most. So off I snailed. 

I started at, what I thought, a slow pace as not to set out too quickly. I had packed a SIS gel for around mile 7. Going up the Tamworth road with the route turning off at Hollyfast Lane (where my Mum’s horse is kept). 

Little did I forget to ask my mum whether the trees had been moved out of the road due to, was it... Storm Imogen hitting? I thought no, I'll keep on going. I was already hurdling full on trees that had been just brushed off onto the pedestrian walkway! I knew for a fact that this would add at least another mile onto my suspected journey. 

I felt suprisingly pleasant, considering the elevation gain. I started to get stomach cramps at about 6 and half miles- nooo. I went to the toilet before I left, damn you mother nature. I thought to myself, it was only about another mile to the nearest toilet stop. Yeey. 

By the time I got there, my cramps had siezed so much so, that I just carried on. At around mile 8 I was feeling the fatigue. I hadn’t taken my gel at 7 miles, For fear if it upsetting my stomach. I gave in, thinking I was only 3/4 miles from home, and slurped the gooey  gel into my system. 

Coundon Wedge Drive is always difficult for me, coming at it from either way always proves a challenge. By the time I had gotten to the end of this road my right knee decided it was randomly going to hurt. The pain! I know why, it's because I didn't put my runners knee supports on my right knee, only the left- these supports have proved to help significantly on my longer runs. 

I persisted with the pain, mentally envisioning the route downhill for about a mile or so. The pain subsided a fair bit, causing me to think maybe I had slightly over used it when going up on the inclines. Who knows. Since becoming a runner, I have concluded that the body, bone, muscles, ligaments and tendons work in mysterious ways. 

Mile 9 onwards were tough. I doubted if the SIS gel would even have chance to be put to good use, because I’d taken it a mile after I'd planned. It says it can take up to an hour to have an effect. But lone and behold, it gave me that extra boost for the last 2.5 miles. 

When I arrived home, the pain in both of my knees were as if I had no patellas. My body was aching in all ways possible. I sat down and drank some pepsi combined with an additional glass of water. But overall, I was glad I finished and enjoyed the vast majority of this run. I clocked in at 1:59:22 for 11.50 miles. Not bad. After comparing this to a similar route from the past, again for my Great Birmingham Run training back on 11th October, it apparently took me 2:12:53, now that's some impressive improvement. Taking into consideration that time my groin went entirely. I had a bit of runners knee this time and that was it really. 

You know what this data suggests? Providing all goes well (touch wood) this would be an estimated 2:16:?? Half Marathon time. After estimatingbthis I was exceedingly happy. Can I do it on race day? Coventry Half sees a fairly consistent incline for the first 8 miles, with a downhill shuffle back down into the city centre. Stay tuned. XD!

The following day, I decided to have a rest day as well as finally getting my fiancé for a whole day to myself! We watched that Everest which was so good. Yet, so sad. 

Thursday, Jake planned to leave mine at 3:30pm. So I thought YOLO. Mum will be resting before work. The majority of school kids will be home etc... So I may as well leave and go on my run when he left. So I did, I said my farewells to my fiancé, not knowing when we'd see each other next and started my snailtastic 6 miles. As I snailed up Tamworth Road however, my right Achilles tendon was giving this dull aching pain, as if my ankle couldn't support my chunky monkey self. I was past the point of no return as it were. So I solidered on and thought, if worse came to worse I would go see my Mum’s horsey and ask my Paps to come and grab me. But again, the pain just magically disappeared as I started a decend. The rest of the run felt fantastic. I clocked in at 59:26. With hardly no fatigue from my 10 miler 2 days before.

Friday. My weekly dinner with my Paps was due. I'd ordered two different sets of Achilles' tendon supports. I didn't even care if I was being to over the top. I want to avoid injury before race day at all costs. I decided to run to our local Toby Cavery as I was due to run a 4 miler. I put the support on one ankle and the other one on the other. Bad mistake. Ones like a sock, it had incredible support. But, too much support caused a lot of discomfort. I would go as far as to say it put me in quite a bit of pain. Maybe I ordered the wrong size? The other provided a little less support, but was definitely the one to wear whilst running. The other I will leave for home use. With all this taken into account. This run wasn't great. My wireless headphones decided to die on me before 2 miles in (I hate the sound of my heavy breathing whilst running!) and my TomTom was on low battery so I used Strava on my phone- just incase. 

The run proved a great uncomfortable struggle. To top it off I'd only hit 3.10 miles as I approached the pub- damn it! 

I just wanted a cold drink of Pepsi and a Eat a Sunday dinner! In the end, I just had to run down and back up Holyhead road to build up the last 0.90 miles. It was quite funny actually, my Dad was standing in the car park waving at me like an egit as I ran past, attempting to talk to me. Knowing full well with it being a main road, I wasn't going to hear him. Bless! With that I clocked in at 38:32. 9:32 min mile. Me likey. My last 4 mile came in, a couple of weeks ago at 38:55.

I need to conclude this week with another 4 miler and decide what my long run will be for the forthcoming week. Leading to the week after next being a taper week, which will hopefully include some cross training in the gym. 

Just Over 2 Weeks to Go!

Well,I have had a fairly pleasant, motivational week! I hope your's was as good. 

To think my other post at the start of my 8 week programme contemplated my new love for running entirely, I can safely state... I'm back on game! Yey! I'm going out on my training runs with sheer optimism, hardly any side stitches and overall, seeing vast improvements! Praise the Heavenly Lord! 

I left you with a review of my 6 miler which was January 26th. Gosh seems like a while ago. 

The 29th was a bit of a spontaneous one. I aimed to do a 3 mile, which then turned into a 5 mile and y.o.l.o f.i.s.h came into play for helping me bang out my 8 mile long run of the week. When I say this was tough- I meant it. This run saw sheer tears in my eyes. I don't know why. It just did. Maybe I wasn't in the correct mindset. But as they say a bad run is better than no run at all. ;-). 

I headed along Holyhead road towards the A45, to come up Coundon Wedge Drive. This is hell and always will be with the first 3-5 mile on a gradual incline. I was suffering. So I decided to take a detour, at this point only aiming to complete 5 miles. I headed towards Brownshill Green road, of which I've only ever cycled in the past and it walked. I felt the fatigue in my legs to the point whereby I wanted to stop on the hill heading towards Waste Lane. Why was I feeling so f-ed? 

I ended up heading backwards and thought, you know what? I'm going to take advantage of the nice weather, my legs will just have to hold out. I ended up running around my old primary school to come down Bruce road and back onto Beake Avenue (my home stretch). At this point I was only clocking in at around 6 mile. So I decided to make up the last 2 miles completely, so onto Links Road I ran and down towards my local- Juibilee Cresent, whereby I ran down Cheveral Avenue, up Lydgate onto the Radford Road, this made up 7 miles. Ahhhh 1 mile to go. Back onto Saddler, re lapping, down onto Links back onto my home stretch! Whoop. 8 mile long run checked off! I found this hard and to think again, the following week was to be continued with a 2 mile increase in mileage, taking me up to 10 whopping miles was another daunting thought. I was worried to say the least. At this stage I dread my long runs, as this is were I tend to pick up injuries, tight muscles and colds! 

My TomTom clocked in for 1 hour 26 mins 40 secs. Looking back on Garmin connect. My last 8 miles, in preparation for the Great Birmingham Run clocked in at 1:27:27. Happy days, considering I thought this was be an epic failure, with regards to how I felt during. 

My next run was to be deemed a failure. But again, at least I got out and ran for 2.10 miles (suppose to be a 3.10). At around mile 1, I got a severe lady cramps, which saw me run the last mile and bit at possibly the fastest I've ever ran. I suppose there is light at the end of the tunnel. A nice little anaerobic sprintathon. Good for the lungs, you know! I was gutted because I knew after stopping my watch. It probably would have made another route PB. But mother nature called! 

The next day I wanted to get a 5 miler in. I did so with an amazing 48:29 finish. GO COLEY! 

Followed by another 5 miler the next day. I probably ran so well because i'd arranged to for dinner with my Dad. Aha. Clocked in 48:30. I'd say that pretty good for consistency over the 2 days! 

The next two days were to see out 2 5k's with a boom. Knowing the next weeks would be increased to a 4,6,4,10 mile week. Again, more route PB's 

4th Feb :- 29:41 

5th Feb :- 28:42!!! Yeah, baby!! 

The weekend, served to screw me over- well, training wise. Going out for early birthday drinks with my best friend Friday,  as she's off to Cornwall for the weekend of her actual birthday today. I was feeling a bit tender after not stumbling in till 3:30am ish, then I was up early and in work for 12:30-18:00. When I got home- I just wanted to play dead to the world, I felt icky all day. Sunday was 11:30-17:30 shift, not too bad! But exhausting after a exciting weekend. I'm not use to going out anymore, nor do I enjoy being out of control of my body and feeling shite the next day- call me boring before my time! 

I knew I was in no state to run 10miles. So I thought, I'll wait and make up for it in the week commencing...