Thursday 24 May 2012

Runblogger Minimal Shoe Guide - Updated

Pete Larson author of Runblogger has updated his minimal running shoe guide to bring it up to date with some of the recent new shoes released on to the market here

I have a few of these shoes (Saucony Kinvara, Merrell Sonic Glove and Adidas Hagio) and plan to post some thoughts one my experiences of them in the future...

Friday 11 May 2012

John Austin Half Marathon (inc Video/TV Coverage)

Back in March I ran the John Austin Half Marathon in Brockenhurst , Hampshire (a few miles from home). It's a scenic XC route around the New Forest, not a potential PB, but a fun race non the less! On the day the weather was horrendous, cold, heavy rain and very windy, the first few miles were ok as they were on hard forest tracks and a bit more sheltered amongst trees and I moved up into 2nd place having run with a couple of others to start with. However as we emerged out onto the exposed ex-Beaulieu Aerodrome, the full force of the conditions hit! There were lakes of water on the course, I stopped trying to avoid them after a few and consigned my feet and legs to a soaking for the rest of the race. Hydration wasn't a problem, you just had to open your mouth :-) Managed a gel too despite non-functioning fingers! Later sections of the course were saturated and muddy, my pace suffered accordingly, but I maintained 2nd place. The last few miles through Roydon Woods were nasty, with a couple of steep climbs, but less feet swimming which was a relief. As I can up and over the railway bridge near the finish, the next runner was closing on me, but I managed to hold him off (helped by the fact he took the last turn on the playing field too quickly and slipped over on the mud!) to take 2nd overall and my first race prize, a nice Salomon runnning hydration pack :-). I was very cold at the finish, it took nearly half an hour to stop shivering, next time wear I'll more clothes when it's only 5 degrees, pouring with rain and howling a gale...

Here's a link to my Garmin data (ignore the HR data, the transmitter was playing up!) and below is a short video of the race, which includes about 3secs of my post race interview at about 4:30 from the start. Also below is the local news coverage of the race from ITV Meridian. May well run it again next year and see if I can improve my result ;-) Hopefully the weather will be a bit better too!

Race highlights video

ITV Meridian Coverage