Structured Cushioning

Crossing Tod

2012-01-05T13:06:00.000Z

As the saying goes, "there's a first time for everything" and Monday was a day of three firsts for me:

Riding in a cyclocross race
Riding a bike with disc brakes
Riding a bike with a bamboo frame

For two autumns/winters I'd been trying to actually get to a race and continually failing for one reason or another. But this year I finally made it to Tod Cross, which happens to be right next to my wife's parents' house. After several days of continuous rain in Calderdale I was beginning to wonder what on earth I'd let myself in for, a feeling which was compounded by watching the veterans race (see excellent reports from Dave Haygarth and Alan Dorrington).

However, there was no chickening out to be had as I'd been very kindly lent a lovely bamboo framed mountain bike for the day by Rachel Hammond. A quick recce lap of the course around Centre Vale Park left me in no doubt that I'd be somewhere towards the back of the field after an autumn pretty much out of cycling with the arrival of our baby in September. Rachel has very kindly published a few words that I wrote about her bike, so I'll spare the details here.

The race for me was a massive learning curve. My first lesson was that the tyres the bike was shod with had something close to zero grip which was a bit of an issue in the gloopy mud sections on the lower half of the course. Tyre choice, which I've read so much about, really is a big deal in CX.

The second lesson was that disc brakes are pretty amazing, especially compared with cantilevers where the grinding noise of pads on rims could be heard all afternoon long.

And the final thing I learned - I'm going to be back for much more fun in the mud. Roll on Hit The Northm hopefully with a few more cycling miles in my legs...

Splatterfest picture thanks to Eleanor Leadbetter.

There's a black and pink moon on the rise

2011-07-01T10:23:00.000+01:00

The performance roadwear specialists of the cycling world, Rapha, have launched their second challenge of the last six or seven months to riders. The initial test was to ride 500km in a December week between Christmas and New Year's Eve 2010 to keep the winter blues and kilos away. Now, in honour of the categorised hills and mountains of the 2011 Tour de France, Rapha Rising asks us mere mortals to climb like the grimpeurs of the WorldTour peloton and ascend 21,125 metres during La Grande Boucle. Progress is to be posted on the internet and linked to from Rapha's facebook page, and there're some tasty prizes from their product range for the best documented attempt.

My main problem is living on the flatlands of Cheshire - maybe I'll manage 2,000 metres of vertical riding in July.

Rapha Rising

Bury Clarion Hill Climb - 21st June 2011

2011-06-24T08:23:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday evening, I took part in the Bury Clarion hill climb, along with three other North Cheshire Clarion Riders. My full report can be found at

http://northcheshireclarion.blogspot.com/2011/06/bury-clarion-hill-climb-2011.html

Edinburgh Marathon 2011

2011-05-23T17:41:00.002+01:00

"Make sure you don't hit the wall. That's never pretty"

If you watched the BBC coverage of the London Marathon back in April, you may well have seen Mara Yamauchi interviewing fist-time marathoner Jo Pavey. It was a compelling interview as Yamauchi sought to provide Pavey with some knowledge from her considerable experience over 26.2 miles. The thing that stuck in my head was to Mara's advice to Jo to control her pace through the first half of the race so that she didn't hit the wall/bonk/crack as "that's never pretty".

So it was that on Sunday morning, at about 09:45 as I stood in the rain on London Road in Edinburgh that Mara Yamauchi's words came back to me. I was there in the third wave of five on what was being hailed over the PA as the "fast" start with a marathon to run, and feeling a bit out of place. The last time I'd run this course was 2009, my first marathon, and the wall had been right there for me to crash into at 21 miles which really wasn't an experience I wanted to repeat. In 2010 I'd completed the Brathay Windermere Marathon course without the same problem - but there was still the nagging doubt in my mind at the Edinburgh start that these roads had beaten me before.

The running conditions were perfect for the start: a little drizzle, a cool temperature and little wind. The forecast was for the wind to increase during the day - and we'd know all about that later. However, problem in the race organisation had already started to come to light. There had been no formal printed final details for the runners, it was simply a case of downloading a PDF and printing it out - then hoping that everything was going to be ok. The two starts didn't appear in my race details and it took a little bit more finding - and certainly more walking before a race - than I would have liked. But I made the start in plenty of time and the pens and line were well organised.

I set off and the second problem with the race day was highlighted after about eight or nine minutes when I hadn't seen a mile marker. Another eight minutes went by and still no sign of a mile marker. I knew I wasn't running that slowly, despite the crowds around me. Then there was a water station ahead sign: three miles in and still no sign of any information to the runners relaying the distance covered. I realised why at the four mile point, when I saw the sign but instead of the standard black on fluorescent yellow race marker they were white on dark blue and placed very high up on lamposts. Once I knew what I was looking for, I only missed seeing one more in the race: the 26 mile marker.

After that the race itself progressed well. I had a plan and I stuck to it: steady to 20 miles and then increase the pace. The profile of the Edinburgh Marathon route is largely flat, with a slight loss of height from start to finish so there were no hills to worry about. With the exception of one water station at 16 miles the route was well marshaled and the hydration/nutrition well delivered.

As the course turned back on itself at the 20 mile point, I was really pleased that I'd kept something back for the last quarter of the run. It immediately became apparent that as we'd been running away from the city a westerly wind had been getting stronger and that the final 10km were going to be into the teeth of it. I don't mind running into the wind too much as we get a lot of it on the Cheshire Plain and while it didn't necessarily help my time it certainly helped my position as I started going past many runners in these final miles. The support on the streets of Port Seton and Prestonpans was brilliant and must have kept loads of runners going to the end.

Tick off the 21-mile marker. Tick off 22-miles. And 23. You're still running: you're going to make it.

And then we come to the finish. Seemingly there was no 26-mile marker, or at least it was so well hidden that I didn't see it. There was a great crowd at the entry to Musselbrugh but then as the finish line approached it thinned out, a very strange feeling as you're digging in for a "sprint" finish and there's no-one there to cheer you home. Crossing the line, my watch showed 3:18:08 (later confirmed to be my chip time) which meant I'd set a new personal best by a minute or so, and a gun time of 3 hours 20 which considering the wind in the finale was really pleasing.

It seems that the race organisers had taken the strange decision to ban spectators from the last couple of hundred metres and relay the finish to a big screen. Only the technology failed them so they were showing an old T In The Park instead of the race. Fortunately, my wife and the friend we were staying with had managed to somehow get closer to the finish line than they were supposed to be, so saw mwe finish and we were easily reunited. Following the #EdinburghMarathon hashtag on Twitter and looking at the comments left on the official Facebook page it seems like we were incredibly lucky.

All in all, a great race and a performance I am more than pleased with really spoiled this year by some logistics failures. I'd need to be convinced that these had been addressed before heading back to this particular event.

Race day photos by Mary Mowat.

Inspiration - I

2011-03-16T11:53:00.000Z

I find that inspiration and motivation are funny concepts. What inspires me to get through the door and into a run or onto my bike changes on a fairly regular basis, especially when I'm not close to a big race or event. Motivation comes in waves: sometimes it's easy, sometimes I need a kick up the backside to get me out there. This is the first in an irregular series cataloguing what's making me run and ride at the moment.

Back in February, I spent a lazy Saturday afternoon watching the Aviva Indoor Grand Prix from Birmingham. Watching the track events, in particular Jenny Meadows brilliant run in the 800 metres (a distance I used to run reasonably well), inspired me to try and recapture some top end speed. I'm lucky enough to live about a mile from a two-lane outdoor track which is freely available and little used, so I've been trying to add a speed work session once a week. I feel that it's paying off on my longer runs now and am hoping to keep them up over the summer.

Jim Speakman put me on to XXC, the extreme cross country cycling magazine. And from the XXC blog I heard about Dirt Road Washtenaw, a website and book subtitled "Discovery out your back door". OK, so Washtenaw is in Michigan and I live in Cheshire, hardly next door, but the idea stands. Discovery out your back (or in my case front) door. There are places you can get to which can inspire you, and armed with my new-ish Inov Roclite 295s I've been running offroad much more regularly to discover those places.

Finally (for this post at least) I've been reading Joe Simpson's "Storms of Silence". I've not read any of Simpson's other books but was aware of him and his story largely through having seen the film version of "Touching The Void". This book though is magnificent, and I'll be working my through Simpson's back catalogue when I've finished this one, reminding me that there's a great wide world there outside the M62 corridor where I spend most of my days. The details of the Chinese occupation of Tibet presented here aren't for the faint-hearted reader but serve to show that we're lucky to live the lives we do in the West and that we're most fortunate to be able to play the games that we choose.

Keep on riding

2011-03-15T14:43:00.000Z

A very quick post, to say thanks to Peter over at Always Riding for providing a link to this very blog from their friends page. This came about after a conversation on Twitter with Peter following the test ride for the North Cheshire Clarion Roubaix-special that Giles Perkins and I did in February.

Thanks again chaps!

Riding on broken roads

2011-02-19T19:57:00.003Z

Grapenhall cobbles image by Giles Perkins.

A North Cheshire Clarion "Hell of North Cheshire" scouting report.

This morning, instead of the normal North Cheshire Clarion Saturday ride, Giles Perkins and I headed off on to the pavé and gravé of North Cheshire to test out the route for our first themed, longer Saturday ride. The idea is to occasionally add an additional challenge to the Saturday rides and this one will pay homage to Paris-Roubaix the day before the main event by riding a route which covers a range of unpaved roads.

The cobbled roads of Warrington have largely been tarmacked over now, but I counted four secteurs this morning (ranging from 10 to 250 metres in length). The Grapenhall cobbles pictured above are well known to North Cheshire Clarion Saturday riders from our 'D' route and are the most severe of the cobbles as they're round topped.

The real highlights of the route for me were the sections of unmade road before and after the cafe at Dunham Massey. Prior to the pit stop we travelled along the Transpennine trail, and it was great to be flying along at nearly 20mph on the unmade road with no worry about motorised traffic, although dog leads strung out across the trail and horses did warrant care.

Transpennine trail by Anthony Parks.

The sting in the tail of the route is Silver Lane, the longest unmade section on the whole ride (at least it felt that way). With the miles already in your legs and the need to continually pick a line between the potholes it really adds up, and gives you the beginnings of an idea of hard it must be to cross the line first in the Roubaix velodrome or at the Montepasch Strade Bianchi.

Silver Lane image by Brian Tuohey.

We'll be publishing the final route details and cue sheets in a few weeks. Hopefully we'll see loads of people at 09:30 at The Swan in Winwick on April the 9th for a celebration of The Hell of the North (Cheshire). Don't bring your carbon race wheels, and be prepared for a three-bucket bike wash when you get home.

I love it when a plan comes together

2010-12-08T09:24:00.001Z

I've been aimlessly meandering about with my running and cycling since the Windermere Marathon in May, which was the last time I "raced". And now the footpaths are like a skating rink so running's out, the shed's a mess so the bike trainer's out and I've been sat on my backside for a over a week doing nothing. I'm starting to climb the walls.

It's time for a plan.

And this is it. In 2011, I'm going to aim to run two marathons: Edinburgh in May and and the new Coniston trail marathon in July.Obviously that's no the whole plan. I've unfortunately missed the entries for the Four Villages Half Marathon in January so need to find something to fill that early season gap; and I'll have a trip to the Bolton 10K in April. But there's a plan there.

And there needs to be a plan in place for afterwards by the time I get to the finish line at Coniston. This year I put into practice the lessons I'd learned about preparation for the marathon, next year I need to put into practice what I'm learning about preparing for after a marathon.I fell out of love a little with running this year, and I'm not wanting to repeat that experience in 2011.

Will this plan work? Only time will tell, but at least it's there and on another cold dark morning at the office that's enough for me.

Edinburgh marathon | Lakeland Trails marathon

North Cheshire Clarion custom Oakleys - Inspired by GS Gazetta

2010-11-17T14:59:00.003Z

Raindrops keep falling on my head

2010-08-12T13:54:00.009+01:00

Just a quick update to say that my report from the Ride of the Falling Rain has been published over at the North Cheshire Clarion news blog. Photos from my trip to Islay can also be found on Flickr.

Tramps like us

2010-07-01T21:48:00.001+01:00

A review of Christopher McDougall's "Born To Run". Profile Books. 304pp.

There are many books about running, but I can only think of three which I have read that earn the tag literature. Two of those books are Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Am Running and Feet In The Clouds by Richard Askwith. The third is this superlative tome by Christopher McDougall. What all three have in common is the author is a real writer (two journalists and one novelist) and the author is a runner who has been there and done it.

McDougall's book is ostensibly about the Tarahumara tribe of Mexico who are amongst the world's greatest runners (witness their tribal ball game which takes place over 100-mile route). But it is far more than an anthropological treatise on one tribe as McDougall examines what it is that makes us go out there and run in the first place, taking in the evolutionary development of humankind over the millennia. Interviews with mechanical biologists are played out in exquisite language that makes you want to go away and read the scientific literature straight away. Indeed, much of the empirical evidence for human as runner presented here reinforces what I have already read in Alice Roberts' Incredible Human Journey. But what strikes me the most is the philosophical evidence:

That was the real secret of the Tarahumara: they'd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankind's first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.

Running as a means of freeing one's mind has been something I have been aware of for several years, but I had never considered that running was an art form. Running as art to my mind had been freerunning or parkour, but I was troubled by the only way to be free as a runner was to jump over obstacles. But, if as McDougall hypothesises, all running is art it frees all runners to be artists and allows us all to express ourselves and our creativity by simply running. Running long distances is built into the human psyche as a group activity, hence we wish to run together at races:

Know why people run marathons? Because running is rooted in our collective imagination.

McDougall also presents two beautiful race reports, one from the 1994 Leadville 100 when a team of Tarahumara runners faced the great ultrarunner Ann Trason, and one from a less formal race held in the Tarahumara homeland in which McDougall himself competed. These sections draw you right into the action, as if you were there on the Leadville or Mexico trails yourself cheering the runners along. This is a rare skill indeed in describing the outcomes of a footrace where the tactics and teamwork employed by the runners are minimal.

For a few moments I couldn't tell them [Arnulfo - a Tarahumara runner - and Scott Jurek - American Ultramarathoner] apart - they were two fiery silhouettes moving with identical rhythm and grace.

My copy of Born To Run bears the quote: a bible for the barefoot running community. I contend that all runners should read this book and learn from it, not least as I remain to be convinced by the barefoot running movement. The Tarahumara and one of the characters who races with them in Mexico - Barefoot Ted - actually wear sandals. Plus, while we may be highly evolved runners, we are not evolved to run on tarmac but on the kinds of trails that the races of Born To Run describes.

Find a copy of Born To Run, buy it, read it and discover why you run and why you enjoy your art.

A day at the races

2010-03-22T16:38:00.002Z

The third week of March saw the cold spell end, Winter recede into the memory, days of glorious sunshine. And the morning of Saturday 20^th saw grim cold rain in preparation for the Ultimate Trails Cartmel Trail Race.

My first impressions of races is often formed with finding the course, and I have to say that the organisers had done a fantastic job of signing cars towards the car park which also took us away from the village, which can easily get congested. On arriving, the race registration was well signed and everything just seemed generally
well organised. A couple of food vans were in attendance, and Pete Bland Sports were providing the opportunity to buy running wares.

The rain stopped just as the trail race started (the runners in the Challenge event had already been out on the 18km course for an hour) from in front of the racecourse grandstand, but the underfoot conditions were still very slippery. There were several starters in road shoes, and I've no idea how they made up the first of the off road climbs. The course was superbly marked and marshalled and the scenery was stunning. Being a competitive soul, I tried to get up the many climbs overtaking as many people as I could, a tactic that started to backfire after about 7kms when legging it up the inclines was beginning to take its toll. A much better idea would have been to measure the early climbs, but then I had no idea what the profile of the second
half of the course was like (it was actually a bit flatter).

Out on course, there were a couple of water stops, but no warning (at least none I saw) that they were coming up. The only drinks available were water (squash would have been a nice additon) and the first stop had chocolate covered Kendal mint cake for refuelling. Inside the final kilometre was a nasty water splash / river crossing which was pretty much knee deep on my legs (And they're quite long) and seriously cold. At least it washed some of the mud off! A final dash over a wooded hill and down into the racecourse brought us
to the finish, exactly where I'd started 1 hour 37 minutes before.

I learned a few things from doing this race:

Controlling your speed while running up hill for long periods of time is hard. Backing off the pace on long climbs takes a different sort of effort to sprinting up shorter ones.
My offroad descending skills are negligible. I kept having to back out of descents when others were passing me. I am much better at road descents.
The Americans can't make shoes to cope with Lake District mud. My Montrail Highlanders ended up losing grip in multiple places around the course.

My only complaint would be that there was little to no direction after the race was finished - runners had to find their own way to the tent where the goody bags were being handed out. In view of the events on the course (see below) I think that this was probably a result of circumstances rather than an oversight on the behalf of the race organisers. But it's a race I'd return to.

A runner had to be airlifted from the course during the race after a serious. At the time of writing, their condition is unkown but I wish them a speedy recovery. The race marshalls should be congratulated for their attentiveness and quick response in this situation.

Ultimate Trails

A load to carry

2010-01-18T12:28:00.002Z

To fit running into my working week, much of it has to be done between the office and home (with a train ride somewhere in between). This has given me a big headache over the years as to how to carry all the rubbish I need for a day in the office and to keep me entertained on the train. Most of the bags I'd tried running with just killed my back or ended up soaking wet and smeely because there was no ventilation there. The last bag I had was a Peter Storm job with a mesh back, which was fine apart from the fact that it tore my shoulders apart every time I ran with it. My upper body was much relieved then when my wife gave me an Inov-8 Race Pro 22 as a present.

This is a rucksack designed for running with. As such it is really light - in fact so light that I was almost scared the first time I packed any gear into it. But it works a treat. It is quite happy swallowing a full load (change of clothes, shoes, packed lunch, swipe cards, reading book, pens, glis meshasses, lightweight jacket) and then just sits on your back while you run. You almost don't notice it's there, unless you've got the bungie loaded up as well as the bag. The main compartment is reasonably weather resistant, and it has a number of useful added pockets: two at the hips (one mesh and one waterproof) and opposing lid pockets (the top one is mesh). Inov-8 have also rethought the hydration system, providing a pocket at the lumbar area for their proprietary H2Orizontal bladder. This places the weight of the water on your hips, meaning that it's not weighing your shoulders down and doesn't really move relative to your body throughout your stride.

After around seven months of constant use, my pack needed a clean, so I contacted Inov-8's ever helpful customer support team. They suggested that I hand washed the pack, which is fine but does lead to the first of my two complaints regarding this product. There is a foam back panel in the pack which is very difficult to remove and I didn't feel that I wanted to wash it. Once out, the pack washed fine and came up just like new, but then it was a struggle to get the foam pad back in. My second gripe is that the 22 litre model catches on the back of my cycle helmet while riding. I mentioned this to the Inov-8 team who said that this is only a problem with the larger volume models, and they recommend choosing a smaller 18 or 12 litre pack for adventure races where cycling plays a key role.

Overall, though, a highly recommended product.

Inov-8

Becoming a Belgian

2009-11-05T13:46:00.001Z

Thanks to the work of Alan Dorrington (Mr. Crossjunkie) and Duncan Astle (Mr. Here Come The Belgians) I have finally joined a team. To those runners watching, you'll be disappointed to know that it's a cycling team, but it is a cycling team who have a love (or hatred) of running as well.

The mission of Team Here Comes The Belgians is to build up a group of internet using cyclists who share an interest in cyclocross and classics riding. For those who don't know, cyclocross involves hoping of your bike, picking up and running with it. So it's not entirely out of the scope of Structured Cushioning.

Now, I just need to sort out a new 'cross bike...

Check out the team here.

Thinking on your feet

2009-09-03T12:20:00.000+01:00

In Tim Noakes' magnum opus 'The Lore of Running' he espouses two theories which I wish to pick up on here. The first is learn from the greats. And while this is true and it's fantastic to read about the experts of yesteryear, there are few places that we can learn from the modern elites. I'm willing to stand corrected, but I don't think that Haile Gebrselassie, Tirunesh Dibaba or Abel Kirui are bloggers, while the frequency and regularity of Paula Radcliffe's tweets make this blog look like it's run on clockwork.

But both Nate Jenkins and Lizzy Hawker do blog on a regular basis (check out the links to the left). And if I've learned anything from reading Lizzy's blog over the years it's that running is much an art form as it is a sport. I'm one of the least 'artistic' people that I think I know, but what I do know is that you have to have your mind in the right place if you're going to 'do' art well. Which, by inference, means that your mindset is going to have to be right if you're going to run well.

This isn't a problem for me most of the time when I'm training, with the exception maybe of actually stepping over the doorstep and starting the run. When I run, I feel that my mind is freed from the cares of the day. There's almost nothing to think about during a run; everything just seems to drain away. I'm not saying that using the brain is a bad thing, otherwise I wouldn't be playing backgammon, chess and Risk online, or be doing battle with the Guardian crossword. But sometimes freeing the mind is needed.

This changes slightly though when you switch from being what I would call a 'jogger' to being a 'runner'. I'm going to define a jogger as someone who runs without purpose and a runner as someone who's set them self a goal or set of targets. There's nothing wrong with running aimlessly, but as soon as you say 'I'm going to do this race', 'I want to be able to complete this distance', 'I need to lose this much weight' you've stopped being agnostic about your running. You've set a goal that you believe you can achieve, and then you've got to keep believing that you can achieve it all the way through to the end. Experience tells me that this must be right: the first time you go to run a given distance or a new race course it is daunting, but the confidence and belief gained from completing the distance or course before reduces that feeling.

As soon as you begin racing, the difference is even more marked. I find that when I am racing I am constantly thinking, making calculations of kilometre or mile splits, thinking about my ability to move through the field from the group I'm in into the next group, how hard I can hit that hill which is coming up. Running a marathon, I found, became an exercise in tricking my mind, and not my body, into believing that I was going to finish the course.

The second of Noakes' theories I wish to mention here is the central governor theory. I mention it because, in my understanding at least, it is a formalisation of this belief in your ability to achieve your goals. It is your mind, Noakes says, that is solely governs your ability as an athlete, and not the ability of your body. The athlete needs to train their mind to be ready to make the calculations and play the games with his (or her) body just as the body needs to be trained. And the mind needs to be in the right state to race, just as an artists mind must be in the right place to produce their masterpiece. I am coming to the conclusion that racing in events that aren't your target helps this mind training as much as it does the body - if the half marathon is familiar and no problem for the mind it is only in the late miles of a full marathon that the mental battle really begins.

As Morpheus may have said: 'Believe. And free your mind."

Traceur bullets

2009-09-02T13:18:00.006+01:00

... or why we are all freerunners.

Everyone, it seems, wants to be free. There are freeriders out in the mountain bike community doing there best to ride wherever they can. The fringe culture of the bike messenger has given birth to the even more fringe culture of urban fixed-gear freestyle riding. And then there are the freerunners and parkour-ists leaping from building to building and somersaulting like Beth Tweddle.

My day job is 'scientist' and I like to apply a little science to my running. as all 13-year-olds know, science starts with a hypothesis, and for the purposes of this article my hypothesis is this: that all runners are freerunners. The aim of parkour, at least according to Wikipedia, is "moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible using the abilities of the human body". And in my experience that is plain and simple running.

What is the smoothest way through the urban landscape powered by me? I'm not talking fastest here, that is almost certainly the bike. But when I'm riding through a town there's no way I can pick the line I want to take (cars take care of that), and I can't shoot through pedestrianised areas. But when I'm running, I can pick and choose the line, where and when I cross roads and if I want to go through the shopping squares and up and down steps, there's no problem.

The distinction becomes even more marked when you take it off road. The cyclocross rider or the cross country mountain biker need a smooth trail, the downhill mountain biker doesn't want to ride uphill and the all mountain men and women will be beaten uphill by most runners, and probably down too. When running off road, and especially in open access areas, the fell shoe provides the best means of getting around smoothly under human only power and allows the most efficient lines to be picked and run.

So next time you see the freerunners racing James May through Liverpool on a Top Gear repeat, or watch Sebastien Foucan strut his stuff through Casino Royale, remember that you're a free runner too. And you don't need to be performing death defying leaps to prove it.

Ed: For those who aren't in the know, a 'traceur' is a practitioner in the art of parkour.

Head of the race

2009-07-31T11:00:00.003+01:00

Each July I probably become one of the least productive people in the world, as for three weeks my attention becomes focused on the trials of 180 athletes pedalling their way around France. Watching the tour this year I began to think that there must be a way of creating a similarly flagship race for road running.

One of the great success stories for cycling in Britain this year has been the city centre Tour Series (devised by former pro rider Brian Smith), with great racing and a tight overall team competition. But the format would be familiar to most club runners who take part in local league events: get your first three counters over the line in better positions than the other teams and win on the night with the aim of winning the overall competition. The Tour Series was a great success in my mind because it made national television (albeit ITV 4) and when I went along to the Chester round it was obvious that a lot of people were interested in the goings on as the streets were packed, despite the downpour. If Nike, New Balance, Adidas, Brooks and Puma could put together teams of five of their elite distance runners and throw in some of the top clubs for similar events across the UK and we could get the BBC to put 45 minutes of coverage onto 2, 3 or 4 on a week night we could easily have a series for 10k racing and bring running to the masses.

But back to my original point. The Tour de France is the pinnacle of the cycling world, and there's nothing like it in running, no event to showcase racing, talent and scenery in harmony for days. True there are stage races in running (the Marathon des Sables, the Amazon Marathon etc...) but they're hardly TV friendly and they don't attract the household names of the sport. I'm thinking something like a Tour of the Lake District or something, with stages of between 13.1 and 26.2 miles (no one wants to watch more than 2 hrs running for days on end, the tactics just aren't there - but that's a different topic). Imagine having the big marathon stars turning up for that.

Of course, one of the great things about the London Marathon and the 'monuments' of our sport is that they are mass participation events, like the Tour de France could never be. I'd want to put a limit on the field in the stages of my running Tour so that we can clear the roads quickly and keep the costs and disruption down, but I'd still want some 'normal' people to be involved. And I'd want to tweak the way the different competitions work as well. The King of the Mountains jersey should be given to the best climber - not the guy who is furthest up the road when the race passes the summit of a climb - so stick timing mats at the foot and the top of each climb you want to categorise, and the fastest guy up that climb wins the points. I'd also put the intermediate sprint points all in the first 5k, so the less-elite runners could compete for the green vest, and I'd limit the number of points at the finish to try and spread out the vests a bit. Obviously the overall winner and young runner competitions should stay the same.

I can only dream...

Tour de France podium photo © Ben Ross. And good luck to Brian Smith in the forthcoming Birmingham Half Marathon

May contain nuts

2009-07-30T20:34:00.000+01:00

Warning - do not read the following at the dining table!

In May I ran the Edinburgh Marathon, my first run to that distance.

If you've never run a race that long before, I can tell you that one of the keys to finishing is staying hydrated and fueled on the move, and that's something that takes practice. It's not just getting the food and water inside you that's difficult - I found that keeping it there was just as hard. It seems that my internal system is just not designed for getting the most out of the highly researched gels and drinks that are created for endurance athletes. But getting liquid and energy on board is vital to any distance runner.

After significant field testing and difficult research (for that read lurking on the Fell Runner's Association forums) I hit upon the combination of hydration by nuun tablets in water and fuel by the nut, sugar and cereal combo that is the Tracker bar. Most of us can grab a box of Trackers in our local supermarkets for less than the cost of a single gel - the only problem here is the ethics of buying from Mars and that's not too bad.

The nuun tablets may be a bit newer to many of you. They dissolve in a litre of water and provide an isotonic mix of salts to keep you hydrated / rehydrate you while active. There's no carbohydrate to contend with, which for me meant everything stayed where I asked it to. There are a whole raft of flavours, but to be honest they don't taste anything like they claim to - the most palatable are the lemon & lime and orange & ginger flavours.

Your mileage may vary - but I'm happy with 26.2 on this mix.

nuun | Tracker

Photos supplied by Lola @ nuun

Birchwood ladies 5k

2009-07-03T10:51:00.006+01:00

Wednesday night saw the 17th running of the Birchwood Ladies 5k, organised by the Spectrum Striders running club. As you might have guessed from the picture in the 'About Me' section further down this page, I wasn't eligible for this race. However, my wife was taking part in her second formal run so I went along to support.

101 (you couldn't make it up, could you!) ladies turned up for the event, on what had been a scorcher of a day. the 7:30pm start time at lease meant that the heat was toned down slightly. I've a feeling that the temperature had an adverse effect on the overall times though as the winner came in at 19mins 17sec, and by my reckoning only five ladies came back in under 20mins.

Not being accustomed to spectating at races, or such small fields, it was an interesting experience to just watch the race and chat to the friendly marshals at the finish line as we waited for the runners to come back home. From what I heard from my wife the course was well laid out and well marshaled - the only moan being the typical penultimate marshal who claims the finish is a lot closer than it is.

Thank you Spectrum Striders for organising a lovely little race, and here's to the 18th edition.

Congratulations to Tessa McCormick of Vale Royal AC for the indvidual and Vale Royal AC for the team wins.

The simple things...

2009-06-30T12:13:00.007+01:00

As I have said earlier, I love road, track and cyclocross cycling nearly as much as I love running. There are things that I actually prefer about cycling: the racing tactics, the team work, the beautiful photography. But what draws me running over cycling is the simplicity.

Running is me and my running shoes against the clock and the world. I could go out at lunchtime and, if it suited my running style, I could buy the same shoe that Paula Radcliffe or Heille Gebreselassie use. So could most runners - running shoes aren't expensive.

What I can't do is go and buy Lance Armstrong, Chris Hoy or Sven Nys' bike, not and be able to eat for months (if not years) to come or have a roof over my head tonight.

This disparity was brought home to me last night when I was doing a bit of maintenance on my 'cross bike. The brake pads were worn out all round, the rear brake and gear cables were fraying and the bar tape torn from (careless) propping of the bike at Kennacraig ferry terminal. Why I'm writing this is because the rear derailleur decided that it was being held together by the tension of the gear cable in it, and as I removed the cable to replace it several tens of pounds-sterling worth of kit disintegrated. Time to go single speed I feel.

In contrast, when was the last time my running shoes failed? Never. Obviously I've had to replace them as the cushioning or sole has worn out, but they've never just fallen to pieces.

Just a thought.

The state of the art...

2009-06-29T14:43:00.007+01:00

... or what this blog is all about.

Over recent years my second favourite sporting activity (road cycling) has become decidedly glamorous. The likes of Rapha and Solo have been producing the most stylish clothing, while over at the Washing Machine Post (twmp) and VeloDramatic internet journalism has been taken to new highs. For me, though, the absolute pinnacle of this art is Rouleur, which could almost be considered the print form of those two websites.

However, for me, the running manufacturers and press (particularly in the UK) have been left behind. And this is where I come in. In my own small way, I want to bring some of the informed reporting of twmp and the style of Rouleur to the world of distance running. I don't for a minute imagine I'll achieve anything even approaching that, but I'm going to try. And I can't see us running down to the pub in an equivalent of the Rapha Fixed shorts (I for one would be thrown out for being too sweaty), but maybe we can get some more stylish race kit delivered from the manufacturers.

So hold on for reviews and ramblings, thoughts on events and hopefully some interviews all to do with the distance running world (and occasionally the road cycling / cyclocross one too).