Response from Scottish Athletics

Well, I emailed Scottish Athletics yesterday with my thoughts on the discrimination inherent in the present way that Cross Country racing in organised and received a reply this morning. Apparently my views are being forwarded to the Cross Country Commission for them to discuss internally (and hopefully respond).

A tiny step forward maybe but a step forward nonetheless. I've also suggested to them that they might want to consider scrapping the existing senior women's event and replacing it with a "sprint distance" event open to all. This would be appreciated not only by new runners nervous about being able to complete the full distance of a normal XC event, but older runners as well who may find that declining abilities make the full distance a daunting prospect.

Meanwhile, my poll on the Scottish Athletics forum seems to have plateaued out at 23 for to 3 against. Still no response from the nay voters.

Sexism in running

I mentioned in a previous post (Run with the wind race report) that the choice of age groups for that event was inherently sexist (i.e. a 15 year Vets group for women, 10 year age group for men).

Well it occurred to me that I've been accepting a much worse example of sexism in the sport today without thinking about the unfairness of it all. Namely, the way that women aren't allowed to run the same distances in cross country racing.

The days when we worried about women's ovaries falling out if they over-exerted themselves are surely long over. We look back at the time when women weren't allowed to run the marathon, pole vault etc. with disbelief, and yet, apparently, cross country running is in some way too hard for women to be allowed to run the same distance as men.

Why on earth can't women be allowed to run in the same event at the same time as men over the same course? Maybe I'm missing something obvious but I'm willing to bet that in 10 years time (hopefully much sooner) we'll look back in incredulity at the present situation in the same way we look back at the ban on women running marathons etc.

I've started a thread on the Scottish Athletics forum (80% in favour of women being allowed to run the same distance as men) that you can view here. Rather disappointingly, none of the "Nay" voters has offered any explanation for their views which I'm genuinely interested to hear.

Feel free to vote or let me know your views. Maybe I'm missing something obvious but it seems unfair to me.

St Andrew's Hospice 6K

My plan to take it easy on Friday's long run to spare my legs for today seems to have worked - insofar as I didn't crash'n'burn. ;-)

It was nice conditions for racing, cool without being too cold and with only a very light breeze. Apart from a couple of hillocks in the first couple of km it's a nice flat fast course. Being a fund-raising fun run, there was no timing. In previous years they have had a big clock at the finish but even that has gone now. Still, I suppose it means more money for the hospice so I shouldn't complain.

Apart from the usual hoards of football strip clad kids going off like the clappers at the beginning, it's a good run and I feel I ran it well. Not being too used to running 6K, the plan was to just treat it like our regular 5K time trials and just hold on as best as possible for the last Km.

During the northward "outward" leg I had fun chasing down some Hamilton Harrier runners (always good to have a target) and when we turned for the return leg we found that we had a slight tailwind which made the finish feel slightly downhill.

In the end I didn't feel like I pushed quite as hard as I do for our 5Ks but I was pleased with my 24:35 (4:06 pace) which is my best pace this year. Would have been nice to get back to sub-20 5K shape before the end of the year but I guess that'll have to wait for the new year.

Slow'n'easy

I decided to miss out my usual Thursday tempo run as my legs still felt a bit tired after Tuesday's mile reps & Wendesday's easy 7 miler. With a race planned for the weekend that left the problem of fitting in a "LSD" run in (Long Slow Distance). Given the glorious weather (and the offer of a lift to Failford) it seemed silly not to do it today. This is becoming my current favourite run. About 19.5 miles, mostly off road and great scenery.



These pictures were all taken with my mobile phone so they're not great but hopefully capture a little bit of what the River Ayr Way is like along this stretch.

(about 1 mile west of Failford)

(one of the more open stretches of the river)





(Weir & sluice gates just above Stair Bridge)

(Frozen path just west of Stair - normally waterlogged & boggy)

(Railway viaduct upstream of Gadgirth Bridge)

(One of several stretches of boardwalk along river)

(Gadgirth Bridge)

(Sign not to be missed at bottom of Mill Road out of Annbank)

(Fisherman's path above Tarholm bridge - flooded when river in spate)

(Tarholm Bridge)

(Waggonway through woods south of Auchincruive)

(Oswalds Bridge)

(Ayr harbour and the sea at last!)
(Nearly there)
(The oblisk at the finish on Ayr seafront)
(The old "Brig O' Doon" and the newer road bridge as seen from the old railway bridge)

This last picture has nothing to do with the RAW, it's just on the cycle path that leads back to my home in Alloway. I took it nice an easy as I didn't want to take too much out of my legs in advance of this weekend's racing. Much as I'd like to, it's not going to be in Girvan though. For complicated reasons it's going to be the St. Andrews Hsopice 6K

The ages of woman

I mentioned the Strathaven Striders new "Run with the Wind" 10K in my last post. This was an excellently organised affair and a great addition to the running calendar.

One thing rather took the shine off of the event though, and that was some rather muddled thinking by the organisers about the womens age groupings. Ever since the SAF dropped the male vet age to 35 for championship events, one has never really known what to expect at club level. We're all used to the old age divisions, whatever their faults. I can see the logic behind dropping the age for male vets if that really does correspond to the level at which men cease being able to compete with their juniors but it's a bit irksome if you're 51 say, to find that at some events, you're no longer a junior supervet but you're more than halfway through your term!

Anyway, that's not what happened in Strathaven (just a general grumble at messing with accepted standards). On Sunday, the female vets were lumped into a 15 year age group (35-49) rather than the usual 10 year group (35-44). I've queried this with the organisers but they haven't really cleared up whether this was a mistake or a deliberate choice.

Having produced more than a few dodgy results myself over the years, I can easily understand that it could have been a mistake but if it was deliberate, it seems more than a bit unfair to female athletes who may find themselves as vets competing against runners up to 15 years their junior. You could just about justify it if you were to impose the same age grouping to the men but that wasn't the case, male vets were the usual 40-49 age group.

Of course I probably wouldn't have paid any attention to this if it hadn't been for the fact that one of our club runners almost certainly lost out on a first lady supervet prize because of it. It's probably too late to do anything about it now but hopefully next year they'll use a more conventional age grouping.

I think I'm getting fuddier and duddier by the minute. ;-)

Bad news, good news

The bad news is that my dream of running the MOB is no more, a big disappointment but one that I'll get over. (Maybe I'll just have to organise my own multiday event? Anyone up for the "Marathon of Scotland"?)



The good news is that Rory (Coleman) the race director has done the honorable thing and said that he's refunding my deposit. Assuming he can find folk prepared to stump up £1,500 pounds, it makes economic sense for him as he can resell my space for a profit. If he can fill the places then who am I to say that it's too expensive? Clearly the market will decide how much is too much.



In some ways, it's nice not having both the WHW and the MOB hanging over me next year. I feel I can now give the WHW my full attention (and appreciation) and then enjoy the period afterwards without the nagging worries over whether injury might sideline me from the MOB again. I've also received an email from an ex-director of the MOB who is setting up a new slightly longer multiday event in Canada that looks interesting. Here's a taster of what he's planning.



We are putting the final touches to a new 6 day race over here in Toronto. The Maraton of Ontario Summer Edition (MOOSE). We have taken all the best bits of MOB and made them better. The course is more stunning and testing, and is slightly longer, 302km. We are keeping the numbers down to keep the village atmosphere, and for competitor safety. The price is similar to MOB, and even with the flights included it works out less that any of the RAW events. We also a have additional things included, like hotel nights in Toronto before and after the event, and maybe a baseball game. We are also planning excursions during the event (Niagra Falls, CN Tower etc) for friends and family who come over too. It is going to be the ultimate competitors.

The dates are 15th – 23rd August 2008. We are in the process of finishing the website and well send a mailing out when live.


Richard Price
Director

richard@aprod.com

Other news, I ran a race today! Strathaven Striders had organised a new downhill 10K which was a bit different. Not all downhill but sufficiently so to ensure that the times were fast. Kind of pleased (but also a little disappointed) in my time of 41:51 but the organisation was excellent and the course great. Definitely one to do every year.

Here's the route and the course.

The last km was great! Unlike a normal 10K where you're really struggling over the last km, here you had the help of gravity which was much appreciated by this runner. ;-)

Good news, bad news.

First the good news. On Thursday, my daughter came out running with me! Whilst I've frequently teased my children about their lack of physical activity, I've always known that like most youngsters, they're going to do the exact opposite of anything I really want them to do so I've never pushed the issue. To do so would be hypocritical considering I didn't get into running until my late 30s.

Anyway, my eldest daughter who's been at uni for a year (and like most students, discovered the joy of beer) has been trying to lose a bit of weight. She'd asked me about running so we went into town to buy some running gear and some proper shoes. I felt it was important that she have some shoes that were just for running, nothing else. Just lacing up a pair of running shoes gives you a little boost I think and helps to make you feel like a runner.

To cut a long story short, she's been out twice this week. Once with my wife and once with me (3 miles of 3 minutes walk/90 seconds run) and plans to go out again tomorrow morning before she returns to uni. I'm dead proud of her. Of course I have to be realistic and accept that she might (probably) won't keep it up but it's a start.

The bad news is that I'm seriously p*ssed off with the MOB. For those who don't know what those 3 little letters stand for, it's the Marathon of Britain. It is (or rather was) a 6 stage 175 mile trail event across the heart of England. I've dreamt about doing it ever since I first read about it in Runner's World years ago. I enter this years race and paid my £500 deposit at the end of last year. (The full price of the event was around £700). Unfortunately, due to injury, I decided I had no option but to defer my entry until 2008 (something that you're allowed to do once without losing your deposit).

Now I knew that the entry price would almost certain be higher in 2008 (as it had risen every year) and I was prepared for a £100-£200 increase but when I checked the site today I found that the event has changed its name, changed its date, has reduced the number of stages to 5 and reduced the mileage to 156. The organisers have also stopped supplying pre & post run food morning and evening as they used to.

In exchange for all these "improvements" they're now asking £1,500 for the entry fee!!! I fear I'm going to have to write off my £500, not because I don't want to do it but because I think the price hike is just unacceptable. There's just no way I can justify spending that kind of money on a UK event. Whilst I knew that the deposit was "non-refundable" I'm seriously wondering if I have a case for reclaiming it on the grounds that the event I entered no longer exists.

I'm not a happy bunny. :-(

First WHW training run..

On Saturday about 15 intrepid souls gathered at the Drover's Inn for the first training run/social event of the 08 WHW training season. The forecast had been poor and annoyingly, the forecast was right. Still, if you didn't leave home for a training run because of how bad the weather might be, you'd never leave home.

As ever, it was great to see old faces again and lots of new ones too. I just wish I had a better memory for names!

For a first training run, it was a bit of a toughy. In past years' it's usually been the Milngavie to Drymen (& back) route but it was nice to get out on the WHW again. I felt good on the way up, finding the hills relatively easy and a group of us pushed up the hill a bit faster than the rest of the pack. With hindsight though, I think I would have been better off taking it a bit easier. Despite avoiding the Cullen Skink & bacon sandwich and keeping to what I thought would be an easily digestible snack, my stomach was a bit uncomfortable and I couldn't match the pace of the pack on the return leg. Looking back on what I ate, it was was, I think, more of a problem of quantity rather than quality. It's just not easy running on a full stomach!

That wasn't the only problem though, My legs were a bit wabbit on the way back and I think it was just a reflection on the relatively low mileage that I'm running at the moment. I was a full 1 minute/mile slower on the return than on the ascent which is slower that I would have liked.

I still need to work on my gear. No problems with chaffing but I lack the confidence to wear shorts on long runs like these. The weather, despite the rain, wasn't that cold and the downside to wearing tights is that when you stop, you get cold quickly as the water evaporates off of them. Bare skin carries very little water and my legs never seem to feel the cold anyway. I think in future I stick to shorts & carry lightweight waterproof over-trousers should I need to stop for any length of time. Of course it does depend on ambient temperature too but it's rarely as cold as we think it's going to be.

Foodwise, I think I'll try and keep the quantity down but the frequency up although I know that, in practice, predicting what you'll actually feel like eating on the day is very difficult. I'm going to give "real" food (but in small doses) a try out on my next WHW long run.

Hydration is still something I'm tinkering with too. Whilst I find I can happily drink the likes of Lucozade sport pre-run (and sometime post run), during the run, the taste of it sickens me and I crave water. On my run back on Saturday I emptied my bottle of Lucozade that I was carrying and filled in from local streams. No harm done apparently but I was careful not to fill it anywhere downhill from where cattle had access.

Apart from a slightly dodgy ankle in the morning, I seem to have recovered well. Went out for a easy 7 miler tonight (Monday) and ended up having one of those nice runs where the running just feels easy and you just want to run faster and faster. Of course, the clock doesn't lie and my pace wasn't that great but it felt good, and sometimes that's all that matters.

NEXT time, I'll do my best to stick to my "easy run" plan as I felt decidedly guilty at not spending more time with the main group of runners

I HATE THIS WIND!

I can put up with all sorts of weather when I'm running but the moment you add in wind, it becomes a whole lot less enjoyable. I should imagine that the only people who hate it more than runners is cyclists but that just serves them right for indulging in such a perverse activity. ;-)

Strangely though, I rather suspect that the wind was responsible for me running a PB on my tempo run today. I decided to forsake my favourite tempo run around Auchincruive as it's really become too slippery to either run as fast or as safely as I'd like. It's a shame as I really do enjoy it but it's probably not doing a tremendous amount to help me build speed at the moment so I went back to an old road route that I've not run for a while (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1440483). Again, it's not a enormously fast route as it has a pretty serious hill on it but I like the odd hill to break things up a bit.

Anyway despite being a circular route whenever I should have been hindered by the wind, the local topography was sheltering me from the wind. A bit of a win/win situation with the wind for once.

Fingers crossed that this wind subsides a bit before this weekend's long run on the WHW.

Hair shirts

hair shirt: a penitent’s garment of haircloth.

I'm sure that to non-runners, it must seem like runners are only happy when they're suffering. Whilst we don't usually go as far as wearing a hair shirt, it does contain more than an element of truth. The old saying "No pain, no gain" is undoubtedly true if we want to excel (or at least improve) in any competitive physical sport. Whether we're happy when we're suffering, I leave for the philosophers, all I know is that I willingly accept the necessity of pushing myself out of the comfort zone.

Getting back to the hair shirt though, on Sunday my long run was somewhat spoiled by a bad choice of running top. It was a nice Running Bear wool/synthetic mix running top that wicks nicely and is very comfy. What it isn't good for is wearing underneath a rucksack as I discovered. Thanks to my customary nipple tape, my nipples were fine. It was everywhere else that suffered! I've never had so many abrasions over my chest and around my waist before. Showering was a veritable scream-fest. It just goes to show how easy it is to make a bad choice and how important it is to find out what works before an important ultra event.

The run itself was a great release after the stresses of the previous week and I enjoyed all but the last mile or two when the hills had ceased being challenging and had just become annoying. To give me some incentive to do a long run I decided to run up to the Failford Inn from home, a distance of just over 19 miles where my wife and friends were going to join me for some beer and dinner. From my point of view it worked out fine, what the other folk in the bar thought I don't know. ;-) As I didn't set off until 3:30, I was using my headtorch from Oswalds Bridge onwards, laregly due to the heavy tree cover that effectively brings an early nightfall.

Despite having run that section of the River Ayr Way several time, I still managed to get lost on a couple of occasions, once just before Stair where the path appears to carry on along the river side (but actually turns sharp left) and once between Stair and Failford where there are multiple paths in the river gorge, all of them looking equally valid when covered in leaves. Fortunately I didn't make any major misjudgements or lose too much time. I did start to worry about what I would do if my torch failed as it was very dark by this time, there was no mobile phone reception and feeling ones way out of the River Ayr gorge at that point would be a very dodgy exercise. Fortunately my torch was fine but I think if I'm going to go running on my own again in such a remote spot I'll carry a back-up torch just in case.

All in all though, it was a nice run and I feel a bit readier than I did before it for our first 24 mile training run on the WHW this weekend. I'm still agonising over whether to have my traditional bowl of Cullen Skink & bacon Sarnie at the halfway point - in the past, the cause of considerable suffering on the return leg of the run. ;-)

On Tuesday it was the club 5K time trial and I was hopeful of improving on my time back in September (20:53). Well, I did improve, but not by much (20:50). It was a much windier night though and nearly everyone's time suffered so I suppose I should be happy that my time was better despite the wind. I reckon I could have been nearer 20:30 had it not been so windy. Still, it seems a long time since I was able to knock out a sub-20 5K without too much difficulty. :-(

Mud, mud, glorious mud...

...or should that be glaurious?[1] Whatever, there is no doubt that being dressed for running gives one the perfect excuse to go out and get good and muddy with impunity.


Yesterday I took myself back to Auchincruive for my weekly tempo run. Last week's crisp and crunchy leaves were this week's sloppy slippery mess concealing puddles of mud beneath. Once I realised that there was no avoiding the puddles I relaxed and enjoyed getting good and dirty.


Last week, my legs had felt a bit dead and I didn't enjoy my run but this week, despite the trickier conditions underfoot, my breathing felt easier, my legs felt fresher and I enjoyed the run a whole lot more. I rather misjudged the timing though and the combination of failing light and slippery conditions underfoot meant that I really would have been better off with my headtorch in the shadier bits.


Despite this, I was a good half minute faster than last week and I'm sure had it been drier & lighter, I would have been a full minute faster. I'm still not completely happy about cutting my running back to four times a week but if my speed continues to improve on this route I'll stick with the plan.

For anyone in the area, here's my route.

Running though the middle of Annbank is less than ideal but overall it's a nice six & a bit mile route with some good hills to test your legs on. The big hill at about 1.3 miles is a small lane that joins with Brocklehill Avenue (presumably named after all the badgers in the area) in Annbank. Getting to the top of it without slowing to a jog is the challenge every time I run it. Quite how to define what "slowing to a jog" is something I haven't worked out yet. ;-) All I know is is that as long as I feel like I "powering" up the hill, I'm think I'm running. "Jogging" is when I've "given in".

After my run I remembered that I'd promised my wife that I'd pick up some oil for her car. Being a high-tech bit of German engineering, it meant I had to go the the main Audi dealer in Ayr by the Whitletts roundabout. Quite what they thought of having a smelly muddy man wearing not much more than shorts, singlet and mud cluttering up their nice showroom I don't know but they were happy enough to take my money. ;-)

[1]
GLAUR, n.1, v.1 Also glar, glaar, glawr, glair, glare. [glQ:r, gl:r, gle:r] I. n. Also in n.Eng. dial. Dims. glaary, glairie. 1. Soft, sticky mud; ooze, slime.