Here’s a picture of the sand dune from near the top as you can see its a big one at about 300ft! The way up was tough and with lots of people I couldn’t go any faster even if I’d wanted to. Anyway there was a bit of congestion at the top of the dune so there was a few minutes of waiting around (good time for everyone to catch their breath). The next thing I know I’m plummeting straight down the other side at full speed, half worried I’m going to bowl over at any moment, but my its good fun ;)

From there we head out across a flat wind swept area before what I heard to refer as the ‘orrible hill, and it was just that. A long steep hill up to the golf course (at least it wasn’t covered in sand too). So did the usual trick, drop the arms, reduce the stride length and switch into “Disney’s Little Engine that Could” mode….

“I know I can, I’m sure I can, I know I can, I’m sure I can”

…which slowly became, “I’m not sure I can, I know my legs hurt” :( Slowly but surely I got to the top of the hill and had some nice views down to the sea.

I figured the mid-point couldn’t be far away at this time and upon approaching not only were we offered water but mulled wine and mince pies. Now being the highly professional athlete I am of course I opted for the mulled wine, vitamins, water, warmth it all made sense…..surely? A good cup of hot mulled wine it was and with the long slow decent I started flying along – alcohol fueled possibly ;)

Around back to the dunes which again made the running a little tough and in the back of my mind the stream was coming. Next thing I know we’re running through a shallow bit of water, some tried to skirt around the outside but for a laugh I headed through the middle :) Got out of that one when a marshall mentioned there was another couple to go. Lets say the third one was pretty deep and cold, almost got up to places I don’t wish to have frozen off, but fortunately the crowd was spared me shreaking like a girl had that happened!

Post race I collected my soup and bread roll and Christmas Pudding and ran back to a warm car for the drive home accompanied by some loud JayZ courtesy of Radio 1.

The race went ok, nothing much to report except although things in the gym has been going well it doesn’t make up for a lack of running in the outdoors! I have the Merthyr Mawr Christmas pudding next weekend which I’m really looking forward to although the weather has prevented much running outside. This will need to fixed over the next week :)

Cardiff Santa Dash 2007 Photos

As I said, I’d been in bed with a cold the previous week before the race, was hit and miss about whether I’d do the race but Friday morning I was feeling a bit better (besides the horrendus cough) so I thought why not. I knew I’d only be sitting around on Sunday morning wishing I’d done the race anyway.

Waking up Sunday morning I looked out of the window and oh bugger was it raining hard, the warm bed looked awfully inviting, but no I was going. Arriving at Cwmbran Stadium if anything the weather had got a little worse, but I climbed onto the coach for the trip up to Blaenavon for the start. Runners gathered in the rugby club before the race, and despite the conditions outside everyone was in high spirits and lots of laughs going around :)

I decided that I was going to try and cover the first part of the race as fast as I could, I knew without much training I wouldn’t really have the stamina to keep going for the entire race. So I belted it at the start planning on just surviving the last part of the course. I managed to cover the first 5km in just over 20 minutes (good news for the next 5km race!).

All the way around everyone out supporting (or just walking the dog), the PCSOs directing traffic, and all the other runners were very friendly and encouraging. That’s the main difference that struck me about this compared to the Cardiff Half.

As predicted after about 9 miles I could feel my legs getting heavy and my pace slowed right down. The wind had picked up again and at times was holding runners on the spot, not nice at this point in the race. By 11 miles my chest got tight and I had to stop a couple of times for some coughing fits :( Still arriving in the stadium for a lap and a half I managed to grab a little more energy from somewhere.

I eventually finished in 1:56:33, drenched, tired, aching, but with a big smile on my face! More like a time from a training run, but that’s fine given the circumstances. I’ll definately be back next year, hopefully I’ll be in much better physical state to run and the weather gods will be smiling on the event ;)

All that said it was nice to get home to a hot bath and some cold beers :)

I wasn’t as nervous for this race as I was for the Great Wales Run, maybe it’s because I was better prepared, not as well prepared, or just plain stupid! Either way it was good for my stomach.

The race got going at 9am and started off just fine. I planned to run 8:20 minute miles for the whole race. The good thing about 8:20 minute miles is that it makes the maths easy for getting your pacing right. Every 3 miles is 25 minutes! Getting to the one mile marker I checked my watch that read 4 minutes 20 seconds, hmm bugger, something had gone wrong there :(  It simply meant I had to do a little more maths to work out my pacing but it kept my head busy :)

As I’ve found in other races I had to spent a good part of the start of the race getting around people who’d started way too far up the field. A little annoying and knackers you out a bit from the quick bursts of speed to get around people.

 

The race itself was rather nice, good to be across the barage again, although I realised after a bit that I was running on the windward side and acting as a windbreak for so many other people, that said the breeze was nice :) Support around the bay was good it’s always nice to have people giving a shout. I kept popping a glucose tablet every 3 miles and having a few mouthfuls of water at the water stations.

Heading back up into the town there was lots of supporters outside the stadium and I almost cried when we passed the burger van at the market. Still only another couple of hours and I’d be sitting in a pub enjoying the fruits of my labour. I was hitting my pacing rather well as far as I could tell which I was quite happy about, meaning that I should get in for approx 1 hour 50 minutes, a time I’d be very happy with!

The last mile was fairly crappy due to the stone work on the ground, I tried to run as much as possible on the grass to avoid that problem. Entering the castle grounds for the finishing straight was awesome there were so many people shouting. It gave me a real lift and I picked up speed and managed to sprint across the line, about to puke as I stopped ;)

Nabbed myself a couple of free bottles of lucozade and sat on the bank waiting for Rhianne to run it in. Fair play she managed to finish in 2 hours 31 minutes much better than she had hoped, well done Rhianne! After a long painful walk home (being overtaken by old people I should add) a quick shower and I was in London Pride heaven. All you can eat Tapas at La Tasca and a few more pints of Brains and all was well with the world again…. now just two weeks until the next one :)

More photos… Cardiff Half Marathon 2007 photos

After a lazy day on the sofa on Saturday (mainly recovering from Paul’s 50th in Chepstow all day on the day before) I felt (fairly) ready for the race.  I strolled down from the house and dropped my bag into the Millennium Centre and headed up to the start line. Comments on Runner’s World said it was hard to find the start line, how some people can miss the big structure, signs, and race officials is beyond me :) Got myself into the 50+ minutes area near the start and had a chat/joke with some friendly club runners. Race got going, and apart from the usual bunching, and people who were way too ambitious it all went well. Some very attractive young ladies about too, not a time to start chatting though.

The first couple of km’s went quite slowly for me, but once we got to about Ikea the field spread out a bit and things were a little more comfortable. Managed to not look where I was going at one point and stand right in the middle of a dead seagull, yummy! A few groups of people on this part of the course cheering on before we headed for the bridge over into Penarth.

As always the marina area of Penarth was lovely. The sun was giving it a good go but a gentle breeze managed to keep the edge off.  There was a few people shouting in Penarth which was nice. Next we headed onto the barrage. The views back over the bay were absolutely stunning! The helicopter did a few passes overhead so will be looking out for the grey t-shirted dot in the crowd when the race is shown on Channel 5 on tuesday night!

A bit of confusion at the water station at 7km caused me to lose a good few seconds but nothing to complain about.  After that I think the drinking on Friday started to catch up with me and was feeling a bit drained.  At the 800m sign I got chatting to a friendly guy who said he was going to break 50′ and drag me with him, I decided to let him go as I didn’t think I’d quite manage to scrape under.

Missed Douglas usual shouts of ‘Come on Lloyd’ whilst looking up from his paper and sipping on his latte, but instead I got a couple of come on sexy‘s (Douglas said he had put some money towards this, git, hehe!).

All in all, nice race, will do again next year even though it was a little on the expensive side for a 10k. Race course was covered in photographers from Marathon Photos. Not buying the shots but here’s the two they managed to grab of me…

Ok I ended up buying some :) BUPA Great Wales Run 2007 Photos

Here’s roughly the course that was ran (from my mapmyrun.com profile)…