I had begun to feel that I was more naturally suited to the longer distances, and had entered my first “Ultra” – this being defined as any distance beyond the 26.2 miles of the marathon. Dipping my toe in the water rather gently, I entered the South London Harriers 30 mile road race which was taking place less than 2 weeks after the Manchester marathon. To allow a bit of recovery from the effort given at Manchester, I had just four short runs between the two races. The “SLH 30” was one of the classic races of the ultra distance running calendar. Based at South London Harriers Coulsdon HQ on the A23, the event had an “old school” feel about it. The race was a 4 lap, fairly hilly road race starting and finishing at the Tudor Rose pub, with each lap consisting of a mixture of quiet country lanes and more built up areas with fairly busy traffic. On the day I showed that I hadn’t recovered from the effort given in the recent marathon and had to retire after 15 miles at the end of the 2nd lap. My first ever DNF ( Did not finish ).
From an attempt at my longest ever race, the following Saturday I had my first race with Tonbridge A.C. over the very much shorter distance of a 2.8 mile leg of a road relay. I felt very nervous in anticipation of turning out in club colours for the first time, and the fact that it was a team relay made the sense of expectation even worse. The feeling that I would be out of my depth and might let the team down were compounded when we arrived in Central Park, Dartford, and one of the first people I saw jogging round the park warming up was Mike Gratton. Already a well known international standard marathon runner, he was soon to go on to achieve even greater fame as a winner of the 1983 London Marathon. A couple of other well known faces on the running scene trotting by did nothing to reduce my fears that I was very well out of my depth. Anyway, the time arrived and I ran on the third leg for the “A” team, and despite there being a stiff hill to climb on the circuit, I managed to average 5’38” mile pace and ran a respectable time which compared with the rest of the team. More club races over the next few weeks – relays and cross country races – set the pattern for what was to become my running way of life for quite a few years. Kent league cross country races, county championships, southern champs and the occasional run in the National champs occupied the winter months. Relays in the spring and autumn, track racing through the summer, and pretty much all year round road races made up the annual routine. The last few weeks of 1982 were fairly consistent weeks of 40 – 50 miles.
I had read how many high mileage athletes used a second training session some days, both to bolster their mileage but also as an easy run to help flush out any lactic acid build up from harder sessions. Around this time I did attempt the occasional second session in a day, but never found that it did anything other than tire me out and blunt my enthusiasm, so never really got into that routine.
1983
As the new year arrived, my aims for the year were to break 2’45” for a marathon, and to have another go at (and finish) the SLH 30, so the relatively high mileage weeks of just over 50 mpw continued consistently through January and February prior to taking on two races on consecutive weeks in the form of the Tonbridge 10 on the 12th March and the Guildford Marathon on 20th March. Unfortunately, just two days before the Tonbridge 10 I suddenly developed sharp knee pain which more or less caused the knee to seize up. By applying ice to the injury quickly, it eased quickly and despite pain immediately before the race I was still able to compete. Easing into a good pace early on, I was able to maintain it throughout and broke an hour for ten miles for the first time, crossing the line in 59’28”.
For reasons lost in the mists of time, I didn’t run another step for the next eight days – until the Guildford marathon. Maybe I was trying to ensure that I recovered from the exertions of the “10”, or more likely I was protecting the injured knee. Whatever the reason was, if I was still experiencing any high from the previous week in setting my new 10 miles PB I was soon brought back down to earth. My plan for Guildford was to pace myself at 6’30”s with a view to achieving a new marathon PB in the range of 2hrs 50 – 2hrs 55. In the event a rush of blood to the head saw me through the first mile in 5’35”, and after calming down a bit was still averaging little over 6 minute mile pace after 7 miles. The inevitable collapse occurred quite early and by the halfway point I had slowed dramatically and continued to deteriorate to the extent that the last 6 miles took me an hour !
Once I’d had time to recover and consider what went wrong I figured that after many good weeks training, my last 2 weeks immediately prior to Guildford were rather strange, covering a total of just 26 miles in three sessions ( but including a tough 10 mile PB ). After a 5 day rest from running, I quickly bounced back to mileage weeks in the 40 – 50 range, doing plenty of intervals, hills and fartlek sessions and even a first try out at sand dune running at Camber sands. I picked out a series of races to use a build up in preparation for my next Marathon – the inaugural Maidstone Marathon set for 19th June. The hilly Herne Hill 10 on 23rd April, completed in 60’44” was followed the next weekend by my first venture onto the track to race in Tonbridge A.C’s colours. A 5000 metres in 17’32” on a cinder track, whilst not being specially quick still equates to approx 5’40 miling pace which for me was pretty swift and I felt satisfied (and didn’t come last ! ). A 5 mile relay leg the following day suggests that I was enjoying things. The next weekend brought my first ever race over the half marathon distance. The Rochester ½ Marathon was hilly throughout, but I worked hard from the start – clocking 29’15” at the 5 mile point – and had what was probably my best race to date, finishing 38th of the 400 starters in a time of 1hr 20’10”. Not feeling the need for any recovery, probably buoyed by the improvements I was seeing, my training continued at a fairly intense level with plenty of hard hill sessions, intervals and track sessions and an increase in mileage up to new record weeks of 55, then 56 in the last weeks of May, then up to 60 in the penultimate week before the Maidstone Marathon. A gentle wind down week brought me to Maidstone feeling ready to go…..
more next time
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